Speedbowl – After massive wreck, Cassidy, Canfield recover
WATERFORD — Their Mini Stocks looked more like corpses than race cars.
Ken Cassidy’s No. 11 Mini Stock was totally destroyed after he flipped
his car over on the first lap of the 25-lap feature at the New
London-Waterford Speedbowl.
Charles Canfield, meanwhile, was involved in the same altercation.. His
No. 25 Mini Stock had the entire right side torn off.
That was Saturday. Less than one week later, both drivers plan on
returning with the same cars that were involved in the first-lap
demolition.
“The car might not be pretty, but we plan on being back,” said Cassidy,
a five-time champion and the division’s all-time win leader. “Just as
long as we have no further hiccups, we’ll be there.”
“We’re going to come back even stronger, maybe even better,” said
Canfield, the current Mini-Stock champ. “We’re going to have to play
some catch-up in the standings. But last year we were trailing by 15
points and we wound up winning by one. There’s no reason we can’t do it
again.”
The two drivers have had busy weeks.
“We’ve have been cranking on the car all week,” Cassidy said. “We’ve had
the car on the frame machine. We also had some damage to the motor when
we hit the wall. “
“That was the hardest hit I’ve ever been involved in during my entire
racing career, I had a beautiful car, and in less than one lap, it
turned into a pile of junk.”
Canfield’s crew, meanwhile, had to replace mounting brackets, half of
the front clip, the radiator and the right-front suspension.
“We could have brought my back-up car for this week, but I like this car
better,” Canfield said. “I had faith in my crew that we could bring it
back. We had to overlook some of the little things on the car just so we
could make it.”
Fellow competitors offered Cassidy rides for Saturday night, but hew
opted to repair “The Mighty 11.”
Doug Curry offered me his back-up car, Christopher Ivory offered me his
back-up car and other drivers offered me rides,” Cassidy said. “But God
forbid if something happened again when I was driving someone else’s
car. I don’t want to be that guy.”
Canfield and Cassidy are still trying to figure out what happened on
that fatal first lap.
“Jake Christian’s No. 59 got in front of me and turned around, and I had
nowhere to go,” Canfield said. “The 59 wound up being my brake. Everyone
else was on the gas and it wound up being a mess. It was one of those
incidents that can happen,”
Cassidy, meanwhile, blamed it on impatient drivers trying to win the
race on the first lap.
“It was three wide in front of me, so I checked up and Nathan Taylor ran
into the back of my car,” Cassidy said. “I hit the wall so hard that my
back end was up in the air, and I got hit again. That’s when I flipped
it over.”
While their cars looked like natural disasters, neither Canfield nor
Cassidy considered throwing in the towel. Determination outweighed the
frustration.
“We’re going to be ready to go, no matter what,” Canfield said. “I had
help from people like the Norman Brothers to get us going. “We are just
about bundled up and ready to race.”
Cassidy was just as focused.
“We don’t give up,” Cassidy said. “It was a long week, and an expensive
week, But I have too many good people, too many sponsors and too many
friends that I didn’t want to let down. If it wasn’t for them, I might
have said the heck with it. But I received more than 200 phone calls and
Facebook texts. That type of support makes me want to get back to
victory lane like we used to.”
On May 25, their cars were in the obituary page. One week later, both
Cassidy and Canfield hope to be in the headlines.
Speedbowl notebook:
The Mini-Stocks will be just one layer of a special night of motor
sports scheduled for Saturday at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl,
involving cars from all walks of life.
The action starts with the first “Spectator Drags” event if the season.
Interested competitors can bring their street cars to participate in
one-lap elimination races until a champ is determined…The night’s final
event Saturday will be a Mid-Size Compact Car Enduro, which should be
one of the most action packed events of the season. In between the drags
and the Enduros, the Modifieds will be featured in a 40-lap event, the
Sportsman will be in a 25-lap race, the Legends will go for 25 laps and
the Vintage Open Modifieds will hit the track for the first time this
year.
The drag racing is scheduled for 4:30 p.m., followed by qualifying at 5
p.m. The opening ceremonies will follow qualifying…. Brody’s Seafood
Market and Deli of Norwich will be selling clam fritters and clam
chowder under the hospitality tent from 3 to 6 p.m…. The Modified
division is the only Speedbowl division that has not seen feature action
in 2018. The Modifieds were rained out on May 6, May 12 and May 19.
