{"id":3197,"date":"2010-09-01T19:20:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T00:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2010-09-01T19:20:02","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T00:20:02","slug":"september-series-closes-out-friday-night-nascar-racing-at-stafford-motor-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/september-series-closes-out-friday-night-nascar-racing-at-stafford-motor-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"SEPTEMBER SERIES CLOSES OUT FRIDAY NIGHT NASCAR RACING AT STAFFORD MOTOR SPEEDWAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEPTEMBER SERIES CLOSES OUT FRIDAY NIGHT NASCAR RACING AT STAFFORD MOTOR SPEEDWAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Stafford Springs, CT)—As the summer season begins to give way to the
\nautumn season, the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season at Stafford
\nMotor Speedway heads into its final month of Friday night NASCAR racing
\nbefore the season ending CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend. The CARQUEST Fall
\nFinal Weekend is scheduled for Oct. 1st through Oct. 3rd and the \u201cSeptember
\nSeries\u201d, Stafford\u2019s three Friday night events in September, give competitors
\none final chance to position themselves either into championship contention,
\nor to move up a spot or two in the points standings before the 2010 season
\ncomes to an end.
\n
\nThe tightest points race of the season at Stafford is in the Limited Late
\nModel division. Last year\u2019s top-2 finishers, Andrew Durand and Dan
\nFlannery, are once again dueling for the track championship. Flannery has
\nenjoyed a career season with five wins and he has led the points standings
\nfor much of the 2010 season after a poor Spring Sizzler left him playing
\ncatch up for the first few races of the year. But Durand, the defending
\nLtd. Late Model track champion, has been the most consistent driver in the
\ndivision. Durand has yet to finish lower than ninth this season and he has
\nalso scored two wins, one of which came in last week\u2019s double feature event
\nand he moved ahead of Flannery in the standings for the first time since
\nearly in the season. Also in contention is Dave Yardley, III, who captured
\nhis first career victory this season and former track champion Kevin
\nGambacorta, who has two wins to his credit this season.<\/p>\n

Stafford\u2019s premier division, the SK Modifieds\u00ae, has been the Keith Rocco
\nshow this year. Rocco won the season opening Spring Sizzler and he has won
\n8 more times for a grand total of 9 victories this season. Rocco has been
\natop the SK Modified\u00ae standings all season long and he appears headed to his
\nsecond career track championship at Stafford. The hottest driver in the
\ndivision over the past 6 races has been Frank Ruocco. Ruocco ended Rocco\u2019s
\n4-race winning streak on July 9th and he has scored 5 podium finishes out of
\nhis last six events to catapault himself from outside to the top-10 in
\npoints into fourth position behind Woody Pitkat and Ted Christopher.
\nSpeaking of Christopher, he has yet to win an SK Modified\u00ae feature this
\nseason. Should Christopher remain winless, it would be the first time since
\nthe 1985 season that Christopher hasn\u2019t won at least one SK Modified\u00ae
\nfeature event at Stafford.<\/p>\n

Stafford\u2019s Late Model division sees 4-time Stafford track champion Ryan
\nPosocco ready to notch a fifth track championship. Dillon Moltz won two of
\nthe first three races of the 2010 season and he led the standings for much
\nof the season. But misfortune has found Moltz in the last two events with
\nMoltz finishing 14th and 18th to drop him back into third place in the
\nstandings behind Posocco and Woody Pitkat. Pitkat has been the big winner
\nof the 2010 season with 5 victories and if he can return to his winning ways
\nin the final month of the season, he may just erase the 48 point margin he
\nfaces and become a two-time Stafford Late Model champion.<\/p>\n

Stafford\u2019s SK Light Modifieds has been the year of the youth movement as
\nthree 15-year olds have found their way to CARQUEST Victory Lane and a
\n16-year old leads the points standings on the strength of 3 wins this
\nseason. The youth movement began when 15-year old Joey Cipriano won his
\nfirst race of the season on May 14th to become the youngest feature winner
\nin Stafford\u2019s history. Cipriano held that record for three weeks until
\nTommy Barrett, Jr. won his first race on June 4th. Since that first win,
\nBarrett has reeled off a total of 7 wins this season, including 5 of the
\nlast 6 races heading into the Aug. 27th event. Barrett missed the Spring
\nSizzler because he hadn\u2019t turned 15 yet and he has moved all the way up the
\nladder to second in the points standings, behind Matt Galko, who is leading
\nthe points with 3 wins at the ripe old age of 16. Stafford\u2019s other 15 year
\nold victor this season was Dylan Liseo, a second generation driver who
\nscored his first win in a thrilling side by side duel with Barrett that was
\nsettled at the checkered flag by the nose of his car.<\/p>\n

In Stafford\u2019s DARE Stock division, Tony Membrino, Jr. has been at the top of
\nthe points standings since he won the season opening CARQUEST Spring Sizzler
\nfeature. Membrino hasn\u2019t been able to shake Kyle Casagrande from his heels
\nas Casagrande became the first three-time winner in the DARE Stock division
\nlast week and he sits only 30 points behind Membrino in the chase for the
\nchampionship. Sitting third in the points is DARE Stock veteran Jeff Jolly,
\nwho has 2 wins to his credit and is 52 points behind Membrino.
\nStafford kicks off the month of September on September 3rd with a multimedia
\nfireworks display adding to the on-track action. The Modified Racing Series
\nmakes its Stafford debut on September 10th with the Inaugural Shark Cycle
\n100, and September wraps up with the Final Friday Night Shoot-Out on
\nSeptember 17th with a 2-week break before the curtain comes down on the 2010
\nseason at the CARQUEST Fall Final.<\/p>\n

For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at
\n860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEPTEMBER SERIES CLOSES OUT FRIDAY NIGHT NASCAR RACING AT STAFFORD MOTOR SPEEDWAY (Stafford Springs, CT)—As the summer season begins to give way to the autumn season, the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season at Stafford Motor Speedway heads into its final month of Friday night NASCAR racing before the season ending CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[196,197],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-3197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-stafford-connecticut","tag-stafford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197","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=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}