The World Series at Thompson is usually the last stop on the Whelen Modified Tour trail. In last week’s article I mentioned that it was thirty-eight degrees when I arrived back in Riverhead early Monday morning and that that was World Series weather. The temperatures were sub-freezing when I rolled into the northeast Connecticut track early Saturday and the frost was definitely on the Pumpkin.

I’m fine with cooler weather. I find it considerably more comfortable to work through brisk conditions that might warrant a jacket and gloves than a hot muggy day when everything one might wear could get saturated in perspiration. The temperature in the press box was approaching ninety when I arrived up there. The heat wasn’t turned on; it was just the solar gain from the eastern exposure.

During the Whelen Modified Tour practice sessions, there were a couple of guys with video cameras in the infield shooting footage that probably will be used at the banquet. It wasn’t like they were doing anything particularly daring but the Tour officials kept an eye on them and made sure that there was someone there to watch their back when they were shooting. Good job Lisa.

The practice session went smoothly. Eric Berndt and Richard Savary seemed as though they ran each other quite hard during the session. I wondered whether these guys had unsettled SK issues. Danny Sammons was pushed in with an apparent clutch problem. Later it was determined that the #0 had lost a rear-end and the team put one in courtesy of the #3 team.

Tony Hirschman took down the pole in qualifying. Ron Yuhas, Jr. turned an impressive lap to time trial second. Bobby Grigas, III turned a lap good enough to earn a seventeenth place start in his first visit to WMT land. Jimmy Blewett redrew the pole and after a half-hour final practice, the Tour teams called it a day.

One of the things that were of particular interest to those in the Whelen Modified Tour paddock area was something that was happening away from Thompson. Bobby Santos, III was tabbed by Bill Davis Racing to race in the ARCA RE/MAX event at Iowa Speedway in Newton, IA. I developed a list of folks who I kept posted of Santos’ progress as the weekend went on. Congratulations to Bobby who was eleventh fastest in practice, qualified tenth and finished sixth in his ARCA debut.

A couple of the guys I was keeping updated about Santos’ progress were Kevin Crowley and Steve Halpin. Steven was in Charlotte and was surprised to find that I got some of the updates to him before the information had trickled through the Bill Davis grapevine. Halpin, who is responsible for organizing the Tom Baldwin Memorial Open golf outing, was given a private Tour of the Victory Junction Gang Camp over this weekend and has resolved to raise as much money as possible to get as many kids to attend the Camp.

Crowley, who is one of the sharpest crew chiefs in the WMT paddock area, currently works for Zach Sylvester and the #15 team. The World Series is the kind of an event that is Kevin’s apple. Supermodifieds, Midgets and Modifieds: let’s just say there were a lot of people looking to make Crowley’s acquaintance.

I wanted to relax before the Live Updates began from Motor Mile on Saturday night. I hustled up to Auburn and found some not-so-smart people. I dashed up to the room, put on my shorts, went down to the spa, got into the hot tub and my cell phone rang. It was Charli Brown. He was ready for me to post qualifying.

I went back upstairs, called him back and posted the qualifying results and the lineup. The Motor Mile website showed a start time that was quite quickly approaching. Unfortunately, the under-card there was taking quite a bit of time to complete so by the time the race was going to begin, Shopgirl relieved me so I could grab dinner.

I went to a Friendly place to grab a bite to eat. Who knew I would run into friends there? Bill Denniston and his wife sat across from me and we had a great conversation. Thanks to Bill for picking up the tab.

I got back to find the race near its’ conclusion. The Mets getting their butts handed to them and Mike C. and TBax on the FlashChat. We finally got the finish posted and the three of us discussed what we were going to do when Mike C. hits the lottery.

When I got to the track on Sunday, I parked out in Missouri. At least that’s what it felt like. I shouldn’t complain. I need the exercise.

The press box, which was mostly vacant on Saturday, was busy as a beehive Sunday. That’s probably because the Hoenigs feed the media so well. Mark Mockovak informed us that if Ted Christopher finished twenty-first or better, that Mike Stefanik could not clinch the title.

Some of the action along the way to our feature was great. There was a scary moment during the Pro Stock race when there was an accident that involved Dennis Krupski and Scott Rutherforth. Krupski’s #12 careened off of the frontstretch wall and collected Rutherforth’s #41. Rutherforth’s car flipped and slid upside down into the first turn wall erupting into flames. The safety crew did a great job extinguishing the flames and kudos to Ben Dodge for going out and helping extract Rutherforth from his burning car.

Chris Perley was running away with the ISMA Supermodified feature until he experienced some mechanical woes. Nokie Fornoro inherited the lead and went on to the victory. The real show in the ISMA race was the charge by the ageless wonder, Bentley Warren. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone drive a Supermodified that hard before. Warren closed to finish second and WMT regular, Robbie Summers finished third.

Fornoro dominated his heat race in NEMA Midget qualifying. Early in the feature race he suffered mechanical problems. Ben Seitz went on to take down the win in impressive fashion.

I asked my writing hero, Bones Bourcier, why the NEMA drivers seemed so sportsmanlike compared to the drivers on the WMT. He thinks it’s because of the nerfbars. Bones has a book coming out shortly on Eddie Flemke, Sr. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of that.

The Whelen Modified Tour competitors got out onto the track a little over an hour later than anticipated. The drivers all went out onto the track strapped in and we were underway accompanied by fireworks at about 4:30PM. Jerry Marquis dashed off to the early race lead and it stayed green until lap twenty-one when Billy Pauch, Jr. spun on the frontstretch.

On the subsequent restart, Tony Hirschman pushed his #48 into the lead. Kevin Goodale spun in turn three and wound up coming to rest in the pit road entrance. The raced stayed green and the #58 team changed a right rear flat to get Goodale back on the track.

The yellow flew on lap thirty-six for an incident that involved the #0 and the #21. Danny Sammons drove away and Ken Barry went off on the hook. About a dozen drivers pitted at that time, several of whom were involved in the next two cautions on lap forty-two and lap forty-eight.

The first of those ended quickly as those involved drove away. The second was an accident of Blues Brothers movie proportions that resulted in a red flag and a long cleanup. It was alleged that Carl Pasteryak gave a shot to Renee Dupuis through her window net after the latter accident. I didn’t see it: but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Eight of the lead lap cars chose to pit after the lap forty-eight incident. The Lia and Chase teams made quick work on pit road to pick up spots on the others that had pitted. The caution flew again for the #3 of Eric Beers spinning at the north end of the track. He went off on the hook and I didn’t see what caused the accident.

Ted Christopher was in the lead at that point and the race went for the longest green flag dash of the day. The yellow flew again on lap ninety-five for a spinning John Blewett, III off of turn two. Many of the leaders pitted. The restart produced a caution as the #09, #16, #48 and #31 sailed through the infield on the backstretch.

Caution flew again on lap one-sixteen for an incident involving the #0 and the #77 in turn one. The green flag action that followed was quite exciting. Jimmy Blewett put his #12 under the #20 of Richard Savary for the lead. Then on the next lap, Ted Christopher put his #36 under Blewett for the top spot. Christopher dashed off to a big lead but was smoking and there were reports that he might have been leaking fluid.

The caution flew again for the #06 spinning on lap one-forty two. This closed up the field and led to the incident that raised the most controversy of the event. With less than two laps to go in the scheduled distance, Ted Christopher and John Blewett, III wound up in a smoking heap at the north end of the track. The two were battling for the lead when they got together.

These two drivers aren’t exactly angels. The way I saw it: Blewett drove in under Christopher and Ted turned down after the corner entrance which precipitated the crash. Our eyes can play tricks on us. We don’t have eleven angles of video replay in the press box and that’s why the Live Updates only stated that the #36 and #66 got together.

Reggie Ruggiero assumed the lead and when the #20 and the #59 got together at the south end of the track on the green, white, checker, restart, the race was over. The win was Reggie’s forty-forth WMT victory and his first since Wall Township Speedway in ’04. Ruggiero is second on the all-time Tour wins list behind current point leader, Mike Stefanik.

I asked Reggie, “How was your run today?” Reggie replied, “We had a good run today. We started off a little bit too loose. We went about forty or fifty laps and we pitted. We thought we’d be alright but we were still loose again and we had to pit again around lap one hundred. The car ran pretty good after that. It was just a little too tight at the end. I let Teddy and the #66, I got up high one time, well Teddy pushed me up a little bit, they got by me and I was going to settle for third and on that restart, I knew John was faster than Teddy. John sent it in the corner on the bottom. Teddy turned down on him. They both went into the fence. That’s the way I’d seen it and I was right there. There was no camera but I seen it. Then I know Jimmy is anxious so I have to get a good restart and hold my own line and we’ll be alright and hopefully we’ll finish two laps but the caution came out anyway.”

I asked the winner, “What’s it like getting back to Victory Lane?” Ruggiero responded, “It was great. You know we’ve come close all year when we were running up front. I didn’t forget how to drive. I’ve been racing since 1969, so it’s been a long time. To win on the Tour, there’s not too many guys that do. They only run what, fourteen races a year? Some repeat winners so out of that eight or ten or six guys that win a show, you’ve got to be proud to win a race.

I asked Reg, “How do you look for Stafford?” Reggie replied, “Oh, we have a great car for that. Actually we have our new car for Stafford. That’s the one we qualified with. I guess we’re starting eighth. We redrew eighth out of the hat. We’re looking forward to a good finish there. Well, it can’t be no better than today!”

Second place finisher, Jimmy Blewett, in his Victory Lane interview said, “There was so much beating and banging going on today it was crazy. I don’t know what happened with my brother and Teddy over there. I don’t want to know nothing about it. You know that last green, white, checker there was just too much garbage on the track to really do anything. He got a good run on me off of two on the initial start and I couldn’t close the gap after that. I just want to congratulate Reggie on his win.”

Jimmy told us in the press box what happened on the backstretch with Stefanik, Hirschman, Ferrante and Grigas. Blewett said, “Bobby Grigas went down and went three-wide when we came off of turn two. You can’t run three wide here. The lane closed up and there was nowhere for anybody to go and everybody started wrecking. Luckily, my spotter kept me out of harm’s way and I was able to make it through.”

I asked Blewett, “Do you feel the TS Haulers team is coming around?” Jimmy said, “Yeah, the team is starting to come around. It’s tough for us. We’ve got people coming and going a lot over the year and you know we never built a foundation where the team was a team yet. We hadn’t had enough races with the same people. We hadn’t found a setup to work off of. Today was probably one of the best the car’s been here. You know luck played a big factor. At least we have some kind of a baseline setup to work from next time we come back here. Everybody on the team did an excellent job. I just want to thank everybody that helps me out, all of my sponsors, United Crane Rentals, TS Haulers, and Performance Engines by Billy the Kid. We were trying to get him his first win here today. We couldn’t quite do it but I’m sure he’ll get one soon.”

Third place finisher, Jerry Marquis said in Victory lane, “I’ve got to thank the crew. They did an awesome job today. We struggled with the racecar all day yesterday. We blew off a great time on time trials and we got a top-5 out of that. I was real happy with that. We’re getting this car to come around now. This is the car that replaced the car that we wrecked here at the Icebreaker. The guys are doing an excellent job. We’re picking away at it, slowly but surely. It’s just taken a little time to get it nailed down. We pitted really late in the race here tonight. We were able to come back through and that’s a feat in itself here at Thompson. It’s been so hard to pass here. The upper line is the line that everybody wants to run and try to get down to the bottom and try to get by anybody it’s just impossible. Whatever breaks you get here you’ve got to take. There was a whole lot of take and not much give out here tonight.”

I said to Marquis, “A little crazy out there today?” To which he responded, “The last couple of races have just been horrendous. I don’t know if guys are just not using their patience? It was hard to pass anywhere here tonight altogether. The outside groove is the place that everybody wants to run and it’s the groove that’s the fast groove. You can’t seem to get a run up underneath anybody. When you do, you lose your momentum going down the straightaway and it just kills you. We’ve got some more work to do. We need to get the car to roll through the center better.”

I asked Jerry, “How do you look for Stafford?” Marquis said, “You know what? I really don’t know. We didn’t time trial very well there. Right now were going to really use that half-hour practice that we’re going to have on Saturday morning and try to get the most out of the racecar and see what we can do with it. We’ve got work to do.” I asked Jerry “You’re using this car?” Marquis responded, “Yeah, we’ll be using the same car right now.”

It was late. I knew it was going to be difficult to get to the ferry in time to make the boat. I dashed to the paddock area to see if I could get the finish, which at that time hadn’t been released. Walter Johnston from the JAM was there. He told me to wait and drive around like he would. Forget that noise.

On the way out to Missouri, I ran into Eric Beers. I asked him, “What happened to cause your spin?” Eric responded, “I got “True Valued”. The kid in the #09 there came back from his broken wrist about two weeks too early. [Expletive deleted] ignorant. You know he almost wrecked three or four times in the first twenty laps because he was out of control. We end up catching up to him. We started I don’t know twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, [twenty-third] whatever. We got all the way up to eighth. We ended up passing him on a restart. We go down into the third turn. Me and Matt Hirschman were running right together getting into the corner. He [Grigas] was right behind me. I was right behind Sylvester getting in to the turn and the kid in the #09 just over drove it into the corner and just drove into us and spun us out. He’s not ready to race this series. That’s obvious. Hopefully, he’ll learn from this and go back to the True Value Series and stay there for a few years until he learns what he’s doing.”

I went out the back door at Thompson and ran down I-395. I got to the boat just in time to keep my reservation. This story started coming to fruition on the cruise home.

What did we figure out? We saw TC throw away any real chance of catching Mike Stefanik for the title. We saw JBIII have another great run punctuated by a wrecked racecar. We saw enough cautions that free passes kept thirteen drivers on the lead lap. We saw a rascally old veteran pull into Victory Lane much to the crowd’s delight. We saw Jimmy Blewett use patience and bring home runner-up finishes in the WMT and Sunoco Modified races. We heard drivers who were quite upset.

Mike Stefanik needs merely to start the race on October 28th to secure his seventh WMT title and ninth NASCAR championship. Congratulations to crew chief, Sly Szaban, owner, Eric Sanderson and the rest of the Flamingo racing team in advance. This will mean that Stefanik will have won the title in the last five seasons where he has participated in each of the races.

Also congratulations are in order for our own Howie and Mary Hodge on winning the Sonny “King” Richards award. This award is given annually to the person or persons that best represent the ideals of Modified Tour racing. Howie and Mary won by a landslide and I didn’t even stuff the ballot box.

The North-South Shootout is not too far off over the horizon. For those who might be interested in flying down, jetBlue offers competitive rates out of many local airports to Charlotte. For further information about the Shootout visit http://www.ccracingsouvenirs.com/nss/.

Good luck to all of those who are heading to OktoberFest at Lee USA Speedway. We will probably be doing Live Updates from Southern National Speedway on Saturday night with Charli B. If there is anyone who would like to call in Updates from the TVMRS race Sunday at Lee, feel free to shoot me an email so we can make arrangements. Otherwise I’ll be looking forward to seeing everyone at Stafford on the 28th to finish the Fall Final.