{"id":3658,"date":"2010-10-15T17:20:21","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T22:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2010-10-15T17:20:21","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T22:20:21","slug":"tony-membrino-jr-captures-2010-stock-championship-stafford-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/tony-membrino-jr-captures-2010-stock-championship-stafford-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"TONY MEMBRINO, JR. CAPTURES 2010 DARE STOCK CHAMPIONSHIP AT STAFFORD SPEEDWAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

TONY MEMBRINO, JR. CAPTURES 2010 DARE STOCK CHAMPIONSHIP AT STAFFORD SPEEDWAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Stafford Springs, CT)—In what is becoming a DARE Stock tradition at
\nStafford Motor Speedway, Tony Membrino, Jr. won the DARE Stock championship
\nafter winning the season opening Tech-Net Spring Sizzler feature event.
\nMembrino is the third consecutive DARE Stock driver to accomplish the feat,
\nfollowing Norm Sears in 2008 and Don Wood in 2009.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting to pull off the championship,\u201d said Membrino. \u201cIt\u2019s
\nstill sinking in, but it\u2019s a real good feeling. For only our second season,
\nit\u2019s pretty awesome to have the year we did. I think our worst finish all
\nseason long was seventh and there\u2019s not a lot of drivers at Stafford who can
\nsay that. To put my name into the Stafford record books is a pretty awesome
\naccomplishment.\u201d
\nMembrino placed in the top-10 in all 21 races this season and he finished in
\nthe top-5 in 16 of the 21 races with his lone victory of the year coming in
\nthe season opening Tech-Net Spring Sizzler.
\n\u201cWe weren\u2019t really racing for points at all this year,\u201d said Membrino. \u201cWe
\nwere trying to win every race this year and the points just fell into place
\nfor us. In the back of my mind, I always knew where we were with the
\npoints, but I tried to take it one race at a time and not really let it
\nbother me.\u201d
\nThe first indication that Membrino had that he could be a championship
\ncontender actually began with the 2009 season.
\n\u201cWe missed the Sizzler last year and we ended up 5th in points,\u201d said
\nMembrino. \u201cI figured if we could do what we did last year this year that we
\ncould be a contender for the championship.\u201d
\nFor a driver who showed up every week with the intention of winning,
\nMembrino had to race cautiously for wins.
\n\u201cWe were on a low budget this year, so staying out of trouble was the
\nbiggest thing for us,\u201d said Membrino. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t really afford to fix the
\ncar if we had a bad wreck.\u201d
\nAfter a 5th and 7th place finishes following his season opening win,
\nMembrino finished in the top-5 in 14 of the next 16 races to establish
\nhimself as the championship favorite, but nipping at his heels all season
\nlong was Jeff Jolly and Kyle Casagrande, who both won three races compared
\nto Membrino\u2019s one victory.
\n\u201cIt got close a couple of times this year, but we never got worried about
\nit,\u201d said Membrino. \u201cThere was always the next race and we figured if we
\nstayed consistent like we had been doing all year long, then the points
\nwould fall right for us.\u201d
\nBut perhaps the greatest thing for Membrino was to share the championship
\nwith his family, who have raced at Stafford for many years prior without
\ntasting the fruits of a championship season.
\n\u201cEveryone on the team was super psyched to win the championship,\u201d said
\nMembrino. \u201cMy dad never won a race here and to win a race was one thing,
\nbut to win the championship was really great. It\u2019s exciting for them and it
\n\u2019s exciting for me to be able to share this championship with them.\u201d
\nMembrino will officially be crowned the 2010 DARE Stock track champion at
\nthe 41st Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony on Friday,
\nNovember 19, 2010 at the La Renaissance Banquet Facility in East Windsor.
\nFor more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at
\n860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com
\n.<\/http:><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TONY MEMBRINO, JR. CAPTURES 2010 DARE STOCK CHAMPIONSHIP AT STAFFORD SPEEDWAY (Stafford Springs, CT)—In what is becoming a DARE Stock tradition at Stafford Motor Speedway, Tony Membrino, Jr. won the DARE Stock championship after winning the season opening Tech-Net Spring Sizzler feature event. Membrino is the third consecutive DARE Stock driver to accomplish the feat, […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-3658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-stafford-connecticut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3658","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=3658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}