RYAN POSOCCO TAKES HOME FIFTH CAREER LATE MODEL TRACK CHAMPIONSHIP AT
STAFFORD SPEEDWAY
(Stafford Springs, CT)—While Ryan Posocco locked up his fifth career Late
Model track championship this past Sunday at Stafford Motor Speedway, it was
not without some close calls during the final race of the season as Posocco
tried to keep pace with Woody Pitkat. First Posocco had to dodge several
incidents that happened directly in front of him and then he had to contend
with a car that wasn’t quite coming up to speed on restarts.
“There wasn’t much anxiety leading up to the race, we knew what we had to
do,” said Posocco. “It was crazy out there [the last race.] Woody got buy
us pretty quick at the start of the race and then I just tried to follow him
through. I knew that if I could stay on his bumper that we were good for
the championship. There was nothing today, they preached in the driver’s
meeting to respect [the championship contenders], but those guys are here to
win the race too, so you have to respect that. A couple of guys ran me
pretty clean and a couple of guys not so much. We were off all day on the
restarts, we just couldn’t get going, and it showed on that last restart how
bad we were. Corey [Hutchings] was able to get down but luckily he drifted
up the track a bit and I stuck my nose in there. We still don’t know why we
were so bad on the restarts.”
At the beginning of the year, it looked like 2010 was going to be anything
but a championship year for Posocco and the Kretschman team. They rallied
to a 9th place finish in the season opening CARQUEST Tech-Net Spring Sizzler
after hitting the turn 2 wall, but they struggled for much of the first
month before getting their first win of the season in June.
“We started off horrible in the turn 2 fence at the Sizzler,” said Posocco.
“A couple of weeks after that it still wasn’t looking good. We were able to
turn it around, I don’t know how many points we scored in the second half of
the season, but it’s probably the most points we’ve scored in the second
half in a long time. I think at one point early in the year we were as low
as 8th in the points standings. It’s funny, I was talking with Woody during
the summer about how his car tends to be better when it’s colder and our car
runs better during the summer, and that’s pretty much what ended up
happening. Woody and those guys started strong, faded a little during the
summer, and they were coming on like gangbusters at the end of the year. We
struggled at the start, picked it up during the summer, and although we won
the final Friday night race, we faded a little towards the end of the year.”
The championship is the fifth of Posocco’s Late Model career at Stafford,
and it capped off a year that was full of milestones for Posocco. Posocco
recorded his 40th career Late Model win and his 50th career victory at
Stafford this season to go along with his fifth championship.
“Personally, I don’t have words for it, this is more that I ever imagined,”
said Posocco. “We hit a bunch of milestones this year, and they say that
good things come in threes, it means the world to me. This championship is
a credit to everyone on the team and it shows just how good of a team that
we have.”
Posocco will officially be crowned the 2010 Late Model track champion at the
41st Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony on Friday,
November 19, 2010 at the La Renaissance Banquet Facility in East Windsor.
For more information, please contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track
office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.