{"id":18346,"date":"2015-03-27T04:55:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T08:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18346"},"modified":"2015-03-27T04:01:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T08:01:38","slug":"todd-szegedy-excited-about-prospects-for-2015-napa-spring-sizzler-and-nwmt-season-driving-for-bob-garbarinos-mystic-missile-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/todd-szegedy-excited-about-prospects-for-2015-napa-spring-sizzler-and-nwmt-season-driving-for-bob-garbarinos-mystic-missile-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Szegedy Excited About Prospects for 2015 NAPA Spring Sizzler and NWMT Season Driving for Bob Garbarino\u2019s Mystic Missile Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gfgdf\"<\/a>(Stafford Springs, CT)—After a season of partial rides on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, the Valenti Modified Racing Series, and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, Ridgefield native and 2003 Whelen Modified Tour Champion Todd Szegedy will return to full-time WMT status behind the wheel of Bob Garbarino\u2019s famed #4 Mystic Missile machine. Garbarino has won championships and Spring Sizzlers with Donny Lia and Bobby Santos, III as his drivers and Szegedy is relishing the opportunity to drive Garbarino\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity,\u201d said Szegedy. \u201cI\u2019m glad I stayed in it because I could have easily said I\u2019m taking the year off and separate from racing but I didn\u2019t. I ran for Kevin Stuart on the MRS and had a great opportunity to drive for Rob Fuller on the Tour. I also drove a couple of races for Bill Park at Riverhead, so I ran almost 30 races total last year. I think that really helped me a lot and it was a big benefit to stay in it. An opportunity with Bob came along and who wouldn\u2019t want to drive his car? The Mystic Missile has a lot of history and Bob has a lot of history on the Tour. It\u2019s an amazing opportunity and I want to go out and have a good time, finish races, and leave the track knowing I did the best that I could. It\u2019s definitely an honor that Bob chose me to drive his car and I want to make the best of the opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another feather in Szegedy\u2019s cap will be reuniting with Don Barker, who he won a championship with back in 2003. Barker will serve as Szegedy\u2019s crew chief and Szegedy thinks they can be successful right away.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo cap things off, Don Barker is going to crew chief the car,\u201d said Szegedy. \u201cDon and I have stayed in contact through the years even when we weren\u2019t racing together. I consider him a great friend and he\u2019s a very smart guy. He\u2019s really knowledgeable about these cars and I really think we\u2019re going to have a good year. I believe we can be a contender. The equipment is there, the will to succeed is there, and the team has a lot of experience. I\u2019m more motivated than I\u2019ve ever been to go out and win races and to win a championship. It\u2019s going to be difficult because we\u2019ll be up against a lot of tough competition but that\u2019s never scared me before. I\u2019m up for the challenge and the only thing we can do is go out there and do the best we can. If things go our way, we will be a contender for wins and for the championship. We just have to make the right decisions and the right calls and we\u2019ll see what happens at the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to the NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler, Szegedy has compiled a stellar career record. In 13 Sizzler starts, Szegedy has posted 6 top-5 and 7 top-10 finishes, with a best finish of second on three different occasions. Szegedy has finished second behind Ted Christopher in 2006 and 2009 and he had perhaps his best Sizzler run in 2007 when he drove from 22nd up to second behind Donny Lia, who was driving Garbarino\u2019s #4 car. Matching his personal success up with Garbarino\u2019s success in the Sizzler, Szegedy thinks he had a very good chance at taking the checkered flag in this year\u2019s edition of \u201cThe Greatest Race in the History of Spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been very fortunate that every race car I\u2019ve gotten into has been a car with an opportunity to win,\u201d said Szegedy. \u201cThe Sizzler is definitely on my list of races to win but I want to win at every race track. I\u2019m thankful that I\u2019ve been given the opportunity, it\u2019s nice to know that people still believe in me. I think that the races I did for Rob last year really helped me out tremendously. I had no idea if I would be racing this season just a couple weeks ago, so I\u2019m extremely excited and I\u2019m very motivated. I\u2019m looking forward to getting back to the track and I always look forward to Stafford because it\u2019s one of my favorite tracks. I think my performance with Rob Fuller was the reason why I got the ride with Bob. It\u2019s tough for me to really nail down one particular Sizzler memory, but I\u2019m hoping that by this time next year I can say that my favorite Sizzler memory was winning the race in 2015.\u201d
\nWhile Szegedy has a busy 2015 planned, he doesn\u2019t yet have anything lined up for the SK Modified\u00ae division. Szegedy drove one race for Steve Greer last season and he says if an opportunity came along to drive an SK, he would jump at the chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Stafford Springs, CT)—After a season of partial rides on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, the Valenti Modified Racing Series, and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, Ridgefield native and 2003 Whelen Modified Tour Champion Todd Szegedy will return to full-time WMT status behind the wheel of Bob Garbarino\u2019s famed #4 Mystic Missile machine. Garbarino has won […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,15329],"tags":[15677],"class_list":["post-18346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-whelen-all-american-series","tag-stafford-springs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18348,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18346\/revisions\/18348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}