It was great to have the competitors and fans of the Whelen Modified Tour visit my hometown for the Miller Lite 200 this weekend. Most folks might think that I appreciate the Riverhead shows because it allows me to relish home cooking. The personal reward for me however is the eight or nine minute trip home.

When I left the raceway last weekend, in the wake of the Tom Baldwin Memorial 77, Bill Denniston put his finger in the center of my chest and told me, “You’re going to be here at 10AM next week. Right?” Well, I didn’t arrive quite that early but I did get to the track before the pit gate was opened for pedestrian traffic.

The primary reason for my early arrival was to meet with as many drivers and teams as possible to update and in some cases create Driver Profiles for the ModSeriesScene website. The timing seemed to work out fairly well and I have a mountain of information to process. Please be patient as we work toward revising this section. Amie will be dealing with this same mountain as I begin to forward the information to be posted.

Through the process of gathering all of this data, I discussed the information concerning the J&S Motorsports team with Ed Whelan. Ed told me that Rich Niemiec had taken over as crew chief for the #86 of Mike Andrews, Jr. The name of the proprietor of NUCOM Manufacturing is very familiar to those who frequent the eastern Long Island oval. Rich is known to most of us as “Fluffy’.

Niemiec has served with Donny Lia, Frank Vigliarolo, Jr. as well as the legendary Fred “The Flying Dutchman” Harbach and dozens of others who have been quite successful at Riverhead Raceway. Rich was the first crew chief I worked with for “Tiger” Tom Baldwin. The fact that Fluffy was working with the J&S team made me think my choice to add Ted Christopher to my Pick-6 was a wise one.

Later in the day I ran into Niemiec’s old right-hand man, Jon Trask. Jon is the kind of guy who could take a Mensa test in five minutes, get a perfect score and recite the questions, the correct answers and the incorrect choices to you a couple of weeks later. Unlike most people of that ilk, he is also a blast to hang around.

Once, when he was serving as TB’s crew chief, Trask made us laugh so hard we were literally rolling around on the ground. With ten laps to go in a Tour race at Stafford, the Old Man was running second to Mike Stefanik under caution. One of the Stafford Speedway pit reporters shoved a microphone in Jon’s face.

He was asked, “What’s your strategy?” Trask replied calmly, “I kind of hope we get another caution. We’re running a little hot and we’ll pit to change the radiator if we get another yellow.” The savant recently returned to the Island after teaching a couple of graduate courses.

The wait for things to get going at Riverhead tour shows was, as usual, quite long. The added time has to be built into the program to allow the local competitors to go through technical inspection. About three hours after we walked through the gate, Whelen Modified Tour practice began.

I spent most of the day in the Handicapper’s Shack with Frank Saladino. Frank used to race Modifieds at Riverhead and built rear-ends and transmissions for many of the competitors there for years. These days he has been designing software including the package he so graciously gave to me on Saturday that may help enhance some of our Live Updates.

While I was putting the field together on my laptop I got a call from ThE sHaDoW. “Hey Big Walt”, he said, “I’m bringing the grille in the back of my truck. Are they going to let me in?” I told the New Jersey native that the Riverhead Raceway staff probably would as long as practice wasn’t too hot when he arrived. When the phone call ended, I wondered, what kind of truck he was driving. I imagined a 24’ box truck.

The media people one might encounter at Riverhead Raceway are different from those one might meet at the Connecticut tracks the Whelen Modified Tour typically frequents. I had the pleasure of spending time with Ricky Miller, Mike Fields and the guys from “the JAM”. It has been over three weeks since I’ve been able to meet with the members of the Connecticut Motorsports Press Association. All I can say is that Shawn Courchesne will have a lot of letters and numbers to enter next Friday.

Qualifying for Whelen Modified Tour races at Riverhead always seems to be more than half of the battle. The list of competitors for the Miller 200 included nine drivers that I would count as Riverhead regulars. In addition there were six Tour drivers that are former Riverhead Raceway regulars who weren’t in the top-twenty in points prior to the event. Of those fifteen drivers, eleven secured positions on the starting grid in time trials.

Consequently, with an entry list of forty-one competitors, thirteen teams would be on the go home list. That list included top-twenty drivers Doug Coby, Jimmy Blewett and Steve Whitt. Blewett and Kevin Goodale are former Riverhead regulars that failed to make the field. The three Riverhead regulars who failed to qualify included Larry Altholtz, multi-time Modified track champion, Frank Vigliarolo, Jr. and polesitter for last week’s Baldwin 77, Bill Park.

Park got loose in turn four on his first time trial lap, which affected both of his laps and precipitated a poor result. Vigliarolo missed the field by eight thousandths of a second. Perhaps the biggest surprises in qualifying were the identical laps laid down by John Denniston and the outside-pole effort by Ken Heagy.

Those who took provisional qualifying spots included three past Whelen Modified Tour champions. Mike Stefanik and Todd Szegedy were awarded provisional qualifying spots based on points. Jamie Tomaino took the past champion provisional. Dick Houlihan was rewarded for his newfound consistency this season with the final point position provisional.

Tony Ferrante, Jr. earned the final qualifying spot in time trials. It was great to see the former Tour regular make the show. It was even better to see Tony, Sr. at the track. Tony Ferrante, Sr. knows how to make people feel really great about what they are doing. I walked out of the #31 hauler feeling like I should be writing for USA Today.

I got out to see the gang in turn two before the start of the race. TBax was over there with hollywoodmic and the mortgage guy. I know that no one will believe this but both Ted’s shirt and mine seemed to be remarkably dry.

Those who look us up for Live Updates, might wonder why the redraw at Riverhead comes late? That is because Bob Finan insists that it be done at the start/finish line before driver introductions. That idea works well there because the fans are right on top of the track, climbing on the fence and screaming out to their favorite drivers before the race.

Bob Finan sprung something on Howie and Mary before the start of the event. The Hodges were given the honor of commanding the engines to come to life. They did a fantastic job.

It was my pleasure to be joined in the Handicapper’s Shack by Bob Garbarino for the feature. Shopgirl enjoyed the banter the two of us had through the course of the race. The owner of the famed “Mystic Missile” had apparently watched most of the races from the same spot at Riverhead in the past, although I didn’t remember seeing him there last season.

Other members of the media hang out in a box that is by the track officials between turns three and four. Ricky Miller said, “Sitting where I sit, between the third and fourth turns, the view is really great. That and you get a free derm-abrasion from the Hoosier rubber flying off of the cars.”

Like last week, yellow fever besieged the Modified race at Riverhead. There were times that I wished that several of the cars would just retire instead returning to the track after making repairs. Invariably, the cars that brought out one caution would bring out another.

One of the problems is starting twenty-eight cars on a quarter mile oval. Generally the caution periods tend to wane once the field has been thinned by eight or ten cars. It’s kind of like starting forty-three cars at Bristol or Martinsville, there doesn’t seem to be enough room to race until a third of the cars have been eliminated.

The 2005 Tom Baldwin Memorial 77 was one of the best races I have seen in many years. Many folks might have thought that all of those cautions ruined the Miller Lite 200. At least it was better than the second edition of the memorial race held last week.

Last week there were at least ten teams that tried to buy a win by bolting on new tires in a race that ran less than twenty miles. I thought the allowance of all that tire changing was ludicrous and the fact that the 77 green flag lap race nearly ran two hundred laps if one were to count the caution laps made it that much worse.

I don’t get upset about the caution laps. My problem is when officials either wait for teams to repair damaged cars to restart the race or when drivers are allowed to return with cars that are damaged to a point that they put themselves as well as other competitors at a safety risk. The only thing worse than that is people who complain about cautions.

I take that back. Another thing worse than that is when the scoreboard and in particular the lap counter is being operated by someone who is not paying attention. We were running three laps at once a few times. I called whoever was running the scoreboard “Stevie Wonder” during the race because I wondered what lap we had actually just completed.

I know I’m probably being a big pain in the butt by saying that and maybe those comments are a little too harsh. The operator couldn’t even get it right when directed by NASCAR timing and scoring. At least they have a scoreboard at Riverhead. Perhaps we can change the light bulbs and repair the sockets that do not work.

My suggestion for anyone who wishes to complain about cautions laps is to do something about it. Buy a piece of property, fifty or a hundred acres will probably do. Get approval to build a racetrack, build the facility and when it’s done, post seventy-five thousand dollars for a purse and see how many drivers try to wreck each other on their quest to take the lion’s share of the posted awards.

The Pope had a rough night. Actually I think the Pope was recast as Spinderella. I didn’t know that the Pope was allowed to have a son but apparently the Pope, Jr. ran over a crewmember in the pit area.

Donny Lia had been tabbed “Mr. August” by Bob Finan after his third consecutive August Tour win at Riverhead. It was an off night for the former Riverhead Raceway regular. Donny finished nineteenth, three laps in arrears.

Ted Christopher took down the win driving the Modified that was to bring Mike Ewanitsko back to the Modified Tour. For many years, Mike raced the #36 on a red car at the eastern Long Island bullring. Ted led the final one hundred thirty-six laps on his way to the victory.

I asked Ted, “Are you as excited about this win as you were at Jennerstown?” Ted replied, “Yeah, the team is really coming along and starting to gel. We’re racing with teams that have been racing for three or four years together like we had with our team. Now we have something different but it is coming together really quickly. A lot of the reason for this is the help that we’ve been getting from the Island, right here, Richie Niemiec from NUCOM. He put the setup in the car last week and he put the setup in the car tonight. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the year.”

Niemiec was actually watching the Live Updates on the ModSeriesScene Message Forum. Finally, Fluffy could take it no longer and he drove to the track. Captain setup got there in time to join Christopher in Victory Lane. The J&S team has a brand new car that they will bring to Stafford Springs for Friday night’s race this week.

Chuck Hossfeld and Jerry Marquis both seemed excited and relieved in their interviews. Second place finisher Hossfeld said, “We’ve had fast cars just about everywhere we’ve gone. Seems like we’ve had a little bit of bad luck. Last week we had shocks fail us. Luckily, David Hill, my crew chief, caught one of our shocks leaking tonight. He caught it before the feature and addressed it and handled it well. I’m pretty proud of what we accomplished. We didn’t win but when you can roll out of Riverhead with the car in one piece and carry a little momentum out of here, [it’s great].

Jerry, who finished third, asked us, “Do I still hate Riverhead?” with a smile. “You’ve got to keep your nose clean. Haskell [Lavallette] and Paul [Clapprood], when they ran the #44 team, we came back here and I was absolutely disgusted with this place. They said don’t worry about it; we’ll get you through it. We’ll be fine. We came here and we won the race [after] starting seventeenth. They coached me through here.” Marquis has been a threat to win at Riverhead ever since.

I asked Jerry, “What else did you get out of tonight other than a good finish?” Marquis replied, “We learned a little more about this racecar. We’ve been having a real hard time since the beginning of the year.” After destroying a car at the Icebreaker, the Mystic Missile team had been campaigning this car everywhere until they got to Loudon where they debuted a new car.

Jerry says, “Getting it figured out so we can race it at different racetracks, not just competitive at one or two, but be competitive at all of them. This racecar is really old and they had a problem with this car for quite a bit, just trying to get it to handle well.” Marquis told me that the #v4 team plans on bringing the car they debuted at Loudon to Stafford Friday night.

We waited quite a while after the race was over to get the final results. Apparently there were two teams that questioned the number of laps they were down and whether they were due beneficiary passes. One piece of advice for any team that cares to get the finish they deserve. Pay for a good spotter and a better scorer.

Speaking of good spotters, I saw Carol Clifford sporting a new shirt this week. Apparently she may be referred to hereto forth as “Spotter2”. Carol was over by the #99 trailer at ThE sHaDoW’s burger-fest with hubby Don.

One could see the flames coming off of sHaDoW’s grille from outer space. He and Jerry Moran brought enough food to feed half of the pit area. While eating a second burger, Jerry asked me if it was double beef. It wasn’t. He insisted that I eat a “Double Walt” burger, which I happily obliged.

One of the signs of the times was on display was on the back of the TS Haulers transporter. “THE SHOW IS OVER” was taped across the closed tailgate. Apparently Jimmy Blewett’s girlfriend was having fun with his nickname and a roll of duct tape.

Glenn Sullivan was there with one of his old buddies from his Hooters Pro Cup days. Glenn introduced me to B.J. Underdown from Texas. Sullivan also invited me to go to Fire Island. I passed.

Steve Halpin invited me to go to the beach as well. I asked him if he was crazy. Apparently, the locals now refer to the area where people park the motor homes and camping trailers as “The Beach”. I stopped by and watched “Harry” steam a bunch of mollusks. They were mussels and Steve Graham had a concoction of hot red peppers and garlic that made these seafood delights particularly enjoyable for those who chose to partake.

If any of our beloved followers happened to see the pre-race for the Brickyard 400, they might have heard Kenny Wallace refer to NASCAR stockcars as “taxicabs”. Can you believe that anyone would be proud of that? The only two people left that I thought were proud of driving a taxi are from New York City. One operates one of the last remaining Checker Cabs. The other has a reality show on wheels in a mini-van.

I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the tragedy that occurred at Road America last week. Cristiano da Matta was critically injured in a Champ Car crash at the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin track. Christiano struck a deer during testing. The 2002 CART champion and former Formula-1 driver remains in critical condition.

We head toward Stafford Springs for a Friday night engagement this week. Remember to get your Pick-6 picks made before Friday morning. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there. We will try to let everyone know when the Live Updates will begin as the show approaches.