{"id":23993,"date":"2018-09-01T13:15:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T17:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=23993"},"modified":"2018-09-01T12:16:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T16:16:23","slug":"harkin-bennett-loomis-yardley-clinch-wild-and-wacky-wednesday-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2018\/09\/harkin-bennett-loomis-yardley-clinch-wild-and-wacky-wednesday-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Harkin, Bennett, Loomis, Yardley clinch Wild and Wacky Wednesday titles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Harkin, Bennett, Loomis, Yardley clinch Wild and Wacky Wednesday titles<\/strong><\/p>\n

WATERFORD \u2014 Three contenders became champions Wednesday night in the season finale of Wild and Wacky Wednesday at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl.<\/p>\n

Maddie Harkin, in the Bandeleros, Dave Yardley, in the Super X-Cars, and Peter Bennett, in the Legends, each did what they needed to do in order to lock down their first Speedbowl titles. <\/p>\n

Eddie Loomis, meanwhile, had already wrapped up the X-Car championship, but left no doubts about his dominating season when he rolled to a win in the final race of the year.
\n\u201cI\u2019m just so happy,\u201d Loomis said. \u201cThis is my first title. If I wasn\u2019t for my dad and my brother helping me, we couldn\u2019t have done it. The car handled awesomely tonight. I\u2019m just glad to be up here. This means a lot.\u201d
\nLoomis grabbed the lead from Bill Rheaume early in the race and led by a cozy margin the rest of the way. Wayne Shifflett, who started deep in the field, finished third.
\nAlthough John O\u2019Sullivan III came 25 points short of winning a championship, he did tie for most wins in the division with five. He was at his dominating best Wednesday when he screeched into the lead early against Mason Levesque and rampaged his way into a lengthy lead.
\nBennett moved into second, but did not have enough ammunition to shoot down O\u2019Sullivan.
\n\u201cJohn had the faster car tonight,\u201d Bennett said, \u201cthere was no question about that. I was a little conservative tonight, but you have to give the credit to John.\u201d
\nBennett came out as the big winner, however, when he took the green flag and wrapped up his first Speedbowl title.
\n\u201cThis means a lot,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cThis was our goal this year, to win the Wednesday and Saturday night titles. And we never lost track of that goal.\u201d
\nBennett leads by 22 points in his battle for the Saturday Legends crown.
\nDave \u201cthe Wolfman\u201d Yardley finished third in the Super X-car feature, but he was still howling at the finish. That\u2019s because he put the padlock on the Super-X car title.
\n\u201cI was expecting to do well this year, but the car wasn\u2019t right until the last three weeks of the season,\u201d Yardley said. \u201cI was lucky to get the first two wins this year. And then my car kept getting faster and faster.\u201d
\nThe fastest on Wednesday was Ed Ryan Jr., who wrestled the lead from Marc \u201cThe Shaft\u201d Shafer and held on for his third win of the season.
\n\u201c\u201dThe first time I went to the outside , Shaft had me,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cBut the second time, I was able to get the advantage.\u201d
\nHarkin has the advantage in the first Bandolero feature as she carved her way to a division leading fifth win.
\n\u201cYou just have to be patient and it will come to you,\u201d Harkin said. \u201cI have a fast car, I just have to wait for it to come in. \u201c
\nIn the second race, P.J. Evans was in control from start to finish on his way to his third win.
\n\u201cI feel good,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThis car is definitely getting faster. My dad gave me a car good enough to get my third win.\u201d
\nHarking, however, was able to celebrate a championship.
\n\u201cIt was a tough year,\u201d Harkin said. \u201cWe had to deal with a lot of stuff all season long. I\u2019m just glad it\u2019s over.\u201d
\nThe champs will be crowned at the annual Wild at Wacky Banquet scheduled for Sept. 18 at the Speedbowl. Ticket information is available at the track web site, www.speedbowlct.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harkin, Bennett, Loomis, Yardley clinch Wild and Wacky Wednesday titles WATERFORD \u2014 Three contenders became champions Wednesday night in the season finale of Wild and Wacky Wednesday at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl. Maddie Harkin, in the Bandeleros, Dave Yardley, in the Super X-Cars, and Peter Bennett, in the Legends, each did what they needed to […]<\/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-23993","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\/23993","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=23993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23994,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23993\/revisions\/23994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}