{"id":20334,"date":"2016-03-10T12:27:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T17:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=20334"},"modified":"2016-03-10T12:27:20","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T17:27:20","slug":"eric-berndt-looking-to-continue-winning-ways-in-stafford-speedways-sk-modified-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/eric-berndt-looking-to-continue-winning-ways-in-stafford-speedways-sk-modified-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Berndt Looking to Continue Winning Ways in Stafford Speedway\u2019s SK Modified\u00ae Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"STAFFORD-TRACK-LOGO\"Eric Berndt Looking to Continue Winning Ways in Stafford Speedway\u2019s SK Modified\u00ae Division<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Stafford Springs, CT)—When the green flag is unfurled on the 2016 SK Modified\u00ae season at Stafford Motor Speedway, Cromwell native Eric Berndt will be looking to pick up right where he left off in 2015. Through the first 20 races of last season Berndt was having a solid season and sat fifth in the points standings. But wins in the final 2 races elevated Berndt up to fourth in the final standings and gave him and his #66 Cos\u2019 Central Auto \/ North End Auto Parts team a ton of positive momentum heading into the winter.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the first three quarters of the year, it was a mediocre year,\u201d said Berndt. \u201cWe were consistent but we weren\u2019t where we thought we wanted to be. I wouldn\u2019t say we were struggling but we couldn\u2019t find a sweet spot with what the car needed handling wise. We were good enough to be a fifth or sixth place car, but we weren\u2019t good enough to contend with guys like Ryan [Preece}, Ronnie [Williams], Rowan [Pennink], or Keith [Rocco] at the time. The last 3 or 4 races of the season we finally found something that worked with our car and it really woke our program up. The difference was night and day. Those last 2 races were probably some of the best cars I\u2019ve ever driven at Stafford. Hopefully we can start this year just like we ended last season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berndt knows the importance of getting off to a good start during a season to stay in contention for the championship. In the first 6 races of the 2015 season, Berndt had a second and a fourth place finish but those were sandwiched around three finishes outside the top-5 and he was sitting in seventh place, 60 points behind the lead after the first month of the season was complete.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you can end a season with wins is great,\u201d said Berndt. \u201cIt gives you all winter to kind of gloat on that and hopefully we can start off with that same pace. You definitely have to have a good start to the year. You can\u2019t afford to get behind the 8 ball early because things start to snowball quick and then you\u2019re spending all your time trying to catch up. If all you have one night is a seventh place car, you have to take that finish and go home and work on the car rather than having to replace a right front, or a front clip, or something like that by trying to get something better than that seventh place.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Berndt and his #66 crew had the hot hand down the stretch of last season, he knows there are no guarantees that his performance will automatically carry over to the 2016 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe track changes over the winter and we have a new tire, so we\u2019ll probably have to fine tune the car a little from last season,\u201d said Berndt. \u201cWe\u2019ll use the practice sessions to see what we can do and hopefully we\u2019ll have the car just like it was at the end of the year. We\u2019re definitely ready for the season to get started. Even though we didn\u2019t have a terrible season and we finished fourth in the points, you always want to win when you go to the track. We knew we were capable of winning races and we had some good finishes like third or fourth, but they were distant third or fourths and we weren\u2019t close to the leaders. Those last 2 races were an instant injection for the whole crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first SK Modified\u00ae race of the 2016 season will be a special 45-lap feature as part of NAPA Spring Sizzler Weekend on April 22-24 to commemorate the 45th annual running of the \u201cGreatest Race in the History of Spring\u201d. Tickets for the NAPS Spring Sizzler are on sale now at the Speedway Box Office and are priced at $38.50 for adult general admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages 6-14, and children ages 5 and under are admitted free of charge when accompanied by an adult. Reserved seating will be priced at $42.00 for all ages. All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission Tax. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Berndt Looking to Continue Winning Ways in Stafford Speedway\u2019s SK Modified\u00ae Division (Stafford Springs, CT)—When the green flag is unfurled on the 2016 SK Modified\u00ae season at Stafford Motor Speedway, Cromwell native Eric Berndt will be looking to pick up right where he left off in 2015. Through the first 20 races of last […]<\/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":[196,1,197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-uncategorized","category-stafford-connecticut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20334","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}