The Fall Final at Jack Arute’s Stafford Motor Speedway has been one of my favorite events of the Tour season over the years. The air becomes a little more crisp by this time of the year but the Fall Final is still normally shirt-sleeve weather. Perhaps memories of playing Par 3 golf with the Old Man a couple of years ago have something to do with it. The event has always seemed to have a festival-like feel about it at the one racetrack our beloved Tour graces that really feels like a fairground.

Upon my arrival Saturday I learned that credential requests for the event had been so large that I had been assigned a seat in the top row of the grandstand for Sunday. I am sure that we could do the Live Updates from there but the ambient noise from the race and those in the immediate vicinity would have made doing the updates a little more difficult from that location. I knew I would be able to find a way around that to make it easier for Shopgirl to understand me when the time came to perform those tasks.

I got there in time to catch the last half hour of practice for the WMT prior to time trials. Of the things that I noticed in practice were that the usual suspects were on top of their games. The #58 team seemed to have gotten that ride a little more comfortable for Kevin Goodale. That could not be said for the #82 that Steve Park was driving.

The Mystique team had rolled out a second car for the former Mod Tour ace. Team Stafford was banking on the Craftsman Truck Series and former NEXTEL Cup and Busch Series star to qualify for this event. Park looked far from comfortable in practice. It appeared as though he was trying to hustle the car a little too much instead of letting the racecar do the work for him.

Mike Ewanitsko went out relatively early in qualifying. The two time defending track record holder at Stafford turned a less than stellar lap of 18.991 seconds. I knew when that time was announced that Ewanitsko’s chances of making the field were precariously slim. I had spoken to Mike less than an hour prior to time trials and was quite enthused to see the Modified veteran in such great spirits and as healthy as I had seen him in years.

Steve Park’s chances looked nearly as grim as Ewanitsko’s after he had turned his first lap. I heard Scott Running bellow, “Pick it up!” as Park soldiered around on his second lap. Steve mustered a quick enough time to get in the show on his second pass.

Despite the fact that Ewanitsko was so impressive in his return at Loudon, it is quite unfair to expect him to be right on top of his game everywhere. I am sure that Mike is the most disappointed person with respect to this week’s qualifying, he felt as though he let his guys down. Ewanitsko missed the show by thirteen thousandths of a second. Mike will be back and he will prove a lot of skeptics wrong.

Donny Lia took down the pole with a lap of 18.469 seconds. This was Donny’s third pole of the season. For those planning their pick-6 choices for next season it should be noted that all three poles came at Stafford.

Subsequent to the end of time trials, I headed out to my hotel. I stayed at the place that was famous in my youth for having twenty-eight flavors of ice cream. Others might know the place from it’s orange roof.

A banner in front of the hotel clearly states: “Newly Renovated Rooms”. It also read “Free Inte ne Servi e” three letters had been removed from “Free Internet Service”. Neither of these claims was true.

This place had vanities, plumbing fixtures, electrical outlets and switches that would have been changed if this place was renovated when the “Brady Bunch” television show debuted. The doors on the room had been there since coffee was ten cents a cup. When I asked about internet access at the front desk I was told that dialup was available at a rate of thirty cents per every fifteen minutes based on local or toll-free use.

Speaking of coffee, I regularly take the coffee from the hotel room wherever I stay. I don’t drink coffee but Vicki likes using those packages. The instructions on the coffee package in my room read, “Place filter pak directly in brew basket. Do not remove coffee from filter”. As I searched about the room there was no brew basket, in fact there wasn’t a coffee maker to be found.

There were places around the hotel that looked like there was construction underway. Most of the place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Carter administration. Expedia is going to hear about this.

CARQUEST is a big sponsor of events at the Stafford Motor Speedway. Rich Pallai from CARQUEST and TECHNET is one of the real ‘good guys’ that one will find around racing. Thanks to Rich for getting me a great spot from which to do the Live Updates Sunday.

I took to the infield for the pit party. Steve Park had a long line of folks looking for autographs. I got my Sharpie out and yelled out “The heck with him, I want Carl Miller’s autograph!” Carl, a former Riverhead Raceway Modified campaigner, travels to races with Steve and works as his spotter. I just loved breaking the shoes of an old acquaintance.

Speaking of autographs, I wore the shirt that I got from Alex at Martinsville to the pit party Sunday. I wanted Eno to sign it for me. Apparently Lirpasti has hopped on the Jitney with TBax to attend the Cup race at Talladega. Maybe I’ll catch him at Thompson.

There was supposed to be a meet and greet in the infield. I had met up with Howie and Flawless for a few minutes but there were never more than four of us gathered while I was standing out “in the grass” where the meeting was to take place. I did hear that eventually there were around a dozen folks that got together. I hope they got a picture.

The biggest newsflash in the infield during the pit party surrounded the pole sitter. Donny Lia had apparently missed the drivers meeting. I don’t know whether he missed it or if he was just late getting there but it meant he would start shotgun on the field.

Track announcer Ben Dodge related to the fans how the Whelen Modified Tour championship was shaping up prior to the event. He related that the Mystique team thought the one hundred lap race at Thompson favored Tony Hirschman, as Tony is a master at managing his tires through a race that wouldn’t likely lend an opportunity for one to pit for tires and get back to the front.

Ted Christopher’s team apparently believed that the one hundred and fifty lap affair at Stafford and the one hundred twenty five lap race at Thompson would require a tire change to complete. The #13 team feels they have a big advantage over the competition on pit road. Hirschman ran the entire race without pitting and led one hundred thirty three laps on his way to the victory. That same strategy had bitten Hirschman and the #48 team at the Icebreaker in April.

There was a big wreck early in the event. A couple of the cars near the front of the field were bumping into each other side to side and several cars further back in the field suffered the consequences. Kevin Goodale, Mike Stefanik and Steve Whitt wound up in a mess in turn one.

Matt Hirschman attempted to qualify the #16 on Saturday as Stefanik was at Lime Rock Park for the Busch North race there. The Flamingo team got in on an owner’s provisional. Mike finished fifth at Lime Rock and heads into the BNS final trailing Andy Santerre by seventy five points. It is likely that Santerre will win his fourth straight BNS title and keep Mike from his ninth regional touring series crown at Thompson, barring some kind of miracle.

Donny Lia made a charge to the front late in the race. Lia picked off car after car and had Hirschman in sight with a few circuits remaining. Donny was driving his #18 to the limit and his pursuit seemed as though it would come up a few laps short.

On the final lap Lia snatched a second place finish out of the jaws of disaster. As the #18 entered turn three, the spindle broke on Donny’s left front and the tire and wheel assembly flew through the catchfence in between turn three and four. Lia stabbed the gas and brought his racer across the line ahead of Chuck Hossfeld. The wheel came to rest after it collided with a van in the parking lot. A piece of the rotor from that wheel singed the grass near the parking lot fence.

Hossfeld’s #50 was sponsored for the Fall Final by Brewster Honda. Ironically Brewster Honda is one of the Lia family dealerships. Hossfeld was followed to the line by Jerry Marquis and point leader Ted Christopher.

Wayne Anderson participated in the race Sunday. Wayne, who earned a guaranteed starting position in the North-South Shootout™ when he won the Tom Baldwin Memorial 77 at Riverhead Raceway in July, wanted to get a chance to get some seat time on a faster track before heading south to compete in that event. Anderson got into the race with a past champion’s provisional starting spot.

Wayne and his team struggled with a chronic leaking problem and eventually parked the car when they could not keep up to minimum speed. I met the Corwin brothers from Eastport Feeds at during the pit party and spent some time with them as we waited to board the ferry on our trip home. They are great people and I hope for Wayne and his team to have a great run at Concord in November.

Tony Ferrante, Jr. apparently has announced his retirement as of the conclusion of this season. Tony Ferrante, Sr. has been a fixture on the Modified Tour for many years and is one of the “Gentleman Car Owners” to which Bruce Boucher has often referred. We will miss them both on the Tour, no one more than myself. Tony brought the #31 car home eleventh.

I love the nose on the #v4 of Jerry Marquis. Is this the latest out of Troyer Engineering? I seem to remember a similar configuration to this on Maynard’s ‘house’ cars back in the early eighties at Pocono.

Kenny Horton drove the #29 car that had been campaigned earlier this season by James Civali. Horton qualified and finished twentieth. Horton’s runner-up finish in the SK Modified® feature was taken away when his ride came up five pounds light. Jimmy Blewett took down the win in that event in the TS Haulers #12.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the weekend was when Lloyd Agor was interviewed at the conclusion of the SK race. Agor, who has been competing at Stafford Motor Speedway for many years, was crowned with his first track championship. Lloyd was visibly moved.

In all of the years that I have ventured to Stafford, I have never heard anyone have a bad thing to say about Agor. He has always had good equipment and ran well. Lloyd started the season without a sponsor and ran his way to the front of the point standings on a shoe-string budget. Congratulations to the #22 SK team; sometimes good guys do finish first.

Tony Hirschman closed the gap on Ted Christopher as the Tour heads for Thompson and the twin 100’s. I remember when this event was postponed as that is when we learned that we had lost our friend, Reverend Pat Evans. Let’s hope for great weather and an even better race.