ANOTHER WILD RoC FINISH SEES HOLMES CAPTURE FIRECRACKER 75 AT LANCASTER
BY JR KENNERUP
Lancaster, NY .. What is becoming the trend of late on the Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour is the race is never over until the checker flag officially drops. At the Lancaster Motorsports Park on Saturday night that was certainly the case as it appeared that Dave Wollaber was going to be the winner. But with Dave entering the third turn on the final lap the yellow came out for the spun car of Karl Hehr in turn one. This meant that a green, white, and checker finish would take place according to the rules of the RoC.
Act two to finish the race saw Wollaber being passed by the high flying Tom McGrath for the lead with an inside turn two pass. However after taking the white flag and entering turn two contact between McGrath and Wollaber found the yellow coming out once again for the spun car of McGrath. Once again a green, white, and checker finish would take place and this time with Bobby Holmes in the lead.
The third time to finish the race would be the charm as Holmes led the final two laps with ease to claim his first career RoC feature. Early race leader Billy Putney came back from a scrape with the outside backstretch wall with two laps to go to inch past Mike Leaty for second. Daren Scherer ran the entire race without pitting and wound up with a fourth, which is his career best RoC finish. Chuck Hossfeld driving the Jerry Gradl Motors entry that he won the Sunoco Race of Champions with last fall ended up fifth.
“ We had the pit strategy figured out one week ago “ said the Lockport, NY driver. “ Mr. Rudolph, Charlie and Jim both said come in at lap 20, hopefully be one of the few that come in at that time. Try getting past every one coming back up through the field and then at the end try and hold everyone else off who pitted after me. We got up to third as that was the best we could do then we got lucky with that caution late. Then with the scramble with McGrath and Wollaber, we were both good and lucky on this night. “
The pit strategy worked perfectly for Holmes who started 18th as the yellow came out on lap 21, just one lap after the original plan. Bobby then worked his way through the field and after a majority of the leaders pitted on lap 43 Bobby found himself back in fourth.
After Bobby got back into fourth he spent the next 18 laps in a fierce side by side battle with Matt Hirschman for third. Bobby spoke about this battle which almost ended up costing him the race. “ It’s always a pleasure to race with Matt “ said the $2,800 winner. “ His father Tony is great, Matt is great to race with. Hopefully we’ll be racing together a lot more in the future. We had great racing going on as I was rubbing him and he was rubbing me, it was racing. I always look forward to racing with Matt Hirschman because you know that he’ll race you clean. “
Bobby spoke about the help that Charlie and Jim Rudolph has given to his DeLange Racing team. “ Charlie and Jim they came down to the shop during the week and helped us go through the setup. With their help we found out that there was a bar bent from last week and we couldn’t figure it out, but with their help we figured it out. Both of them are genius when it comes to racing and I can’t thank both of them enough along with my crew and my mom and dad. “
One year ago Bobby was running in the SST division until he got the call to fill the seat in the vacant DeLange Racing entry that used to belong to Chuck Hossfeld. “ Looking back one year ago I never thought I would be where I am now. I was racing in a Sportsman and Dave DeLange came up and said he wanted to put me in a Modified. The chips fell right and I can’t thank Dave and Laura enough for putting me in the car and giving me the chance as without question this is the biggest win of my career. “
Billy Putney who nipped Mike Leaty at the line for second led the race during the middle stages. But Putney had a little lady luck on his side as he found himself in a spin which resulted in hard contact with the backstretch wall on lap 73. However with the yellow already being out for the spun Tom McGrath, Putney was able to regain his spot. Over the final two laps Putney rocketed from sixth to finish second.
“ I was just trying to hold my position and make sure if anyone scattered in front of me I could go to the bottom. That‘s what happened and when I went to the bottom I got into the wet stuff, where the cars weren’t running and next thing you know I’m in the wall. “ said Billy when explaining what happened.
“ In hindsight looking back, yes I pitted too late. There was a 15 to 20 lap stint there when we were leading that we wanted the caution in the middle of that stint, not at the end like it happened “ said Billy. “ Things might have gone our way if that happened but Bobby Holmes was running strong as were a few other cars up front. We did our thing and second’s good enough for tonight, I’m satisfied. “
Mike Leaty who won the first North Region race at Oswego in May ended up third with a car he felt like had enough to win on this night. “ I had a car that could have won the race, I was probably a fifth place car until they started wrecking in front of me. Unfortunately under yellow I tried passing Billy Mislin ( lap 73 ) and he didn’t know I was out there and ran me into the backstretch wall. I got about an inch of tow in and if that didn’t happen I think I had something for Bobby. This is only the second time I’ve raced here and I tried to save my right rear for the last ten laps and to come away with a top three, that is something to be proud of. “
Qualifying for the 28 Modifieds in attendance saw heat races won by Jan Leaty, Rick Kluth, Hirschman, and Wollaber. There was no B Main run due to time constraints because of incoming severe weather.
FIRECRACKER 75 NOTES; Jim Reid and his staff at Lancaster deserve some credit for pushing the show along to beat the weather as the Modified feature was checkered at 9:30 Saturday night. The feature redraw was held in the concession area to save time and it worked as only a light shower hit the speedway during the feature. The day started out on a sour note for Daren Scherer as he found himself in the turn four wall during hot laps when the left front wheel fell off. It seemed that the lug nuts were never tightened and why he didn’t pit in the feature was that he only had one crewman with him for the show. Karl Hehr had ignition troubles forcing him to miss a part of the hot laps. Phil Slater wasn’t sure that he was going to make the show due to flooding around the shop where he stores his cars. But at three in the afternoon on Friday Phil was able to get in and get the car ready to race on this night. Fans are very passionate about Modified racing at Lancaster and two examples of this happened to Lee Sherwood on this night. Coming into the track Lee had a fan present him with a brand new tire saying thanks for making the trip from Binghamton to Lancaster every time the Modifieds raced during the last two years. During the racing program Lee had a local garage owner come up to him and offer the garage to Lee is he ever needed it for the car while he is racing at the track. The awful season for Zane Zeiner on the RoC Tour continued. Due to roads being closed because of the flooding in their home area the normal five hour trip from Bath, Pennsylvania to Lancaster, NY actually took eight hours total. At the track things didn’t get much better as the engine let out a large bang when it was first started. The culprit was that the timing on the engine was way off and after it was repaired Zane was able to hot lap. After hot laps Zane reported that it felt like the motor dropped a cylinder with the problem being diagnosed as the balancers on the front of the motor were broke. Zane and his crew loaded up and left the track before the feature started, ending a very frustrating day for sure. Eric Beers and Earl Paules both had nice comebacks after being involved in the first lap feature wreck to finish seventh and eighth respectively. Once again Kevin Lewis in the second Rick Kluth entry.
RACE REPORT RACE OF CHAMPIONS ASPHALT MODIFIED TOUR NORTH REGION RACE #3
FINISH; Bobby Holmes, Billy Putney, Mike Leaty, Daren Scherer, Chuck Hossfeld, Matt Hirschman, Eric Beers, Earl Paules, Sege Fidanza, Lee Sherwood, Jan Leaty, Pete Brittain, Rick Kluth, John Markovic, Kory Rabenold, Phil Slater, Rusty Smith, Bill Hebing, Ben Reynolds, Todd Smith, Karl Hehr, Dave Wollaber, Tom McGrath, Bill Mislin, Chuck Frisbee, Larry Jackson, Kevin Lewis. DNS; Zane Zeiner.
LAP LEADERS; Wollaber ( 1 - 28, 44 - 73 ) , Putney ( 29 - 43 ), Holmes ( 74 - 75 )
SUNOCO RACE FUELS AWARD; Slater
GATER RACING DRIVER BONUS DRAW $500; M. Leaty
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD CHARGER AWARD; Holmes ( 18th to 1st )
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD LUCK AWARD; Wollaber ( 1st to 22nd )
NEXT RoC RACE; Sunday July 9th - Chemung Speedrome - North Region Race #4