FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ERIC BEERS WINS 2007 ROC FINALE –
EARL PAULES WINS OVERALL TITLE – KORY RABENOLD EARNS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR HONORS…
BY JR KENNERUP ( RoC ASPHALT MEDIA )
Teenager and 2006 Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour Rookie of the Year Kory Rabenold continued his long distance
race success at
The overall Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour point championship came
down to the final laps. Both Earl Paules and Pete Brittain had trying days while only being separated by
three points going into the feature. In the end the tenth place finish of Paules was good enough to earn him the championship by just
seven points over Brittain. For Paules, it was
his first ever Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour overall title.
“The good draw definitely helped“ said race winner Eric Beers of Northampton,
Pa. “Also making the top 12 in time trials to get into the redraw helped and
then the good draw makes it easier as you don’t have to pass all of the fast
cars.“ Beers a many time feature winner
at
Eric used a veteran restart tactic on each of the restarts throughout the
feature. “They ( the officials) tell you that you can start anywhere within
that line. So if you change it up by going at the line one time, before the
line the next time. The one time I did go early before the line and that was
because the car outside of me had a half a car length on me and I wasn’t going
to lose the lead over something dumb like that. That’s the race directors job
to police that and it’s my job to keep the lead.“
Eric spoke about his race battle with Kory Rabenold. “I was a little worried seeing him come up
through there, he’s pretty fast here and he gets to race here more than I do.
So he is definitely a little better than we are here and I wanted to hold my
line and keep it on the bottom, not give him anything cheap, and make him work
a little on the top. He hung there for a while and then we pulled away and we
showed we had a pretty good racecar there at the end.”
Eric spoke about the track while looking at his worn out left rear tire in the
pit area following the race. “The track really didn’t grease up like it does at
night here as it was very, very tacky today. There was a lot of grip on the
top, on the bottom, even when you went to pass lap cars you just stuck up top
when you were going around them. This late in the season you don’t expect the
track to be like that. Usually you burn the right front or right rear here,
tonight I melted a left rear. There was so much grip and when you are picking
up the throttle you’re just killing your left rear tire.“
Another key
to the win of Beers was two crew chiefs that help Eric out through the season
and he credited them with their help in the win today. Beers remarked, “I have
to give a shout out to the entire team, Kevin Crowley who helps me out down at
New Smyrna in February and in selected shows on the RoC
Tour when he can make it. My crew chief Peter Caron on the three car I drive
for BRE Racing came down today. We put our heads together and here we
are.” This was a big win for Beers, his
first on the RoC Tour in 2006. “We have a lot of
seconds and thirds this year as we couldn’t crack that victory lane. One more
caution here, one more caution there, needed another lap and so on. It feels
good to get one here as I started running Modifieds
here a couple of years back. “Eric spoke about the race. “ It’s good coming out
of here without a scratch on the car. Everyone ran a pretty decent race, there
were no big pileups, nobody driving out of control, overall it was a pretty
decent show.”
“It was real good tonight as we started 13th and worked our way up front “ said
second place finisher Kory Rabenold.
“ After working our way up front quickly what hurt us the most was Eric Beers.
He’s a veteran on the RoC Tour, he’s knows how to get
around here too, and he was pulling me good on the restarts as I couldn’t get
that extra momentum to pass him and I tried so hard that I wore out the tires
before the end of the race.”
Rabenold in his first full year of asphalt Modified
racing on the road has quite a success rate in the last five long distance
features at
Kory entered the top five on lap 21 then moved into
fourth on lap 26 and into third just three laps after that. Kory
got shuffled back to fourth on lap 47 and moved into second after the third
place car of Lou Strohl spun out the second place car
of Rusty Smith on lap 51. Rabenold lost second to
Kevin Graver, Jr. on the restart but repassed Graver
for second on lap 53 where he stayed for the remainder of the race. After
getting into second Kory had six restarts to try and
pass leader Eric Beers but couldn’t.
One problem that did hamper Rabenold was excessive
left side tire wear, which is very unusual for
Kory summed up his day by saying, “I’ll take a second
over not finishing a race any day.”
If you
looked at driver smiles after the race and didn’t know who won, you had to
figure that Billy Putney was the winner. The driver who hauled five hours from
his Buffalo, NY suburb home to Mahoning Valley made the most of his first ever
race at the track with a third place finish.
“We’re ecstatic with the end result,” said Billy who started 22nd. “ The car
was good in practice and we didn’t time as well as we would have liked. In the
heat we missed the setup a little bit but the more we kept tuning on it the
more the car kept coming to us and it got just a little too tight at the end and
I couldn’t hang with the top front runners.”
Putney raced cleanly at the start and pitted twice for tire changes on lap 46.
Using the outside groove with success Putney rocketed into fifth on lap 59 and
with 30 laps to go moved into fourth. Once again using the high line Putney
impressive moved into third on lap 75 and was on the leaders back bumper when
the car tightened up with 15 laps to go.
“To come out of here with the car in one piece, with a top three, I never
expected it, and we’re tickled to death. We’ve had a tough combination series
as we wrecked in the other two races on tracks where I would have thought they
were our good tracks. Not knowing what to expect coming here and to get a
third. I woke up this morning and didn’t even want to come down here, but we
did because we had to. It’s a racy little track, it’s fun to drive here and I’m
glad we came now.”
Qualifying for the stout 40 car Modified field saw Tom Shupp
set a new one lap track record in Modified time trials with a 9. 734 lap
breaking the old one lap track record set by Rick Kirkendall
of 9. 747. Heat races were captured by Rabenold,
Tommy Flanagan III, Bill Teel, and John Markovic,
while the B Mains were won by Scott Lesher and Rick Kluth.
MAHONING NOTES… RoC along with the racing teams would
like to thank Doug and Gena Hoffman and the track
staff for running off the show in a very timely manner on a very brisk late
October afternoon..The top 25 in time trials all set
a blistering pace and were under the 10 second lap mark…Don “Chowder“ Bauder drove the backup John Markovic
machine on this day… Amanda Sesley had the engine let
go in her primary Troxell Modified ride and she then
drove the backup for the remainder of the show. Terry Zacharias
was slated to drive the Mr. Jim 71 car from the Zacharias
Racing stables but elected not to as that car was used as a backup for Pete Brittain… Tony Hanbury was
driving the Daryl Lewis, Jr. car on this day. Bill Teel came out of retirement
to drive the second Lesher Racing entry on this day
and looked liked he never lost a step with an impressive heat race win…Eric Kocher made a return to the RoC
Tour but failed to transfer to the feature. Tom Shupp
in his first race of the year drove the car that has seen Dave Wallace behind
the wheel this year…Kevin Brown once again drove they second Wallace Racing
entry. Bobby Holmes made his first Mahoning Valley start aboard the car that
Mark Tychoniewicz usually drives…Holmes advanced up
to fourth place before a jingle sent him to the pits with a bent front end…Sean
Patterson was the first car at the track in the morning and the first car to
leave after hot laps in the afternoon as he broke a flywheel on the motor…Rusty
Smith saw his continued back streak continue as he ran as high as second before
getting spun out but did manage to rally back to sixth at the end. Once again
in a time trial RoC show the top four times ( Shupp, Zeiner, Bennett, and Correll ) all received the five bonus points...Matt
Hirschman who was only 13 points out of defending his RoC
championship of a year ago saw his hopes deflate after the driveline broke
following a lap 14 spin in the feature…
The final
act of the 2006 Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour will take place with
the January 6, 2007 Banquet and Rule Meetings at the Binghamton Regency.
TOP TEN FINAL RACE OF CHAMPIONS
OVERALL POINT STANDINGS: Earl Paules (679), Pete Brittain
(669), Lee Sherwood (651), Matt Hirschman (645), Eric Beers (632), Billy Putney
(606), Jan Leaty (598), Kory
Rabenold (570), Bobby Holmes (565), John Markovic (549).
RACE REPORT - COMBINATION RACE # 3 -
MAHONING VALLEY SPEEDWAY
FINISH; Eric Beers, Kory Rabenold, Billy Putney, Lee
Sherwood, Zane Zeiner, Rusty Smith, Kevin Graver,
Jr., Scott Lesher, Glenn Correll,
Earl Paules, Daren Scherer, John Markovic,
Pete Brittain, Tommy Flanagan, III, Don Wagner, Don Dreher, Tom Shupp, Bobby Jones,
Bobby Holmes, John Bennett, Lou Strohl, CJ Jones,
Matt Wentz, Rick Kluth, Kevin Brown, Mike Quinn, Matt
Hirschman, Bill Teel.
DNQ’S:
Phil Slater, Brian DeFebo, Amanda Sesley ( 48 car ), Amanda Sesley
( 40 car ), Chowder Bauder, Rod Synder,
Jr., Tony Hanbury, Eric Kocher,
Terry Zacharias, Jarred Nace,
James Pritchard, Jr., Sean Patterson.
LAP LEADERS; Beers ( 1 - 100 )
GATER RACING NEWS $500 DRIVER BONUS DRAW:
Slater
SUNOCO RACE FUELS AWARD: Strohl, Wentz
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD CHARGER AWARD:
Putney ( 22nd to 3rd )
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD LUCK AWARD:
Brown ( 4th to 25th )
PROVISIONALS USED: Brittain, Holmes
NEXT RoC EVENT
- Saturday January 6, 2007 - Rule Meetings and Banquet -