By Lou Modestino
The winters in Connecticut can be long, and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour offseason even longer, which is why Ron Silk and TS Haulers Racing eagerly anticipate the opportunity to hit the race track in Florida during 2013 Speedweeks.
The 2011 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champions, Silk and the No. 6 crew will participate in the inaugural UNOH Battle At The Beach on the short track Daytona International Speedway, Feb. 18-19. They’ll follow that up with by participating three nights at the World Series of Stock Car Racing at recently-NASCAR-sanctioned New Smyrna Speedway.
“We’re racers,” Silk said of the team’s motivation to head to Florida. “It’s been a long time since the [2012 season finale] World Series and we just want to get back on the race track. It’s nice to get away from the weather up here for a few days and get some racing in.”
Silk, from Norwalk, Conn., is locked into the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour feature at Daytona by virtue of his race wins during the 2012 season. Drivers that won touring series races and championships in 2012 are locked into their respective features in Daytona. All others must qualify through heat races.
Following their 2011 championship campaign, Silk and the TS Haulers team won the 2012 opener at Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway and the NASCAR Whelen Modified-Whelen Southern Modified Tours combination race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, but were not able to repeat as champions. The No. 6 team turned in a very solid attempted title defense, however, with nine top-five finishes and six races led during the 14-race schedule to finish third in the standings.
Turning the page to 2013 with championship aspirations once again, the No. 6 team will utilize the UNOH Battle At The Beach as a jumpstart to the season. They aren’t going to limit themselves to just the events at the .4-mile course at Daytona, however.
Team owner Ed Partridge has taken his TS Haulers Racing program to New Smyrna many times through the years, and they’ll return to the banked half-mile once again to compete in the Tour-Type Modified division after the UNOH Battle At The Beach.
“Ed likes to go racing – everyone on the team likes to go racing,” Silk said. “Pretty much anytime there is a race, Eddie wants to go racing in it, so that’s a lot fun.
“We’re going to go to Daytona on Monday and Tuesday, and then run Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at New Smyrna.”
Partridge’s No. 6 TS Haulers Chevrolet, with Tom Grasso returning as crew chief, is one of 22 combined entries received so far between the NASCAR Whelen Modified and Whelen Southern Modified Tours for the UNOH Battle At The Beach. Including Silk, six of those are also registered to participate in the New Smyrna World Series.
Mike Smeriglio Racing has filed two entries for Daytona. The team’s regular driver – 2003 tour titlist Todd Szegedy – will pilot the primary No. 2 Ford while Steve Park is entered as a teammate in the No. 20 Ford. Szegedy carries 17 career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victories to Daytona while Park’s résumé includes 16 tour triumphs, the last coming in 1996 before he moved on to the upper levels of NASCAR racing. Both drivers do not have locked-in positions will need to race their way into the UNOH Battle At The Beach feature through the qualifying races.
The Whelen Modified events will be just one facet of the inaugural UNOH Battle At The Beach. The NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Models will have qualifying races and a 150-lap feature on Monday, Feb. 18 while the action on Tuesday, Feb. 19 will include a similar schedule of qualifying races and 150-lap races for both the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tours and NASCAR K&N Pro Series. All three features are non-points races.
All three UNOH Battle At The Beach features will be carried live on SPEED. Further event coverage will be officially announced in the coming days.
We’ve heard that there are just 22 Modified entries thus far for the Daytona and New Smyrna Modified events. There have also been a lot of phone calls to motivate other teams to enter those races. The feeling is that there will be a least 30 entries for both tracks.Ted Christopher will drive the Brady Bunch car out of Stoughton at NSS and the Mike Boehler entry at Daytona. A second Boehler entry has been assigned to Doug Coby at Daytona. Bobby Santos of Franklin is supposed to drive the Cape Cod Construction second car while Mike Stefanik gets the Cape Cod primary entry at both tracks.
Newly appointed Race Director, Jeff Zuidema, is anticipating a brand new era of competition for both race teams and fans at Thompson International Speedway. Zuidema received his new assignment at the historic race track shortly after the first of the year and has devoted virtually all of his time to the new task at hand. Zuidema is a four-time Thompson track champion and sits 5th on the track’s all-time win list with some 52 victories.
Zuidema recently expressed thanks to the Hoenig family for their confidence in him and for the opportunity to take on this extremely important job. He has spent endless hours talking with race teams about the 2013 racing season. “I’m looking for race cars, race cars, race cars. I want to be sure that race teams know that they are more than welcome to be part of the new atmosphere that we will bring to the speedway. Thus far, I have been getting very positive reactions and am excited about working with the competitors. I know that together we can present a race program that will be fun and exciting for the fans,” he said.
“I feel good about what’s going on. I think everyone is interested in a new thing. My job will be to bring competitors back to Thompson and make them feel like their concerns are being listened to. I’m a competitor at heart and can’t help but see things through their eyes. As Race Director, I will encourage the competitors to keep the lines of communication open with me so that their thoughts, concerns and ideas are given proper consideration. Thompson Speedway has been a huge part of my entire adult life as a competitor and a fan long before I was old enough to race,” Zuidema concluded. Race teams with any thoughts, questions or ideas are urged to contact Jeff via e-mail [email protected] Phone calls are welcome directly to Zuidema at 508-769-2890.
The track is now taking driver registrations and requests for car numbers. The form needed for registration is posted on the track’s web page and should be downloaded, filled out and mailed or faxed to the speedway as soon as possible so that competitors can hold onto or change their car numbers.
Right on the heels of the Zuidema appointment, Jonathan Hoenig, Director of Business Development and Marketing confirmed the long-running rumor that the Thompson road course track would return to life in the 2014 season. The road course had been an integral part of the Thompson facility for many years and has recently been used for various car club meets, testing and other such events.
The plans call for rebuilding the current course and incorporating many new ideas along with an upgrade of many of the track’s facilities. Construction of the 1.6 mile road course will begin this spring and will be done in a manner that will still allow for weekly racing on the historic 5/8ths mile oval. Once completed, the road course will be used primarily for car club rentals.
Stafford Speedway instituted its SK Light division as a way for younger drivers to develop their skills in an open wheel car before moving onto bigger and more complex open wheel competition, and the SK Light roster has added another young driver to its 2013 SPAFCO rookie class. Stafford native Wesley Prucker will be the newest addition to the SK Light field at SMS and Prucker brings with him a litany of wins and championships to the open wheel ranks.
The 16-year old Prucker began his racing career at age 5, and over the past 11 years, he has raced Quarter Midgets, Half Midgets, and Junior Outlaws in 12 states, from Connecticut all the way out to the west coast and California. While Prucker has over 200 wins and 10 championships to his resume thus far, the 2013 season will mark his first foray into racing on a half mile track.
After winning four races and finishing fifth and third in his first two seasons of Limited Late Model competition at Stafford Motor Speedway, East Hartford native D.J. Burnham is ready to take his game to the next level in 2013. Although Burnham won three times last season, he says that number could have been even higher if not for mechanical issues with his #54 Burnham Motorsports Toyota.
“I think we definitely should have won a couple more races last year,” said Burnham. “We had some electrical issues with the ignition and we broke a lot of stuff on the car when we were running up front. We changed everything that was electrical in the car last year, plugs, wires, distributors, switches, and we found out through process of elimination that it was a $2 ignition switch that was our problem. One night a sway bar bolt broke while we were running up front and I had to fall to the back. I don’t even know how I finished that race, the car was completely sideways in the corners. We found something on the car that worked pretty well towards the end of the year, and we feel like we got all the bugs worked out of the car, so we think we’ll be more prepared for this year.”
When the green flag falls on the 2013 season at Stafford Motor Speedway, Plainville native George Nocera, Jr. will try to win SPAFCO Rookie of the Year honors for the second time as he prepares to race in his fourth different division at the Connecticut half-mile track. Nocera began his Stafford career in the DARE Stock division in 2005, and he has also participated in the SK Light and Limited Late Model divisions, twice coming within a few points of winning a track championship. In anticipation of his Late Model debut at the 2013 CARQUEST Tech-Net Spring Sizzler, Nocera says his Ltd. Late Model experience will be a big asset. “My Limited Late Model experience should help me out a lot,” said Nocera. “I don’t see much difference.”
For Palmer, MA native Josh Wood, his rookie season in Stafford’s Limited Late Model division was nearly the perfect season. Wood won 6 out of the first 8 feature events and he was locked in a season long duel with Cory Casagrande for the track championship. Wood eventually came up 12 points short of Casagrande in the chase for the championship, but he is looking to take the momentum he built up during his rookie season and carry that over to the 2013 season and once again be a championship contender with his #51 R.A.D. Automachine Chevrolet. “We certainly hope we can do it again.
With the 2013 season on the horizon at Stafford Motor Speedway, Enfield native Kris Fluckiger is ready to count himself among the challengers for the 2013 DARE Stock track title. In only his second season of competition at SMS, Fluckiger recorded his first victory to go along with 12 top-5 and 16 top-10 finishes to end the season in fourth place in the points standings. With a victory in the season ending non-points Paradiso-Muska DARE Stock Shoot-Out, Fluckiger is ready to carry that momentum into 2013.
Stafford Motor Speedway has announced that Spafco Race Chassis and Parts of Preston, CT will return for a second consecutive season to be the presenting sponsor of Stafford Motor Speedway’s Rookie of the Year awards for the 2013 season. Spafco Race Chassis and Parts will contribute $700 to the SK Modified® Rookie of the Year, and $500 to the Late Model, SK Light Modified, and Limited Late Model Rookies of the Year for a total of $2,200 in awards.
Promoters of both Frank Maratta’s The Show of Dreams, a motorcycle and hot rod event a 54 year tradition, and the third resurrected Race-a-Rama oval track show will combine for a Saturday and Sunday, March 2-3 event at The Big E in W. Springfield in the Better Living Center. The Maratta event was supposed to go a week later, on it’s long time date, at the Connecticut Expo in Hartford. But, that’s history now.
The Show of Dreams features quality custom cars, hot rods, imports and muscle cars from the 60’s and 70’s plus much more. The Racearama portion of the exposition will showcase tracks of the northeast, divisional championship race cars along with vendors offering racing related proudct, services and souveniers. “The show will come at a time when fans have reached their winter withdrawal from auto racing and drivers wich to showcase and fine tune their vehicles, “says Cal Green Race a Rama’s Sales Manager.
Racearama was a staple on the first weekend in March for many years until it moved to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. That didn’t work out and promoter and former publisher of Speedway Scene pulled the plug on that event. The publishers of Dick Berggren’s Speedway Illustrated Magazine made an attempt for a few years to revive it at the Big E. But, that event also faded from the scene. This third attempt will be back to it’s long time venue with a partnering with a very popularhot rod show. We wish them both our best.
Speaking of racing shows, Bobby Seymour Productions offers his Racer’s Expo at the Royal Plaza Hotel this Friday and Saturday from 4-9 p.m. on Friday and 9-4 p.m.on Saturday. The Racer’s Expo offers tracks, tours, racing equipment and other racing related items on the first floor of the complex. That night F1 on Wood Rd. in Braintree, organized by Seymour, has the UNOH Kart Klash at 7 a.m. NEMA Midget, Valente Modified Racing Series, Seekonk Speedway and the ACT Tour teams will all compete against each other indoors.