I have got to say that the Modified Mania weekend was a hit. The True Value Modified Racing Series had a car count that was better than expected. Drivers from all three touring Modified sanctions were battling for guaranteed spots in the North-South Shootout™ and it was great to have an event that had six divisions compete without fenders.

Practice and qualifying was on Saturday. Several incidents punctuated the practice sessions. During practice for the True Value Mods, David Roys and Tom Abele, Jr. got together. It caused extensive damage to Roys’ #79. The #47 car, which was a Jim Storace Modified, also wound up in the turn four wall. Earl Paules’ #8 was the dominant car during the session.

The Race of Champions car count was lower than expected. I counted seventeen cars that went out during their practice. Earl Paules’ #8 and Matt Hirschman’s #60 appeared to be the fastest cars in that practice session.

Whelen Modified Tour practice included an incident between the #58 of Kevin Goodale and the #2 of Todd Szegedy. Goodale appeared to drift high and then check up suddenly collecting the 2003 Tour champion. The MSR crew got Todd back on track quickly. Tom Bolles #76 and Tony Ferrante, Jr.’s #31 had uneventful spins during the session as well. Mike Stefanik’s #16 and Donny Lia’s #18 appeared to be among the fastest out there.

Donny Lia took down the pole during time trials for the WMT. Earl Paules was quickest through RoC time trials. The TVMRS had four heat races where the top eight qualified. The heat races were relatively uneventful as none of those races numbered more than the amount that would qualify for the feature. Big ups to the #79 team for getting David Roys back out there to not just run in that heat race but finish third.

Following qualifying there was a WMT happy hour. I departed to the hotel where you’re supposed to be smarter for staying there. I needed to get the qualifying results up on the forum.

The Modified Auxiliary picnic was also on tap and I would have to say that it was a big success. The Spring Valley Sportsman’s Club is a great place for it and I was surprised with how well supported it was considering that tickets were only available since last week’s race at Martinsville. Several things happened there.

Although or maybe because, Ted Christopher wasn’t there, he got blamed for everything. “Teddy dumped Mary Brice!” was heard after there was an incident involving a picnic table spill. Several current and former WMT officials wound up covered with food and beer.

During the raffle, one of Ted’s tee shirts was summarily thrown into the bonfire as the sign of one crew chief’s discontent. It got a rousing response from many in attendance. I felt sorry for the folks that had deposited all of their tickets in the cup designated for that prize.

I saw a number of our message board friends at the picnic. Racechaser and his son helped me throw the balance of the firewood onto the bonfire before we left. The Valley Spring Sportsman’s Club was a great location for the picnic and I hope we return there next year.

Sunday, Howie’s shirt said it all. “I’m only here for the MODIFIEDS.” The autograph session or pit party or whatever they called it was a hit. Special thanks to the rent-a-cop who kept folks from stepping over the wall. Where was he to keep me from jumping out in front of Angie Wilson at Pike’s Peak?

I tried to sort out some controversy during the autograph session. Earl Paules had practiced a car for the TVMRS race. He had been subsequently told he was ineligible once he qualified for the RoC event.

“We changed the whole car over” said Earl Paules. “It cost us over two thousand bucks we put all of the mufflers on, no merge collectors, regular headers and their mufflers. I bought eight tires when I got here everything was still okay until I ran practice. After I ran practice that was the end of that. We were five tenths of a second faster than any of their guys.” I asked Paules, “There was nothing about running the RoC race? They [TVMRS] invited you?” Earl said, “As long as I didn’t run the Whelen [Tour], Jack [Bateman] wanted me to race with [the TVMRS]”.

I spoke to Jack Bateman about Earl Paules situation. Jack said, “He and I had a misunderstanding. I gave him some bad information. It was my fault and I apologized to him. Eventually we kind of sorted it out. We had it in writing that if you qualified for the NASCAR Whelen race or the RoC race you can’t qualify for our race. What we were trying to do was take some of the cars that didn’t [qualify for] those races and give them an opportunity to run in our race, so [TVMRS competitors] wouldn’t be bumped by some of the big runners. We were just trying to give everybody a chance. That was something that [Don] Hoenig pretty much come up with because he didn’t want to see the same guy win all three races. He wanted to put a different face on each race.”

Paules commented, “Dick Brooks was trying to lobby for me. He said, “You can’t take the car AWAY? We want cars to come and you’re sending them away? How can you do that?” He gave me a black eye on that, I’ll tell you that. I’m not real happy with that. I wanted to run all three divisions. We were all geared up for that. I would have never brought it.” Paules won the RoC race and the fifth Sunoco Modified race.

I think what had been billed as the TVMRS Consi was referred to as a semi-feature. Eleven cars participated and the only cars that were not previously qualified were the #8 of Glenn Tyler, who failed to qualify for the WMT race and the #76 of Shelly Perry, who was a late arrival. It really was probably more of a practice session.

John Catania, of Agawam, MA, wound up on his roof during the Sunoco Modified race. He slid most of the length of the backstretch upside down. Somebody check that fuel cell! Gasoline poured out onto the track as Catania waited for assistance. I was really surprised that car didn’t burst into flames.

The Sunoco Modified Race might have been the best event of the day. Jeff Malave dominated the early portions of the race. Jeff, Bo Gunning, Ted Christopher, Todd Ceravolo, Tommy Cravenho, Earl Paules, Matt Hirschman, Bert Marvin, Paul Charette and the eventual winner put on a demonstration of racing the way it is supposed to be. Woody Pitkat won his fourth Sunoco Modified race of the season.

Pitkat and Malave have been fighting tooth and nail for the NASCAR National Weekly Series championship. It appears that whichever driver, whether it’s Woody, Jeff, Tommy Cravenho or Todd Ceravolo, earns the Sunoco Modified championship at Thompson is likely to claim that title. With so much on the line, I was surprised how well all of these drivers behaved. Particularly after hearing horror stories for weeks and weeks about these cars and drivers.

The TVMRS race was a cautionfest. One of my colleagues, who felt that the statement “at least they ran seventy-five green flag laps” had more than run its’ course, asked me to count the caution laps from this race. There were thirteen cautions for what I counted as fifty-seven caution laps. I guess some people don’t think they occur if they were not counted.

Former WMT winner, Dave Bergman and two fellows who have competed with the WMT, Richard Savary and Jimmy Kuhn, Jr., were among the fastest during the event. Bergman had a horrifying crash on the front stretch. Savary was put to the tail of the field for his involvement.

The TVMRS cars ran transponders at Thompson. If there is a TVMRS official who wishes to contest the count of caution laps, feel free to email me and we will adjust that total. To figure the correct amount, deduct the green-flag laps from the total amount of laps completed by race winner, Kirk Alexander.

By the way, the race was completed after seventy-three green flag laps as TVMRS officials finally threw in the towel after a big crash occurred during an attempt at a green, white, checker finish. The race was also red-flagged twice and took about an hour and twenty minutes to run.

Keep in mind though; this is a track on which many of the TVMRS competitors had not raced previously. It is also a relatively new sanction and it will go through growing pains like this. There were several TVMRS officials who were quite helpful this weekend and I hope for this series to continue and grow.

When there was racing during the TVMRS event, the action was pretty good. Les Hinkley, Rob Goodenough and Lou Mechalides all showed their prowess. However, when it was time to go, it appeared as though Kirk Alexander threw a switch and he was in another league.

There was a sky diver that dropped in before the WMT feature, cool. Dragging the American flag on the infield was un-cool. This probably helped the crowd stretch out a bit as many of them had been sitting there for over four hours.

It looked like the WMT race would continue the yellow fever started in the TVMRS event. The #47 of Jim Storace wound up in the turn one fence on the first lap. The #47 cars seemed to have a concrete magnet in the right front wheel this weekend.

Matt Hirschman dashed off to the lead and we went green until lap thirty-seven. The #0 of Danny Sammons spun suddenly on the front stretch. It looked like something broke in the rear of his car. I thought I saw a drive flange fly through the air during the incident.

On the ensuing restart, the #19 of Ronnie Silk had trouble getting up to speed. Hat’s off to Ronnie for getting out of the way when he could and to the rest of the WMT competitors for avoiding contact with the #19 or each other. Silk retired with ignition woes.

The yellow flew on lap forty-eight for a spin by the #6 of Ron Yuhas, Jr. It looked like there was some incidental contact between the #6 and the #4 of Jerry Marquis that precipitated the spin. It didn’t appear to be intentional.

Many of the leaders pitted under this caution. Eventual winner, Eric Beers, got great service from the #3 team as they picked up two spots while changing the race maximum three tires. Tony Ferrante, Jr. was first in and first out.

Shortly after the restart, WMT championship leader, Mike Stefanik took the lead. Caution flew again on lap seventy-one for a spin by the #79 of Chuck Hossfeld. Stefanik led the balance of the leaders to pit road. Those who pitted at this time appeared to have very evenly matched full-service pit stops.

Matt Hirschman reassumed the lead when those leaders pitted. The yellow flew before the WMT competitors could complete a lap after that caution. A couple of drivers bounced around, Ted Christopher in the #36 checked up and the #48 of Tony Hirschman was collected in the carnage.

NASCAR black flagged Christopher and let him sit on pit road to think about it. I kind of wondered what he was thinking too. Had Ted not checked up it probably would have been a ten-car pileup.

Ultimately the #36 was penalized three laps. NASCAR Race Director, Ed Cox, said he saw the whole thing over the radio. He believed that the #36 had brake checked the field off of turn two. Some said it appeared that the incident was retribution aimed at the #36 from an incident that occurred at Martinsville.

Shortly after the next restart, Eddie Flemke put his #10 out front. There was a caution for a spin by the #11 of Anthony Sesely on Lap ninety-one. The race quickly returned to green.

Eric Beers drove to the lead on lap 102. Beers soon found the #41 of Reggie Ruggiero in his mirror and those two dashed off to settle it between themselves. There were two more cautions for spins and Ole Blue went to Victory Lane.

It was great to see a few of our old friends back at Thompson. Tony Ferrante, Jr. had a fantastic qualifying lap, the team had a great pit stop and they brought home a top five finish. Rick Fuller was back behind the wheel of the Joe and Linda Brady Modified with a new sponsor. Al Sweet Trucking is on board the Brady Bunch #00.

The RoC race was on tap next. Earl Paules dashed from his fourth place starting spot to the lead on the first lap and was never headed. Matt Hirschman made a valiant effort to pass Paules at the end but it was too little too late. The same could be said for Eric Beers who was charging through the field after making numerous stops to adjust the Bear Motorsports #14. Paules had secured the Northern Divison RoC championship. Eric Beers won the Central Division championship by virtue of his third place finish.

When the races had concluded, one of the tow trucks appeared as though it blew up. Apparently the work that it had been given Sunday was too much. The poor thing was smoking like it threw a rod but it might have just overheated.

Second place finisher in the Sunoco 150 race joined us after the Whelen Modified Tour event. I asked the Reg, “What are your feelings about today?” Ruggiero replied, “We ran a good race. We were loose in the beginning and when we pitted early to tighten the car up we tightened it up a little too much. I could drive it in under the #3 car but I couldn’t step back on the gas because it was too tight. It cost us a win but second isn’t bad for an “old” guy.”

I asked Ruggiero, “I know that you have won here a lot and you’d really like to get back to victory lane what do you think it’s going to take to do that?” Reg responded, “Just a little luck, the car is fast and we had problems in the pits, if you noticed, we came in second and came out like fifteenth and I had to pass all of them cars back again. That really hurt us too.” I asked, “Are you ready for Loudon?” The driver of the #41 responded, “I’m always ready for Loudon. That’s really a good racetrack for us. We’re actually bringing a new car so I can’t wait.

I asked third place finisher, John Blewett, III, “Do you feel this is a little redemption after that race on Thursday?” John replied, “Well yeah, a win would have been redemption but anytime you can finish in the top-three on this series it’s like a win. The teams are so good and the quality of the racecars are so good that it’s tough to run up front. I don’t think anyone here would tell you otherwise that if you finish in the top-three you’ve accomplished something. I’m proud of my guys and they did a great job.”

I asked JB, “How did your car start out for you?” Blewett said, “We were good, right from the drop of the green. I just rode in line waited for some guys to get settled down and we fell into a groove. It’s tough when you have to run the same car the following weekend when you’ve got a short turnaround. Basically we’ve got to be on the road Wednesday. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I was pulling an all-nighter just to get to Loudon. I’d like to bring something that is well-prepared and ready to race when we get there.”

I asked Blewett, “When you pitted, what kind of adjustments did you make?” John responded, “We didn’t make any. We took three tires and kept things the same. I just had to use a lot of car up to get where I was. There wasn’t much left when I got there.”

Eric Beers joined us after the RoC race. I asked Beers, “How was the car at the beginning of the race?” Eric replied, “We were pretty tight through the middle of the turn on the bottom. A little tight up off so if we got pinched off on the bottom on the starts, we really couldn’t go. We started fifth and fell back a few, worked our way back up to fifth and then the #19 car, something happened on that restart there. That put us back to like twelfth or thirteenth.”

“They [the BRE team] made a great call pitting at like lap forty-eight, fifty, right around there. It’s tough to pass here. We knew the car would stay good for long runs. So we pitted and we come out and they made a couple of adjustments and the thing was a rocket. We drove by everybody else that had pitted and got right back to where we were before the pit stops. It was like we didn’t lose any track position at all.”

“The next caution came out and they pitted and we were up to like fourth or fifth and the thing would stick like glue right on the bottom then on the restarts. Eddie and Matt were running in first and second and we were pinched on the bottom. The guys [in the #3 pit] were on the radio telling me “You can make this work, you can make this work!” we were almost behind Matt and worked our way past Eddie and it was an unbelievable feeling to get back by them on the bottom. You can never hold the car on the bottom and pass anybody here when you’re pinched down because the guy on the outside always gets the better run. Just to be able to go through the middle of the corners that good on the bottom and get by two real good cars that was amazing.”

I commented, “Great run for Bear Motorsports.” Eric said, “Bear talked to me about two weeks back about him coming back and running a couple of races. He decided about running the RoC race here and it worked out good for me. I have to have my car ready Tuesday night and have it loaded up because we leave for Loudon Wednesday. I wouldn’t have a whole lot of time to change the car over from here to Oswego for Saturday night. I’ll be going right from Loudon Friday afternoon straight to Oswego. I’ve got to drive right up there for practice 9AM Saturday morning. So I won’t have a whole lot of time to devote to that car and it worked out great for both of us.”

“We weren’t good in practice. We weren’t good in time trials. We weren’t even good in the beginning of the race but Bear and Pete Beal and Frog and all of the guys there, they just kept working and we pitted like four times there and just got it better and better. If it had been a little longer race we probably would have pitted one more time before we wound up staying out there. We were definitely the fastest car out there at the end of that race. It was just a matter of track position.”

I asked Eric, “What’s it like to be the RoC Central Division Champion?” Beers responded, “It’s an awesome deal. They work the schedule around so guys like me and Matt [Hirschman] can still run half of their series. We can run most of the North races but they make sure that we can run all of the Central races so we have a shot at it. I never won a championship with them and to win the Central Division it’s just awesome. [The RoC] is a good series, the [Whelen Modified] Tour is a great series, it’s good for both of them and I hope everyone had a good time here. There were on ton of fans in the grandstands.”

I commented to Matt Hirschman, “a couple of nice runs today.” Matt said, “Yeah, three of them really. A good clean day and we finished all three races, all of the laps and three top-10’s finished it off with a second in the RoC race. We played the right strategy to give ourselves a chance at the end and we were right there [in the RoC race], I mean a close second. We’re having a good roll with this car so second is good for that car. The [Whelen Modified] Tour race we led some laps, we were up front all day and we raced with the top drivers on the series.”

“I wanted to start off the season with runs like we had today. We just hadn’t gotten it going until recently with the Tour car. We had that top-five at Stafford a couple of weeks back, seventh at Martinsville, another good run here, now we’re finally rolling with it. I wish we had been running right from the start of the season like that. But hey, we’re rolling here at the end of the year. We’ve got a good chance to get some top-fives or maybe even a win before the year is over. I think we are really improving with that car.”

Matt continued, “The SK car, that’s the first time I actually raced a [Sunoco Mod]. We made some changes to the car. We were just learning with those tires. We had a problem with the transmission. I couldn’t shift from third to fourth on the restart. I kept losing ground on every restart and then I’d get them back. We had our struggles, a little bit, with that car but I think we finished seventh in that car.”

“I’m happy with the whole day. After the race all of the cars are clean, they all ran good and of the people who worked on them did a good job. The RoC car and the SK are parked right next to each other here and we had only a couple of guys just bouncing back and forth. Their run ragged and we’re all going to sleep good tonight. Everybody did a good job. I’m happy. Right from the start of the weekend I felt like I was on top of my game. I stayed sharp. You’d have liked to get a win but the way that we finished in all of them, I couldn’t be more happy.”

Tony Hirschman had some pointed comments in the wake of his accident. “I’m sick of it. I got wrecked tonight and that was part of the Martinsville deal, payback time. That’s what that’s about.”

I asked Tony, “What happened back there?” Tony responded, “We had the restart there, the #15, the #36 they’re just pinching and running guys into the wall and that’s what it came down to. I end up with a junk car. To me it looked like the #15 pinched the #36 up and he had no place to go anymore and he had to slam on the brakes and that checked everybody up.”

“I got rear-ended by whoever was behind me which turned me and sent me right into the wall. They held the #36 but there should have been more cars held on that deal there and they shouldn’t have just held them, I mean park them for the day. It’s getting worse and worse.”

“We talk about it all of the time, me and Stefanik; it’s just how rough this series got because up top there, they’re no calls ever made and nothing ever done to anybody. They parked one car for a lap or two but they didn’t park the rest of them that had something to do with all of that. It went back to last week and it’s going to go back to other incidents that happened during the year where guys are waiting to pay guys back.”

That last interview gave me an idea for a future story. I had no time to waste. It was time to drive home. I got to the boat on time. I spent the time on the ferry transcribing most of the interviews above from Thompson.

Don’t blame Amie for last week’s story going up late. That article is titled, “A Very Long, Shortened Race” and it can be found in the archives section under 2006 or Walter Newcomb. It is a very long story and probably felt like a two-night homework assignment to Amie just to proofread.

Coming up next we will be at the Magic Mile. Todd Bodine will be sporting the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project colors in the #50 for Don Barker. Last year we had one of the Bobsled Challenge sleds at NHIS. Phil Kurze told me Sunday that the Silver Medal winning Olympic bobsled will be at the track this weekend.

For those who might be interested; the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Challenge will be the first weekend in January. The Challenge will be run concurrently with the National Bobsled Championships. So in addition to watching one’s favorite drivers and media folk try to navigate this world class run from the mid-point to the bottom, they’ll be able to see world class pilots take the articulated Bo-Dyn Bobsleds from the top. The speed difference should be exponential.

I look forward to bringing everyone qualifying results and Live Updates from NHIS this weekend. I would rather that more people come to the track to watch but if you can’t make it to Loudon, look us up. Don’t forget to try the FlashChat.

If anyone wants to get together on the spectator side, I will try to be available approximately one hour before the start of the New Hampshire 100. That will probably be during Cup time trials. I will try to meet folks near the base of the elevator at the main grandstand. It is not far from the start/finish line.

Those who would like to get together in the infield; perhaps we can meet before Modified happy hour on pit road or Friday around lunch time in the Checkered Flag Restaurant. I hope to see you there!