Stafford Motor Speedway, Stafford Springs, Ct.
Jon McKennedy of Chelmsford, MA came back from a heat race parts failure to best a field of 20 MTS modifieds in the inaugural Modified Touring Series 125 at the Stafford Motor Speedway.
On the redraw of starting position for the top ten heat finishers Ryan Preece of Berlin, CT drew a fifth place starting spot but moved quickly to the front by lap 6 and looked to be on his way to his third MTS victory while McKennedy shot through the field finding himself trailing only Pree
ce and Chris Pasteryak of Lisbon, CT until the mandatory pit stop on lap 40. Officials mandated fuel only on the stop.
ce and Chris Pasteryak of Lisbon, CT until the mandatory pit stop on lap 40. Officials mandated fuel only on the stop.
By lap 84 McKennedy found the power to get by Pasteryak and the duel was on between Preece and McKennedy. Preece shut the door lap after lap until with a handful of circuits to go, McKennedy made the pass pay off and held Preece at bay for the final 2 laps to claim the MTS hardware.
"We had a great car tonight, we came from the back twice, probably passed about 40 cars. Ryan was tough there at the end, with about 30 laps to go we were nose to tail, I could see him starting to get free, it was tricky. I was trying to time it right off turn 2 to get a big run into 3 , it all worked out with a nice clean pass. Big thanks to my crew. We had an A frame break in the heat race, we ended up rebuilding the whole front end and that put us behind plus we had to start 19th. Its great to be here at Stafford with a win".
Preece led a majority of the feature but couldn't hold off the hard charging McKennedy and had to settle from the runner up position.
"Really happy with the car. Something seemed to break at lap 80 or so and I just started cranking rear break in. I'm curious to find out what happened to the car, but we're differently happy, we had a really good car tonight and Jon did too, it was a fight on 4 wheel drive there at the end. We're going to go through the car to see what happened".
Starting 10th the smooth driving style of Chris Pasteryak had him in 5th place by lap 5, second by lap 25 and leading on lap 78 but just didn't have enough to keep McKennedy and Preece from getting by him and finished third on the podium.
"I'm sure it was an exciting pass for the lead, I just wasnt close enough to see it. They (McKennedy & Preece) were in another zip code, but we got some ideas for next time and will work on it, and come back a little bit stronger. We weren't close but were better than everyone else...except Jon and Ryan.
Eric Goodale and Ryan Preece were heat winners.
Summary.
Margin of Victory---0.618
Best Lap by---6-Ryan Preece
Total Time---1:23:12.546
Unofficial Finish
1---29-Jon McKennedy
2---6-Ryan Preece
3---15ct-Chris Pasteryak
4---99-Richard Savary
5---57-Keith Rocco
6---52-Woody Pitkat
7---0-Mike Holdridge
8---M6-Dylan Kopec
9---21-Les Hinckley
10--00-Ted Christopher
11--4-Jeff Gallup
12--35-Andrew Molleur
13--58-Eric Goodale
14--15nh-T.J.Bleau
15--25-Rowan Pennink
16--50-Carl Medieros Jr.
17--43-Kirk Alexander
18--69-Carlos Gray
19--9-Tommy Barrett Jr.
20--6ma.-Sam Rameau
Next Event-Seekonk Speedway, Seekonk,Mass. June 10th
by Story by Jim Snape
Photos by Simply the Best,Crystal Snape
No comments:
Post a Comment