The 4th Turn: September 12, 2024
~ By Tom Boggie
After watching the Autism Acceptance race at Albany-Saratoga Speedway last Friday, I couldn’t help but think about the statement Maximus Meridius, played by Russell Crowe, shouted in “The Gladiator.”
“Are you not entertained? Is this not why you came here?”
From the battle for supremacy in the Duell Racing Family to the biggest win of Rob Yetman’s pro stock career, the 49-lap race, which paid $10,000 to win, plus lap money, was thoroughly entertaining (well, except for all those caution flags. Starter Rich Petersen probably had to ice his arm when he got home.)
While Yetman grabbed the golden ring of $10,000, the Duells took home $7,500, with Scott getting $5,000 for second and father Kim getting $2,500 for third.
Here’s how it was set up. Kim Duell took the lead away from Yetman on lap 32, and Scott used a restart to move into third on lap 35.
Two laps later, Yetman got a big run coming out of the second turn to regain the lead, leaving the Duells side-by-side, racing for second.
Scott finally got around his father with four to go, but by that time, Yetman had a comfortable lead and the $10,000 was his.
Personally, I think if Scott had gotten around his father earlier, he could have made a run at Yetman. But once the Duells got side-by-side, they did what all good racers do. They raced as hard as they could.
“It never dawned on me,” said Kim later when I asked him if he thought about backing off a little to give Scott a shot at the win. “If we hadn’t wrestled for so long, he might have caught Rob. But the racer in me said, ‘I’m not going to let him go.’”
“When we (he and his father) got to racing, I knew I was going to be in trouble,” said Scott with a smile. “I knew he was going to race me hard. But it was a blast to do that with him.
“I got pushed back early, but once I found it (how fast the top was), wow,” he added. “On top, it felt like it does in a sportsman. I was getting three or four of them at a time.”
Kim said he exploded his right front shock late in the race, which was probably responsible for him dropping from first to third. After the race, he was looking at the Curtis Lumber Wagon, which has been in service for nine years.
“That’s the last race of the season for this car,” he said. “I’m going to cut it up. I’ll run the other car for the last two shows.”
It’s a little ironic that Yetman would win the biggest race of the season. Granted, he’s on top of the all-time pro stock win list at Albany-Saratoga, now with 32 victories (Kim Duell has 30), but he didn’t even plan to race this season. “I was done,” he said earlier this year. “I planned to be out on the boat on the weekend.”
But he and car owner Joe Lazzaro put together a deal at the last minute and there was Yetman, the five-time winner of the pro stock feature during Super DIRT Week, in victory lane after the highest-paying pro stock race of the year.
“I won’t say this was better than the Super DIRT Week wins, but it ranks right up there,” he said.
The win in the Autism Acceptance event, orchestrated by pro stock driver Jordan Modiano, might have derailed any thoughts he had about retiring, as he said that he is already looking forward to next year.
MORE FROM MALTA
While the pro stocks had top billing, the modifieds also put on a show, with Marc Johnson coming away with his fifth victory of the season.
After drawing 40 modifieds a week earlier, only 21 modifieds signed in last week. Many of the top drivers, including track champion Peter Britten, Jack Lehner and Mike Mahaney, were competing in a Super DIRTcar Series race at Can-Am Speedway. Others just took the night off because the points season is now over. But Ronnie Johnson was forced to stay home after contracting shingles. A post on his Facebook page read, “…after seeing two doctors, he’s been strongly advised not to race.”
Marc Johnson didn’t want to discuss the absentee drivers. “I can only beat who’s here,” he said. “Besides, it pays the same to win.”
Speaking of pay, I jokingly asked Johnson why he didn’t take a shot at the $10,000 in the pro stock race.
“Jaime Scott (one of his primary backers) offered me one, but I wouldn’t take it,” Johnson said. “I hate pro stocks.”
Johnson usually sticks to the bottom, but came through the field by running the top last Friday. But he had to be extra careful navigating the first turn.
“There was a hole out there,” he said. “That’s the roughest I’ve seen Malta in a long time. Not if you were three-quarters down, just where the dirt was coming together on the outside.”
Johnson used a restart on lap 28 to snatch the lead away from Ryan McCartney, pulling off a crossover move in the second turn to move out front.
“He was going for his first win, and I didn’t want to drive him dirty,” said Johnson. “I gave him a lot of room.”
McCartney, who is in just his third season driving big block modifieds, didn’t find much consolation in getting his second runner-up performance in the last three weeks.
“My misfortune is always someone else’s good luck,” he said after he and a couple of his buddies got his car back in the hauler. “We’ve been so close a lot this year, but we always seem to get unlucky.”
McCartney has six top-five finishes this season as he continues to make steady progress in the division. He finished 19th in points during his rookie modified season in 2022, was 13th last year and moved up to 10th this year.
Like most dirt track drivers, he’s looking for more financial backing.
“I hope next year we can get more sponsors,” he said. “We’ve going to lose our primary sponsor, and that will open things up for new sponsors, maybe more from this area. If we can get more people behind us, it would help us build up our motor program.”
While McCartney is still looking for his first career win, Jordan Hill got hers last Friday in the limited sportsman division as she continues her breakout season. Hill, who finished seventh in points this season after placing 27th in her rookie campaign last year, is the second female to rack up a limited sportsman win this season, following in the footsteps of Sloan Cherko.
Former Albany-Saratoga pro stock champion Chad Jeseo showed up for the Autism Acceptance race with an all-white body, without a sticker or decal or even a number on it. On a restart in his heat race, Jeseo got into Shawn Perez Jr. and lost most of the bodywork on the front end and fenders. He had to take a provisional as a past champion to get into the field. But he ended up running all 49 laps and finishing 20th.
Brandon Emigh, who led the pro stock division with five wins this year, finished second in his heat race and drew the fifth starting spot for the feature, but bounced off the front stretch wall on lap 10, damaging the front end, and was done for the night.
The annual John Grady Memorial Nostalgia Night, rained out earlier in the season, will be held Friday, with the modifieds running 43 laps for $4,300 to win ($2,300 for second). There will be inflated purses in the sportsman, pro stock and limited sportsman divisions, and the Mohawk Valley Vintage Dirt Modifieds will be making their annual appearance at the track. Spectator gates will open at 4 p.m.
AROUND THE TRACKS
Okay, about that Super DIRTcar Series race at Can-Am. Mat Williamson got the win, after changing just about everything in the car following his heat race. Williamson said that he felt a vibration during the heat, so his crew changed the transmission, driveshaft, driveline and both yokes. The Albany-Saratoga drivers who made the trip to Can-Am included Lehner (seventh), Mahaney (14th), Britten (14th) and Justin Stone (18th).
Britten won Saturday’s Championship Night feature at Orange County Speedway his second win in three starts at the Middletown track this season.
Stewart Friesen drew the pole and led all 75 laps to win the Cavalcade Cup and the top prize of $6,000 Sunday at Weedsport. Lehner finished fifth in that race.
Since Aug. 16, Lehner has six top-five finishes in nine starts.
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