The 4th Turn: June 27, 2024
~ By Tom Boggie
This might take a while. After two nights of racing at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, I’ve got so many notes and quotes left over, I’m not sure if I can use all of them.
First of all, I’d like to congratulate everyone involved with the production of Tuesday night’s Super DIRTcar Series Don Davies Memorial NY Modifieds 76. It was a fitting tribute to one of the most well-respected members of the Northeast dirt track racing community. It was classy, it was innovative and it was memorable. What more could you ask for?
Now, on to emptying out the notebook. First, some victory lane quotes.
From Mat Williamson, winner of the Don Davies Memorial: “This is a cool race track. I’d get into lapped traffic in front of me on the bottom and I didn’t know if I could run the middle. I slipped up there a couple of times, and Matt (Sheppard) and Alex (Yankowski) got by me. It seemed like I was doing all the wrong things.”
From Stewart Friesen, who finished second: “I tried to play it the best I could to give myself a good hand at the end. It just took us a little too long to get rolling for the second segment.”
From Alex Yankowski, who finished third, after leading at the lap 46 break: “It is what it is. We came out here just to race at a great race track. We watched some highlights and this is definitely one of the best tracks we’ve been to this year.”
More from Friesen: “I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Dale Planck (who passed away last week). Twenty years ago, when I started out, I was getting chewed up and spit out. We started racing on the reservation, at Akwesasne, and Uncle Dale helped teach me how to race again.”
More from Williamson: “Don and JoAnn have always been a staple around here. I’m from far away from here and they always treated me like family. What a cool race in honor of a great man.”
From Tim Hartman Jr., who won one of the dual sportsman features: “First of all, great job by Craig Wholey (who finished second). He’s finished second about four times now, but his win is coming.” (Wholey has indeed finished fourth four times this season, and on three occasions, Hartman Jr. was the car in front of him).
From Chris Crane Jr., who recorded his first career win in the other sportsman feature: “This is awesome … It wasn’t easy out front, especially at 26 laps. That extra lap doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re out front, it’s quite a lot.”
From Beau Ballard, who led flag-to-flag to win the pro stock feature: “I wasn’t sure how big a lead I had. But I’m not going to lie. Toward the end, I looked at the video board in the infield and knew they (Devon Camenga and Luke Horning) were close.” Later, Ballard added, “Dale Planck was one of my childhood heroes. This goes out to the Planck family.”
The list of drivers who didn’t qualify for the 76-lap feature included Billy Pauch Jr., Brett Hearn and Billy Decker, while Mike Mahaney and Larry Wight had to use provisionals to get into the 28-car field.
It’s not often that the 14th place car in a Super DIRTcar Series race gets any recognition, but here’s a shoutout to Rich Scagliotta. The 61-year-old Scagliotta made his 200th career SDS start on Tuesday, and that 14th place finish was his best run since finishing 10th at Charlotte in 2018. In those 200 starts, Scagliotta has finished in the top five just once, at Granby in 2010. His only two career wins in a big block came in 2011, when he sat in victory lane at Brewerton on June 17 and at Canandaigua on Aug. 27. You’ve got to admire a driver like that for his perseverance.
BACK TO FRIDAY
Prior to Friday night’s racing, the New York State Stock Car Association held one of its satellite inductions at Albany-Saratoga, adding Mike Perrotte, Hector Stratton, Bernie Heald and the Roerig brothers, Larry and Dick, to the list of Hall of Famers.
Perrotte picked up 18 wins for owner George Huttig during his career, while Stratton sat in victory lane 13 times, and won the track championship in 1993, which was the final year for C.J. Richards’ CVRA modifieds. Stratton’s first win came in 1986.
The Roerig brothers, who operated the Grand Prix Truck Stop just off Exit 11 of the Northway, were involved in the track in the early asphalt days, fielding a semi-late model for Ken Platt. The Roerigs always had beautifully-prepared No. 99 cars, many painted gold, and the list of drivers who sat behind the wheel of the Roerig modifieds included Rene Charland, Maynard Forrette and Steve Luse.
Heald, who worked for the Town of Malta as the building code inspector, was a long-time pit steward for the Richards family, and he and I worked on a lot of projects together at the track. Those projects included taking down the old bleachers and erecting the set that is presently standing. I still remember Bernie and I lugging one of the boxes used as the frame into place on a fall morning, and realized just how hard that project was going to be.
After picking up his first modified win of the season, Jack Lehner was quick to hand out some thanks.
“I’ve got to give credit to Russ King, of Russ King Racing,” he said. “He’s really helped us out a lot this year, and it’s made a big difference.” The fact that Lehner had a new Bicknell and a new Kevlar motor probably didn’t hurt, either.
Russ King is also the crew chief on Brock Pinkerous’ late model, and when Pinkerous was racing a sportsman at Albany-Saratoga, Lehner was serving as his mentor. There was obviously some good karma involved in Friday night’s win.
When Ronnie Johnson finished third in last Friday night’s modified feature, that was his first top-10 finish since opening night. Needless to say, RJ is long overdue for a win.
Sloan Cherko continues to show steady improvement in her first season in the limited sportsman division. She was leading her heat last week when the caution came out, which put Chad Gregory on her outside. Gregory tried to get a jump on the restart, but Cherko gave him a little hip check going into the first turn and went on to win the heat race.
Included among the drivers who finished a lap down in the modified feature last Friday were former champions Demetrios Drellos and Matt DeLorenzo. Drellos finished 18th, after starting 25th, and DeLorenzo came across the finish line 20th, after starting 22nd. But I’ve got to admit, those two and another former champion, Marc Johnson, were doing some serious racing deep in the pack all night long.
With a couple of weeks off from the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Friesen was able to put together a string of good finishes on dirt. Ending with his second-place finish in the Don Davies Memorial on Tuesday, Friesen ran seven straight races on dirt, getting three wins, three seconds and a fifth. He’s made 27 starts this season, with 10 wins and 19 top-five finishes.
Albany-Saratoga has another big night scheduled for Friday, with the modifieds racing for $3,023 to win on Mark Hughes Memorial Night. The pro stocks will be competing for a top prize of $2,000 in the “Rockin’ the ‘Rez” Native Pride feature. The track will also be holding its annual fireworks show Friday.
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