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May 12, Brockton, MA--- Up at All-Star
Speedway in Epping, NH last weekend, Mike Stefanik of RI went home with the
$5,000 winners share in the first round of four events this year. Steffie held
off a challenge by southern NH's Andy Suess while Ron Silk of Conn. ended up
third. Tommy Cravenho of Raynham ended the night in fourth. Jimmy Kuhn of W.
Bridgewater came in 8th while Eric Beers at the wheel of the Berkley Racing
entry cracked the top ten. Marshfield's Bob Grigas, III didn't crack the top ten
due to some problems early in the long race. A wreck took Ted Christopher out of
the action on lap 13 who was driving the Brady Bunch car out of Brockton.
Kuhn will be picking and choosing his races carefully this season because he
lost his long time sponsor at the end of the 2007 season. He'll take in other
opens at All-Star this year and the September 300 Open at Thompson and possibly
the Wednesday night Open at Seekonk in July. Cravenho indicated that he’d return
to All-Star for the other three Opens this season and will be at the Thursday
Night Thunder at Thompson Speedway in Conn. for the entire season. He wasn't too
sure about the Wednesday night Open at Seekonk but because it's close to home he
could be there. Bob Grigas is going to be very busy because his plans are the
entire NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Series, the Thursday Night Thunder at
Thompson where he will drive an entry for a Blackstone based team and the other
Opens at All-Star. Beers, it appears, will focus on the WMT and possibly the
remaining three All-Star Modified Opens. Also, the team is sponsored by Viverios
Insurance and is expected to take in the $10,000 to win Wednesday Night Open at
Seekonk as Viverios is a sponsor of that event. The Brady Bunch team will take
in all of the All-Star Opens in Epping, NH and the Seekonk Open with TC expected
to steer the car while it could be another driver here and there, possibly Bob
Santos, III in the WMT.
Middleboro's Jimmy Rosenfield tells us that he'll be doing his racing this
season at the All-Star Speedway in Epping, NH in the Super Late Model division.
Plymouth's Randy Cabral may have missed his calling. Now two-for-two after a
dominating performance in the Northeastern Midget Association 25-lap feature
Saturday night at Waterford Speedbowl, he should consider motivational speaking.
He’s good at finding reasons to win. Grabbing the lead from Joey Payne Jr. on a
lap two restart, Cabral absolutely ran away in the Bertrand #47. Only a yellow
with 12 to do delayed Cabral’s rush to victory. He again powered away from
Payne. His time for lap 16 was a sizzling 12.742 seconds.
“Pretty good,” understated Cabral who had a half straightaway on Bobby Santos
III of Franklin at the checkered. Santos cleared sister Erica on the last
restart and took second from Payne in the backstretch with three left. Erica
Santos and Greg Stoehr of Bridgewater completed the top five. “I hope I didn’t
stink up the show,” said Cabral, insisting he did not know just how far back
Payne and Santos were. “You don’t give those guys anything,” he said. “You run
every lap like it was the last one.” Aware it was Mothers Day eve” Cabral
“really wanted to win for (owner) Tim. His mother Marilyn passed away over the
winter. He was so strong through that ordeal and I wanted this for Tim, for Gil
and for Marilyn.”
He “wanted it” as well for Deb Marvuglio, the late Shane Hammond’s mother, and
for his own mom Marie “who has put up with a lot from me.” It was the 15th
career win for Cabral, tying him with Joey Coy, one of his “all-time heroes. I
grew up watching Joey Coy. I idolized Joey Coy and to tie him is unbelievable.”
It was also his sixth Speedbowl, tying him in that category with Drew Fornoro.
Starting 10th, Bertrand told Cabral he would be “ecstatic” with a top five.
Payne, who started sixth, and Cabral moved through a second lap scramble to
first and third respectively with Erica Santos third.
The car, Cabral said, “went away in the heat” and Bertrand made two “very small
changes (he put some air pressure in the right rear and took a tiny bit of
rebound out of the left rear)” for the feature. Late in the race, he “thought my
right rear was going away because the car was skating around on me. I think it
was actually my not driving it in hard enough. The harder I drove it in, the
better it handled. Monadnock Speedway is the next stop for NEMA on Saturday
night, May 24. Paul Scally of Randolph ended the night in 13th while Shawn
Torrey of Marshfield was 15th at the checkered flag.
Thompson International Speedway race teams will now have an opportunity to drive
under the new Thompson lighting system one week before the regular Thursday
night Thunder series opens for the summer. Speedway owner, Don Hoenig announced
that he felt it was important for the race drivers and their teams to be
introduced to the new “bright lights” before the regular season begin.
"This will give drivers a chance to get a good
feel for just how racing under the new lights will be. To some drivers, this may
be a significant change. We feel that by moving the hours of our open practice
to later in the day, drivers will be afforded this opportunity before they race
in competition under the new lights the very next week. As a result, the track
will open at 3 PM on Thursday, May 15th and the open practice session will be
held from 5 PM until 9 PM," Hoenig said. The installation of the new Musco
lighting system began last fall and was completed just recently. Engineers from
Musco Lighting will do the final adjustments on the lighting fixtures prior to
the May 15th open practice.
"This is a major improvement to our facility," said Hoenig. "It has involved
many people, miles of new wiring and a lot of excavation all around the speedway
grounds. This project also gave us the opportunity to repave the midway behind
the grandstands. This is another improvement that fans will notice and
appreciate. It has been a major undertaking and we are very happy to be able to
offer our competitors and fans these improvements," Hoenig concluded.
Keith Rocco forged ahead during several late race restarts in scoring his second
consecutive SK Modified feature at the Waterford Speedbowl Saturday evening.
Rocco passed early leader Jay Miller with 13 laps remaining and then battled
with Jeff Pearl before finally pulling ahead during the final circuits.
Following Pearl was Rob Janovic Jr., Ron Yuhas Jr. and Tyler Chadwick. In Late
Model action, it was Bruce Thomas Jr. recording his third feature of the season.
Thomas battled with Ron Yuhas Jr. during the last half of the event before
finally getting the advantage as the two approached lapped traffic and Thomas
was able to sneak-by on the inside. Following Yuhas was Tim Jordan, Vin
Esposito, and Ed Reed Jr.
Other Feature winners were Walt Hovey Jr. (Sportsman), Randy Churchill (Mini
Stock), Jason Palmer (Legends), and Randy Cabral (NEMA Midgets).
After the May 15th practice session, the next event on May 22nd will be opening
night for Thompson's Thursday Night Thompson Thunder. The speedway will once
again present it's 'Super Six" NASCAR Whelen All American Series divisions.
Three days later on May 25th at 6 p.m., Thompson will present its annual holiday
weekend spectacular, The Eve of Destruction. This fun-filled night out will
feature a host of wild and wacky activities from school bus, full-size and four
cylinder car demolition derbies, Chris Morena Stunt Show, Monster Truck Mania,
the car eating mechanical monster, Transaurus, Brian Carson camper jump record
attempt, car burn outs, the Trailer Trash "VI" event, fireworks and much more.
The general admission gates will open at 2 PM on Sunday, May 25th to give
families a chance to enjoy a host of free activities on the midway prior to the
mayhem that begins at 6 PM.
Stafford Speedway in Conn. lost last Friday night's meet to wet weather. As a
result the Late Model 100 event has been reset to Friday night, June 27.
Seekonk Speedway managed to open the season last Saturday night after a washout
a week earlier. Tom Scully won the Pro Stock main while Taunton's Scott Dion
made the top five. Scituate's Steve O'Brien was eighth while Bridgewater's John
Dabrowski was ninth. Berkley's Jake Vanada was 11th then Darryl Stampfl of
Norwood was next followed by Ken Spencer of Taunton. Dan O'Brien of Scituate was
15th with Rockland's Lance Morland, Jr. finishing 16th. Kyle Casper won the Late
Model feature while Norwood's Denny Stampfl placed sixth and Randy Barr of
Middleboro came in 15th.
Mike Cavallaro won the Sport Truck event while Taunton's Hugh Bowser made the
top five while his cross-town neighbor Zach Tucan placed 9th at the finish. In
the Street Stocks Steve Axon won that one while Randolph's Denny Dupuis came in
fifth followed by Brian Spillane of Walpole. Plymouth's Paul Newcomb was tenth
with Tony Oliviera of Taunton next then Greg Perry of the same city took 12th
place. Raynham's Mark Henshaw was 16th at the checkered flag while N. Dighton's
Chris De Moura was next. E. Taunton's Justin Travis placed 18th overall with
Lakeville's Elmer Wing, III placing 23rd.
In a combined session today a total of 23 teams from the NASCAR Camping World
Series East and NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour tested at New Hampshire Motor
Speedway.
The NASCAR Camping World Series East had a strong contingent of teams taking
advantage of the test opportunity with a total of 18 cars. The garage featured a
mix of New Hampshire veterans like Steve Park and Matt Kobyluck of Uncasville,
Conn., as well as a host of rookies such as Austin Dillon, winner of the
season-opener at Greenville-Pickens Speedway on April 19.
The test session was held in advance of races for both series in June at the New
Hampshire. The NASCAR Camping World Series East will run at the 1.058-mile track
in the Heluva Good! Summer 125 on Friday, June 27 while the NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour will take to the track for the New England 100 the next day.
For Dillon, the test was all about getting familiar with the track layout. “I’m
getting used to the type of track it is — the paper clip,” Dillon said. “Being
able to drive into the corner is what I’m getting used to. We’ve been at big
tracks before, but they’ve had banking to hold you. It’s tricky, but I’m getting
there. We’re just trying to get as much experience as we can, because we’re a
little behind on that right now.”
Other drivers to test from the NASCAR Camping World Series East on Monday
included Jeff Anton of Russell, James Buescher, Ricky Carmichael, Byron Chew,
Dustin Delaney, Max Dumarey, Patrick Dupree, Craig Goess, Jamie Hayes, Eddie
MacDonald, Joe Masessa, Mike Olsen, Peyton Sellers, Jonathan Smith and Alan
Tardiff.
The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour had five teams participate in the test on
Monday, including 2003 champion Todd Szegedy of Ridgefield, Conn. and defending
NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour standout L.W. Miller. Also in attendance
from the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour were James Civali, another Conn. driver,
Rowan Pennink and Glen Reen.
For the rookie Reen, it was his first time around the “Magic Mile” in a Modified
after previously running the track in shifters early in his racing career. “It’s
definitely different,” Reen said. “Todd [Szegedy] and James [Civali] were both
saying that when you’re going into the corner, and you think you need to lift,
that you count five seconds. By the time you count five seconds you think, ‘I
should have lifted.’ It’s absolutely insane going in there, but the car sticks.”
Next up on the NASCAR Camping World Series docket is a combined race with the
NASCAR Camping World Series West this Sunday, May 18, at Iowa Speedway in
Newton, Iowa. The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour will be back in action on Friday,
May 23 at Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway.
Let's see what's on the racing agenda this weekend in southern New England. It's
NASCAR action at Stafford Speedway in Conn. on Friday night. Saturday has
Seekonk offering a 75-lap Pro Stock race on Saturday while it's another NASCAR
card at the Waterford Speedbowl in Conn. The same night Whip City in Westfield
has a full card of Mini Sprints on the dirt the same night. For the bikers
Wachusetts Valley Riders Club hosts the NEDTS Flat Track Series on Saturday at 5
p.m. MotoX 338 in Southwick has MotoX action all day Sunday while it's Go-Karts
on the dirt track in Shelton, Conn. the same day. For the drag crowd it's Import
Wars all day Saturday at the New England Dragway in Epping, NH. NHMS in Loudon
will wind up a busy week with Vintage Celebration on Saturday and Sunday.
Lou Modestino is a long-time columnist and Public Relations person, working for numerous tracks in the northeast, and now writes for The Enterprise in Brockton, MA. He may be reached at lmodestino@hotmail.com.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by columnists and all others on this website are strictly their own, and may not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of the management of Long Island Motorsports News.
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