HEFFNER USES EXPRESS LANE TO VICTORY SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE VALLEY
AUGUST 25, 2001
WEST LEBANON, NY- A cool summer night in the Valley greeted race fans on Saturday night. The fans saw J.R. Heffner grace victory lane for the second time this season in the modified division. Art Collins picked up his third win of the season in the Sportsman division, while Butch Irwin was the winner of the Pro Stock main. A special thanks to IGA SUPERMARKETS as they presented their Hometown Wheels Program along with JD HANDLING / HEAVY HAULER and T-NET Taconic Technologies for sponsoring the night's festivities.
John Alberti and Denny Soltis led the field to the start of the 30-lap modified feature. Soltis grabbed the early advantage and led the first seven laps. Heffner started the race from the third row and quickly made his way to the front. He made a pass to the inside of Soltis going into turn three to grab the lead on lap seven. Kenny Tremont started the race in 12th, but had worked his way up to third by lap five. Rich Ricci Jr started right behind Tremont in 14th and was ninth by lap six.
The first caution of the race came on lap eight when two cars came together in turn four. Something broke on Dickie Larkin’s car on the restart and the caution flag flew again with eight laps still showing on the lap counter. Under the caution Tremont was sent to the rear for jumping on the restart. That relegated him back to 25th on the grid. The top five at this point was Heffner, Matt Quinn, Soltis, Eddie Marshall and Jason Goff.
Marshall tried to get by Quinn on the restart, but could not make the pass. Goff and Tim Dwyer got hooked together on the backstretch and brought the caution out again on lap nine. Ronnie Johnson suffered a right rear flat tire and had to go pitside during the caution. Problems also for Guy Sheldon forced him to go pitside as well. Marshall got by Quinn on lap eleven and set his sights on Heffner. Bobby Varin made a rare appearance at the Valley Saturday night. He had a top ten run going before spinning out in turn one on lap 15. Ricci has worked his way up to third and began working on Marshall on lap 16.
The final caution of the race came on lap 18 when Hector Stratton came to a stop on the frontstretch. Tremont rebounded from his early race problems to grab fifth on the restart. He was able to get around Quinn for fourth, but ran out of time to catch the top three. The only thing that slowed Heffner in the final stages was lapped traffic. Heffner was able to clear the slower cars without incident and cruise home for the victory. Marshall finished second, Ricci third, Tremont fourth and Quinn rounded out the top five.
The sportsman took to the track for a 20-lap feature Saturday night. The point race in this division is extremely tight with four drivers having a shot at the championship. One of the invaders, Pat O'Hanlon led the first seven laps of the feature. A caution for debris on the speedway slowed the event for the first time on lap seven. O'Hanlon saw Art Collins along side him for the restart. Collins assumed the lead on the restart as O'Hanlon drifted back. Sparky Lowe is one of those drivers right in the championship hunt. He worked his way from deep in the pack to grab third on a lap eight restart.
Some really scary moments for Mike Mason on lap nine. He hopped the wheel of another car coming down the frontstretch and made hard contact with the outside wall. His disabled racer came to a stop right in the middle of the track and got hit by Jeff Watson. Fortunately everyone was able to walk away from the incident. Problems for Hawley Smith as the field came to the yellow flag. He made contact with Collins and the outside wall in turn four, which broke the front end of his racer bringing his night to an early end.
The rest of the race went rather incident free until one of the lapped cars got upside down in turn two. That allowed Lowe, Goewey and Bobby Knipe to close up on Collins. Lowe tried a pass on the restart, but Collins held him off for the victory. Lowe now sits on top the leader board with one race remaining, but his point lead is only six points over Knipe.
Robbie Speed, Bob Duzlak, Paul LaRochelle, Danny Sanchez, Ed Bachand, Jim Lagenback, Don Ely and Scott Govertsen all crashed on the backstretch on lap one of the 20-lap Pro Stock feature. All but one or two cars were able to return to the race. Butch Irwin started the race on the front row and held the early race lead. Irwin opened up a twenty-car length lead by lap four. Ricky Duzlak and Rob Yetman were racing hard behind Irwin for second, Duzlak held off Yetman for now. Lagenback recovered nicely from his early race problems to be fourth by lap eight.
Danny Sanchez dropped from the event on lap ten. Speed spun around and brought out the caution on lap eleven. Yetman made his way around Duzlak for second on the restart Lagenback won a three-way battle for third on lap 12. The final caution of the race came on lap 18 as LaRochelle and Bachand spun around in turn two. Yetman made several attempts on Irwin in the closing laps, but to no avail. Irwin became the 13th different winner of the season and picked up a $400 bonus from KD OFFICE WORKS. Yetman came home second Goewey third, Knipe fourth and Roy Bridge rounded out the top five.
Winners in the Pure Stock division were Jim Hankey (A), Jason Casey (B), George Miles(C) and Dave Atwater (D). Henry Warner and Ralph Hotchkiss won the Rookie features.
Next Saturday night is the final nights of points for the Modifieds, Sportsman, and Pro Stocks at the Valley. Gable Auto Sales will bring the action to us starting at 6:15.
8-25 IGA SUPERMARKETS HOMETOWN WHEELS NIGHT / J. D. HANDLING / T-NET MODIFIED RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) J.R. Heffner, 2) Eddie Marshall, 3) Rich Ricci Jr, 4) Kenny Tremont Jr, 5) Matt Quinn, 6) Donnie Corellis, 7) Tim Dwyer, 8) Denny Soltis, 9) Mike Benson, 10) Chris Moore, 11) John Alberti, 12) Bobby Varin, 13) Mike King, 14) Jason Goff, 15) Steve Devine, 16) Dave McFeeters, 17) Dave Leckonby, 18) Bobby Chalmers, 19) Craig Simmons, 20) John Tucker, 21) Hector Stratton, 22) Mark Bird, 23) Guy Sheldon, 24) Dave Mosher, 25) Ronnie Johnson, 26) Dickie Larkin, 27) Maynard Forrette, 28) Lance Harting, 29) Wes Powell
SPORTSMAN RESULTS (20 LAPS) - 1) Art Collins, 2) Sparky Lowe, 3) K.C. Goewey, 4) Bobby Knipe, 5) Roy Bridge, 6) Don Miller, 7) Lorne Browe, 8) Mike Molloy, 9) John Hotchkiss, 10) Pat O'Hanlon, 11) John Scarborough, 12) Walt McKay, 13) Joe Bennett, 14) Ed Harkin, 15) Charlie Humes, 16) Whitey Slavin, 17) Conrad Thitchner, 18) Frank Harper, 19) Dan Humes, 20) Kory Gurney, 21) Dave Tanguay, 22) Jeff Watson, 23) Mike Keeler, 24) Kent Clark, 25) Jay Casey, 26) Hawley Smith, 27) Mike Mason, 28) Ernie Palmer Jr, 29) Jason Tompkins
K. D. OFFICE WORKS $400 TO WIN PRO STOCK RESULTS (20 LAPS) - 1) Butch Irwin, 2) Rob Yetman, 3) Jim Langenback, 4) Tom Brandt, 5) Ricky Duzlak, 6) Dave Tiedman, 7) Robbie Speed, 8) Al Blackburn, 9) Joe Humet, 10) Paul LaRochelle, 11) Buddy Hencke, 12) Ed Bachand, 13) Rick Fosby, 14) Danny Sanchez, 15) Brian Keough, 16) Rick Spencer, 17) Dan Galullo, 18) Scott Govertsen, 19) Don Ely, 20) Chris Crews, 21) Bob Duzlak Jr
ROOKIE "A" RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) Henry Warner, 2) Scott Kilmer, 3) Dave Colwell, 4) Wayne Keyes, 5) Charlie Woodard, 6) Joe Mabb Jr, 7) Phil Moffit, 8) Jery Helms, 9) Dan Blackburn, 10) Jason DiBello
ROOKIE "B" RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) Ralph Hotchkiss, 2) E. J. Legeyt, 3) Chris Claus, 4) Chris DeCiel, 5) Phil Wood, 6) John Hynes, 7) Bill Hammell, 8) Don Belanger, 9) Tom Bungay, 10) John Danylieko
PURE STOCK "A" RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) Jim Hankey, 2) Rich Harkins, 3) Joe DiStefano, 4) Ron Tritschler, 5) Steve Hatch, 6) Randy Brink, 7) Michael Dianda, 8) Todd Pelkey, 9) Pierre Dupont, 10) Kevin Dolan, 11) Nick Hilt, 12) Darryl Baker, 13) Dave Hall Jr, 14) Paul Handlowich, 15) Fran Marchand Jr, 16) Jim Fachini
PURE STOCK "B" RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) Jason Casey, 2) Mark Houston, 3) D.T. Pickard, 4) Eric Sbrega, 5) Chrissy Hilt, 6) Robert Gibson, 7) Larry Megan, 8) Glenn Miller, 9) Jim O'Neil, 10) Ryan Coon, 11) Dan Crosby, 12) Bob Copeland Jr, 13) Ryan Larkin, 14) Seth Spencer, 15) Keith Barlow
PURE STOCK "C" RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) George Miles Jr, 2) Randy Myers, 3) Brian Sandstedt, 4) Jim Dellea, 5) Peter Wiegand, 6) Bob Palmer, 7) Earl Soulier Jr, 8) Wally Engel, 9) Chris Streeter, 10) Bob Burl, 11) Lee Gallant, 12) Wayne Hall, 13) Rich Douglass, 14) Bruce Moffit, 15) Joshua Brandt
PURE STOCK "D" RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1) Dave Atwater, 2) Robert Brown, 3) Jeff Douglass, 4) John Connor Jr, 5) Ron Hapeman, 6) Ronald Johnson, 7) Jay Martin, 8) Kory Sandstedt, 9) Don Coon, 10) Michael Davis, 11) Marcus Tifft, 12) Fay Fachini, 13) Gene Cushman, 14) Jamie Reutenauer, 15) Jeff Kuhnow