{"id":23871,"date":"2018-08-10T20:44:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-11T00:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=23871"},"modified":"2018-08-10T20:44:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T00:44:55","slug":"14-year-veteran-pantani-has-moment-of-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2018\/08\/14-year-veteran-pantani-has-moment-of-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"14-year veteran Pantani has moment of glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"14-year veteran Pantani has moment of glory<\/strong><\/p>\n

WATERFORD \u2014 Dennis Pantani has two career Legends wins at New London-Waterford Speedbowl, but he says the latest victory he captured Wednesday stands out.
\n\u201cIt was sweet because we had to pass some cars to do it,\u201d said Pantani who dropped as far back as sixth place before he made his charge to the front. \u201cWhen I won seven years ago, I was in fifth place, and then the four cars in front of me wrecked and I moved up to first. It was a win by circumstance. The win I got Wednesday night I really had to earn. This was a different caliber of winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the start of the race, Pantani, who started fourth, got bottled up in traffic and fell to sixth. That\u2019s when he began his power surge to the front.
\n\u201cThe first driver I got by was Mason Levesque,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cHe kind of washed up the track and I dove underneath him,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cWe banged a bit. But I consider myself a clean racer. It was nothing intentional.<\/p>\n

Then he got past Anthony Bello before challenging Colin Haley for the lead.
\n\u201cI consider his car to be my equal, or maybe a little better,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cHe got loose, and I got underneath him and I got the lead.
\n\u201cAfter that, it was run for all I got.\u201d
\nIt tuned out that he had enough firepower to hold off Peter Bennett lap after lap.
\n\u201cBennett was behind me and he certainly wasn\u2019t it making it easy,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cBut he didn\u2019t pass me.\u201d
\nWith 11 laps to go, in the 25-lap feature, Haley tagged the catch fence and rode the wall for several feet, bringing out a red flag. Before the race could be resumed, it started raining and the event was red-checkered with Pantani in the lead.
\n\u201cI got turned in that incident and I spun completely around,\u201d Pantani said, \u201cbut I never stopped. I kept moving and I wasn\u2019t part of the caution. I was hoping the officials would let me keep my spot and they did.
\n\u201cMaybe Bennett would have caught me if we finished the race,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t matter. The only thing that matters id that we had a lot of fun.\u201d
\nPantani said he\u2019s made steady progress since kick-starting his Legends career 14 seasons ago.
\n\u201cFourteen years ago, we were in the back of the pack,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cAnd 10 years ago, were in the middle of the back and the pack. Then we moved to the front of the back of the pack. And finally, we moved to the middle of the front pack. It\u2019s been a great feeling to keep getting better..\u201d
\nPantani, however, says he doesn\u2019t run to put fast laps on the scoreboard and stockpile podium finishes.
\n:\u201dThis is just a hobby,\u201d Pantani said. \u201cI\u2019m 50 years old. I love coming down on Wednesdays to have a great time, And if I can put it on the trailer in one piece, it was a great night.
\n\u201cI\u2019m running with a lot of kids who want to move up to the next level. But I\u2019m having a great time just competing.\u201d
\nPantani\u2019s sponsor is his uncle, George Noble, who owns and finances his car.
\n\u201cDuring the winter, we had just like Sean Buffington and Rob Vitale look over the car and I think we picked up a two tenths of a second. And that\u2019s why this has been one of my best seasons.\u201d
\nHe\u2019s been able to win and he\u2019s also had a lot of fun. Pantani can\u2019t ask for more than that.
\nHaley update
\nColin Haley is sore, but he suffered no major injuries or broken bones following his crash in Wednesday\u2019s Legends feature. He is resting at home.
\nHis car was completely destroyed in the incident, which means it may be a long time before hr comes back as a competitor.
\nVintage winner
\nBob White won the special Vintage Midget feature. The rest of the card \u2014 the Bandoleros, X-Cars and Super X-Cars were rained out. Those features will be rescheduled.
\n25-lap Legends feature: 1. Dennis Pantani, Branford; 2. Peter Bennett, Cromwell, 3, John O\u2019Sullivan, Salem; 4. Brandon Remson, Norwalk; 5. Anthony Bello, Newtown; 6. David Lespinasse, Milford; 7. Zachary Martinez, North Kingston, RI; 8. Tyler Barry, Griswold; 9. David Shinder, West Granby; 10. Tyler Palmer, Watertown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14-year veteran Pantani has moment of glory WATERFORD \u2014 Dennis Pantani has two career Legends wins at New London-Waterford Speedbowl, but he says the latest victory he captured Wednesday stands out. \u201cIt was sweet because we had to pass some cars to do it,\u201d said Pantani who dropped as far back as sixth place before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-waterford-speedbowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23872,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23871\/revisions\/23872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}