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DAVE SAPIENZA
LOOKING TO CONTINUE
WAVE OF MOMENTUM IN STAFFORD 150 |
When
the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour rolls into Stafford
Speedway on August 4th for the Stafford 150, Dave
Sapienza, driver of the #36 SAP Enterprises
Chevrolet, will be looking to continue to ride the
wave of positive momentum he and his team have been
on. After only scoring one top-10 finish in the
first five races of the season, Sapienza has
recorded back to back podium finishes with a 2nd
place effort at his home track of Riverhead and then
a 3rd place finish at New Hampshire.
“My crew chief Tommy Grasso and I had a talk the
other day to see how things were going and he was
thrilled with how well we ran at New Hampshire and
he felt really good about how we are going to run at
Stafford,” said Sapienza. “Coming off a second and a
third, we have a lot of confidence and momentum
behind us. There’s not really much that I worry
about at Stafford, just myself as the driver.
Stafford is a track that I haven’t been able to tame
just yet. We’ve had a few good runs there, but we’ve
also had some horrible races there. Once we can get
Stafford figured out, I’ll be ecstatic.”
In 9 career NWMT starts at Stafford, Sapienza has
only one top-10 finish and an average finish of
16.8. Sapienza’s lone Stafford top-10 finish came in
this year’s NAPA Spring Sizzler back in April and
Sapienza will be bringing a new car to the
Connecticut half-mile for the Stafford 150.
“We’re bringing a new TA2 car to Stafford and we
feel like we’re going to be better than we’ve ever
been at Stafford,” said Sapienza. “When I got out of
the car after the Sizzler, Tommy said to me ‘That’s
like a win for us here.’ That was the first time I
used the new TA2 car and we really didn’t have a
notebook to work off of like we have with our TA1
car. We’ve run the TA2 car three times now and it’s
very easy to dial the car in and to dial the car
out. I’m still learning the car and getting
comfortable with it. We ran the car at Riverhead and
we came out of there with a great run and it gave us
a lot of information on how that car will react on a
short track. It’s the same car that Ryan Preece runs
and they’re killing everyone so we feel like we’re
going to be at our best running the new car. I’m
staring to get a good feel for the car and I think
that’s the reason for our improvement.”
There have been several rule changes made to the
Stafford 150 race format that Sapienza feels might
also play to his favor. Instead of each car taking
two laps for time trials, the cars will be put into
groups and each group will have 5 minutes to turn as
many laps as they wish with the fastest lap serving
as their qualifying time. A second change has to do
with pit stops. For the Stafford 150, cars can only
change one tire per stop.
“I’ve never been real good at time trials so I think
the group qualifying they’re putting in for the
Stafford race will be a benefit for me,” said
Sapienza. “It usually takes me a couple of laps to
get adjusted and we’ve benefited from the group
qualifying already this season the couple of times
we’ve run that. I think my best start at Stafford
has been around 13th or 14th so if we could get a
good top-10 or even a top-5 starting spot, we’d be
really happy with that. Also the new rule with one
tire per pit stop will help us because we’ve done
some short pitting at some previous races and that
has really helped us out so I’m going to leave the
tire strategy up to Tommy.”
Sapienza will also be leaning on his experience in
the past two NWMT races of running among the front
runners.
“Going to Stafford, I’m really looking forward to it
because of the experience we have the past couple
weeks running with the guys up front. We’re on a
roll right now and we’re praying we can keep it
going because we’ve had some really bad luck and
we’re hoping our bad days are behind us. I think
having a lot more confidence in the car and my crew
chief will help us maintain our momentum.”
Tickets for the August 4 Stafford 150 are available
and on sale now at the Stafford Speedway Box Office.
Tickets are priced at $35.00 for adult general
admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages 6-14, and
children ages 5 and under are admitted free of
charge when accompanied by an adult. Reserved seat
tickets are $37.00 for all ages. All ticket prices
include 10% CT Admission Tax. Stafford Motor
Speedway offers plenty of free parking along with
overnight parking available for self contained
Recreational Vehicles. Stafford’s five NASCAR Whelen
All-American Series divisions will join the NASCAR
Whelen Modified Tour cars in feature action.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor
Speedway track office at 860-684-2783
or visit us on the web at
www.staffordspeedway.com. |
Source:
Scott Running /
Stafford Motor Speedway
Posted:
July 20, 2017 |
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