RETRIBUTION FOR SHERWOOD AS HE GARNERS HIS FIRST OSWEGO FEATURE WITH A THRILLING DRIVE FROM THE REAR
BY JR KENNERUP ( RoC MEDIA )
Oswego, NY…  Last August Lee Sherwood of Hillcrest, NY was seven laps away from his first career Oswego feature win until he ran out of gas. This past Sunday in the Gater Racing News / Parts Plus Auto Stores sponsored Open Wheel Extravaganza. Sherwood finally had things go his way for once in the 75 lap Race of Champions ( RoC ) Asphalt Modified Central Region feature.
Sherwood took advantage of a bobble by leader Sege Fidanza entering turn one with four laps to go. That bobble was enough for Lee to take the lead while the top three cars raced in heavy lap traffic. On the final lap Sherwood split two lap cars coming out of turn two and that move was just enough for Sherwood to capture his first ever Oswego Speedway feature. Eric Beers who pitted for two fresh rear tires on lap 41 chased Sherwood across the line in second with a disappointed Fidanza dropping back to third. Wilbur Hebing driving the Kenny Troyer owned car ended up fourth with Earl Paules making a last lap, last turn pass to capture fifth at the checkers.
“ Yea we got it ( a feature win at Oswego ) the car ( Troyer ) was great “ said the smiling Lee Sherwood. “ We’ve had a good car here for the last couple of years and we haven’t been able to put it all together. I knew we were capable of winning and I even thought we could win it from the back. There’s a lot of tough racecars out there as you can never really think you can get to the front immediately. The car was just great as it was getting into and through the middle of the turn so good, it made it very easy to drive. “
Lee started in 19th position and the former multi time track champion at the now closed Tioga Motorsports Park was taking his time coming up through the field. But on lap seven with Lee in 14th position his race was nearly over with as a multi car turn one spin happened right in front of him. “ I really didn’t think we hurt anything when we spun “ said Lee. “ I slowed down for the caution and got popped from behind and all it did was turn me down into the inside wall. I hit the wall with the front bumper and I know I didn’t hit any of the tires. The guys on the pit crew said that all that was done was the front bumper was pushed in and we were good to go. I didn’t want to give up anymore track position so that is why I didn’t pit and that was our game plan right from the start not to pit unless we had to. “
After the spin Lee immediately moved to the rarely used outside groove and this enabled the veteran driver to pick off his competition one by one as he worked his way to the front. “ The car was really good getting in the corner “ summed the driver who cashed a $2,800 first place check. “ I could gain a lot of ground getting in the corner cause I had the whole race track to use. It seemed like our car was turning better in the middle of the corner than the other cars. A lot of the cars coming up through and even the top five cars when I got to them were tight in the middle of the turns because of the race track being so green. I didn’t worry too much about going to the top because all those guys I was racing with were good drivers and they were only going to go as hard as their cars would allow them, it all worked out fine. “
The driver of the Vic Hooker / Gary’s U - Pull - It sponsored car entered the top five quietly on lap 42. Sherwood then drew attention with outside passes for fourth and third on laps 44 and 47 respectively.  Sherwood made up a full straightaway in just ten laps as he motored around Dave Wollaber for second on lap 57 and then set sail for the leader Fidanza. With Fidanza entering heavy lap traffic on lap 68 Sherwood closed in on the back bumper of Fidanza.
“ Honestly I was thinking it was my chance, probably my only chance “ said Lee about being on the back bumper of Sege and in heavy lap traffic. “ His car was going away as I had a pretty good view of him there for a few laps. As he was slipping up the race track more and more each passing lap, I knew his tires were going away. Honestly it took me so long to run him down I used up some of my tires and I really didn’t know if there was anything I could do with him once I got there. Then we came up on the lap traffic and I kind of figured that was going to be my shot if I was ever going to have one. “
When Fidanza slipped up the track in turn one just after completing lap 71 Sherwood now with Beers on his back bumper moved underneath for the lead. “ Luckily most of the lap cars got down on the bottom “ recalled Lee. “ Their spotters must have told them that the leaders were coming and most of them were gentlemen about it. It was a little bit exciting up there and it all worked out ok. “
With less than a lap remaining and who was going to win still in doubt Sherwood made a daring up the middle pass between two lap cars exiting turn two to finally clear lap traffic that had bottled him up for two laps. Lee was asked what his feeling was after making the move and winning the race? “ Relief actually and all the wheels were still on it and we finally won one after all those years trying to win one here, I was pretty happy. “
It turned out to be a very good day for the Sherwood Family. “ My older son Bryan won the Microd feature today at Southern Tier today and my younger son Stephen races in the same class as Bryan and he ended up fourth today in his first race in that class. Pretty good day all around. “
“ We stopped there just past halfway to change tires because we had two left that we got by running the B Main “ said second place finisher Eric Beers. “ We weren’t going to win the way the car was before the pit stop as we had too much stagger. We were a little bit too free in the middle of the corners and I think we probably would have gotten to fifth and that would have been it. “
So on lap 41 when Chuck Hossfeld made contact with the outside turn three wall Beers pitted for the two fresh Hoosier tires. After pitting and returning Beers found himself using his customary Oswego outside groove. “ There wasn’t much of a top due to the track being green yet and the bottom had a lot of grip and the guys weren’t coming up off the bottom so you have to go around them. “
Eric who started 26th spoke about running the top groove. “ You had to really ease the car into the turn and stay as tight against the guys under you as you could. Because there wasn’t a whole lot out there, then we passed a few guys and got more and more confident out there that we could stick. “
Without the aid of a yellow after lap 41 Eric entered the top five with only 12 laps to go and he was literally a rocket coming to the front of the field. “ One caution there at the end would have played right into our favor “ said Eric. “ We wouldn’t had to chase everybody as we would have had them all bunched up and it would have been easier to pass them for sure. “
With Fidanza and Sherwood mired in heavy lap traffic from lap 69 on Beers reeled the leading duo in. “ I liked seeing it ( lap traffic ) “ said Beers. “ It made me catch them faster, but then when we got there they weren’t moving over and giving us room to race. If the lap cars are in one lane and the leader is in the other lane there is no where to pass him. I was at their mercy until the last lap ( when he cleared lap traffic ) and then it was too late. I got to here ( turn two ) and cleared lap traffic but by then it was over. “
“ Yea it was a tough one to lose “ said Super Sege Fidanza, who started second. “ We were getting tighter and tighter so we had to slow a lot going into the corners. But there was a car going down the back straightaway and I don’t know which car it was, but it was leaking water. We got in it down here ( turn three on lap 70 ), I thought it would be good down here ( turn one lap 71 ), he must have been dropping too much. It just got away from me as I was entering the corner and those two guys got past me. “
After two tries Fidanza took the lead on the start and at times opened up a huge lead over the rest of the field. Asked if this hard run early on cost him the race? Sege answered, “ I wasn’t running real hard. I had a push the whole race and the push got worse, usually you wear the right rear off and you get loose and that didn’t happen this time. “
Qualifying for the talented 39 car field saw heat races won by Tom McGrath, Zack Sylvester, Daren Scherer, Tommy Cloce, and Billy Putney, while the twin B mains were won by Hebing and Paules.
STEEL PALACE RoC NOTES; The quality and talent of the division is starting to show as some hot shoes were forced to qualify through one of the B Mains. These drivers were Hebing, Paules, Beers, Pete Brittain, and Matt Hirschman. Paules battled transmission problems all afternoon long as he had no third gear. If Paules hadn’t come to a complete stop in the lap seven melee who knows what the outcome would have been. The same lap seven melee cost good finishes for Chuck Hossfeld, Putney, McGrath, Sylvester, and Zane Zeiner. Meanwhile a turn three brake check on lap 32 by Bobby Holmes who was second at time forced Tommy Cloce who was running a strong third to take evasive action. The action wasn’t good as Cloce made hard contact with the inside turn four wall ending his great run. Doug Reaume had a rough day keeping the right front tire inflated as in both the heat and B Main he suffered a flat. Hossfeld was running the Hillbilly Racing owned entry that is housed in North Carolina and Chuck runs for this team on the Whelen Tour. Zane Zeiner changed numbers this year with new sponsor Martinelli Motorsports paying the bills. Josh Nichols had an interesting weekend. Josh is the son of former Modified standout Dave was running a former George Kent car that had won the last two RoC’s that George drove at Oswego. Josh crashed in hot laps on Saturday and then on Sunday got into the homestretch wall in his heat doing significant damage. However the crew led by Dave and George got the car back together and by finishing one spot out of a transfer spot in the B Main. Josh had an opportunity to do a provisional buy in for the feature and he took that choice, Phil Slater took the other provisional. Oswego management did a nice touch by paying half of the $200 provisional for both drivers. Defending RoC Champion Matt Hirschman racing with the same car he ran last year. This year Matt will run limited RoC shows in his self owned car. Kory Rabenold who has been going great guns so far this year at Mahoning Valley got into the wall during a B Main ending his day. Ben Reynolds lost an engine in hot laps while Jan Leaty had the rear end seize up during hot laps, both drivers were done for the day after their respective problems. RoC would like to send the best out to Fred Somers who will be moving to Boston soon and going into non - racing business ventures, Fred was let go by Lake Erie this past week.
RACE OF CHAMPIONS ASPHALT MODIFIED TOUR CENTRAL REGION RACE 1 REPORT
Finish; Lee Sherwood, Eric Beers, Sege Fidanza, Wilbur Hebing, Earl Paules, Dave Wollaber, TJ Potrzebowski, Rusty Smith, Pete Brittain, Alex Hoag, Bobby Holmes, Bill Mislin, Phil Slater, Daren Scherer, Wes Swartout, Tommy Kinsella, John Markovic, Billy Putney, Chuck Hossfeld, Zack Sylvester, Matt Hirschman, Tommy Cloce, Tom McGrath, Zane Zeiner, Josh Nichols, Ryan Preece, Rick Kluth, Bill Chandler, Sr.
DNQ’S; Larry Fisher, Kory Rabenold, Chuck Frisbee, Ben Reynolds, Chaz Surman, Ken Canestrari, John Hellmers, Doug Reaume, Mike Leaty, Jan Leaty, Chris Finocchario.
LAP LEADERS; Fidanza ( 1 - 71 ), Sherwood ( 72 - 75 )
SUNOCO RACE FUELS AWARD ; Reaume
GATER RACING NEWS $500 DRIVER BONUS DRAW; Scherer
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD CHARGER AWARD; Beers ( 26th to 2nd )
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD LUCK AWARD; Cloce ( 4th to 22nd )
NEXT RoC RACE; Saturday May 27th - North Region Race 1 at Oswego - Richie Evans Memorial