I drove out to the 8:00AM boat Friday to go to Stafford Motor Speedway. The New England Dodge Dealers 150 was on tap. I couldn’t wait to get there.

I met Joe Hartmann and crew aboard the MV Cape Henelopen. I believe the “Cape” is the oldest vessel in Cross Sound Ferry’s fleet. The Cape was actually used as a part of the D-Day invasion in WWII.

Thanks to Scott Running from SMS. He helped me print out boarding documents for I flight I would take Saturday. I really appreciate the help.

Once again I perused the paddock area to gather information for our driver profiles. Please be patient as we upgrade this area of the site. Once it is done, this section will be far more complete.

I never like it when a driver is watching his crew put his car onto scales before it hits the track. Especially when that driver is holding onto tools. Maybe this is an act of preparedness for change. I however think that it is more likely to be a lack of preparedness coming to the track.

As practice time loomed, I dashed off to the car to get the gear I would need up in the press box for practice and qualifying. Although I ran into obstacles that slowed my efforts, I reached the summit of the grandstands before practice started. Why isn’t anyone on the track?

The ambulance was late. The tardy safety vehicle delayed the start of practice by nearly an hour. Those ready to go out on the track were all the way out back and team members wound up going down there to re-strap-in their drivers after the delay.

Glenn Tyler tried to take down the Armco barrier between turns one and two early in practice. The guys on the Sypher crew worked their butts off to get the #8 Modified ready to take time in vain. Glenn really never got a chance to get up to speed before qualifying and he was among the last to go home.

Todd Szegedy and Zach Sylvester seemed to have fastest cars in practice. Szegedy appeared to have, what I like to call, “effortless speed”. Phil Moran had unloaded the MSR Blue car and the team was fast out of the box.

Jackie Arute is really excited about what is on tap for this coming Tuesday evening. August 15th, CAR-QUEST presents “THE BIG ONE”. Bob Jenkins will anchor an all-star cast to cover this event.

The Premier Racing Association’s Big Car Series makes its’ northeast debut at Stafford at this event. If any driver can win both the 100-lap Big Car Series feature and the 30-lap Midget feature, out of the first twelve drivers to enter both events, CAR-QUEST, Valvoline and Stafford Motor Speedway will bump the first place prize money to $50,000. These twelve drivers will be referred to as the “Dirty Dozen”.

With Bobby Santos, III entered in both events; the air is permeated with the possibility that this can be done. As of Friday there weren’t a dozen drivers entered in both events. There has been considerable maneuvering by drivers and teams to become part of the Dirty Dozen. Most notably, Ted Christopher.

Time trials got underway before Mark Mockovack arrived. Consequently, I felt like a carnival barker announcing each lap in the press box. Somebody get us a radio!

I really thought Todd Szegedy would be quickest in time. Tony Hirschman dashed that by eight thousandths of a second. I think the Bud Pole Award winner should get to wear a very big hat.

Kenny Horton got his second career SK Modified victory in dramatic fashion over Chris Jones. Horton passed Jones on the last lap after a green white checker restart. Jones had rooted Horton back several spots out of the lead earlier. There was an obligatory TC and Bo show on the cool down lap. Christopher finished third.

One of the things I was able to do Friday night was give a bag of red caps to Shawn Courchesne. Shawn had really wanted a portable DVD player. Unfortunately, there were no more available when he accrued enough points. This concludes my participation in gathering these caps.

The program moved at a pretty slow pace. That gave the announcing crew plenty of time to plug “The Big One”. Anyone who attended Friday night’s festivities at Stafford who is not familiar with “The Big One” is either deaf or should seriously consider treatment for attention deficit disorder.

The Whelen Modified Tour race started with yellow fever and ended as a barnburner. The seven caution periods that occurred eliminated, or severely damaged, nearly half of the field before the halfway point. Several of the teams who had planned on pitting around the lap-100 mark had their fates sealed when they didn’t pit during the last caution period. There were so few cars remaining that it became highly unlikely that we would see yellow beyond that point.

James Civali assumed the lead after Tony Hirschman crashed on a restart with seventy-three laps complete. The #28 dashed off into the distance never to be challenged. Call for a re-write.

Civali was challenged; quite fervently I might add, by the driver who is second on the WMT all-time wins list. Reggie Ruggiero slowly but surely reeled the youngster in and it appeared several times that the Reg would push Dick Barney’s #41 past Civali for his forty-fourth career victory. Several times, Ruggiero would sail to the outside of Civali. Most of the time, just as it looked like Reggie would have James cleared, Civali would just get enough of his car in the way that Ruggiero couldn’t complete the pass.

Ruggiero appeared to have better tires than Civali as he closed on the rookie. As the race neared its conclusion, it appeared that Civali had helped Ruggiero wear the tires of the #41 beyond those of the #28. I thought that was amazing.

Each time, the Reg would go to the outside and James would pull along side. Sometimes the #28 was under control and sometimes James relied on eight tires being better than four. It was quite exciting and the fans were on their feet for longer than I have seen at Stafford in quite some time. After a while, even the media vermin in the press box were standing on their feet.

When Reg finally made an attempt to pass James on the inside, the #41 spun and slid through the infield with just a couple of circuits remaining. Until that point, in appeared as though it would be a Raceworks dominated podium. Civali drives for King Racing and Don buys his chassis from Reg and Eddie Flemke’s Raceworks. Reggie finished ninth.

James Civali took down his first WMT win for the second time in less than a month. Don King said that he would wait forty-five minutes again before celebrating but that he wasn’t giving this trophy back. This is arguably the driver and the team who have both shown the most improvement over the past twelve months.

Although the winner drove a Raceworks car, the lower part of the podium featured SPAFCO chassis. Ken Barry held on for his best finish since establishing his career best second at Nazareth in 2004. Chris Pasteryak finished third and looked good pulling it off. Matt Hirschman finished fourth.

This was perhaps the first time that three rookies finished in the top-four spots at a Whelen Modified Tour event, including the top spot. I could just feel for Chris Pasteryak and Matt Hirschman. They had outstanding finishes and still couldn’t wrestle away the Rookie-of-the-Race.

I passed on the interview session. It must have been a blast. I needed the results as soon as they were available for the Live Updates and headed toward the WMT trailer.

While I was there I got to congratulate Don King, James Civali and several of the other top finishers. Results were posted when I arrived at the trailer. It took a few minutes to wade through the hordes to write the results down.

Matt Hirschman almost seemed distant when I congratulated him back there. Congratulations to Matt for taking down the win Saturday night at Chemung. Young Hirschman led wire to wire in the Race of Champions event held there.

A few side notes:

Talladega Nights is not as stupid as some people have made it out to be. It is very corny. It is funny. It pokes more fun at NASCAR than anything one might have thought possible. The DVD will make a nice Christmas present. I wouldn’t see it in a theatre unless you’re trying to avoid the heat.

I now know what the National Weather Service means by 0% chance of rain. Vicki and I waded across the parking lot after seeing the aforementioned movie. The downpour created a river at least a foot deep in the parking lot between the theatre and her car.

We will gather again for the Whelen Modified Tour event at Thompson International Speedway, Thursday night. Time trials are scheduled to get underway for the Budweiser 150 at 5:45PM. We will post qualifying results on the Live Updates section of the forum once time trials have concluded. The race is scheduled to get underway shortly before 9PM. I hope to see you at the track.