{"id":3800,"date":"2010-11-16T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T03:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2010-11-16T21:21:02","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T02:21:02","slug":"matt-galko-wins-reliable-welding-speed-sk-light-modified-rookie-year-honors-stafford-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/matt-galko-wins-reliable-welding-speed-sk-light-modified-rookie-year-honors-stafford-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"MATT GALKO WINS RELIABLE WELDING AND SPEED SK LIGHT MODIFIED ROOKIE OF THE YEAR HONORS AT STAFFORD SPEEDWAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

MATT GALKO WINS RELIABLE WELDING AND SPEED SK LIGHT MODIFIED ROOKIE OF THE
\nYEAR HONORS AT STAFFORD SPEEDWAY<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Stafford Springs, CT)—For the second consecutive season, Stafford\u2019s SK
\nLight Modified division saw a rookie driver win the track championship as
\nwell as the Reliable Welding and Speed Rookie of the Year title. Matt Galko
\nfollowed Michael Gervais, Jr. in turning the feat, giving car owner Tim Rowe
\nhis first championship as a car owner at Stafford. Galko was locked in a
\nseason long duel with fellow rookie competitors Tommy Barrett, Jr. and Joey
\nCipriano, III for both the track championship as well as the rookie title.
\n\u201cYou can only be Rookie of the Year once, so it was nice to win that award,\u201d
\nsaid Galko. \u201cOur goal at the beginning of the season was to win Rookie of
\nthe Year, but we never figured that we would be able to win the championship
\nin our first season. Towards the middle of the season, Joey and Tommy were
\nboth up there in the points, so we figured that we would have to win the
\nchampionship in order to win the Rookie of the Year.\u201d
\nGalko started the season strong with a top-5 in the season opening Spring
\nSizzler and he picked up his first feature victory in only his fifth start.
\nGalko moved into the points lead midway through the season, but Barrett
\ncaught fire during the summer, winning 9 out of 12 races to overtake Galko
\nheading into the season ending CARQUEST Fall Final in the chase for both the
\ntrack championship and the Rookie of the Year title.
\n\u201cWe led for a while, but we went into that last race 6 points behind and it
\nwas definitely a shock that we were able to win with how good Tommy was
\nfinishing,\u201d said Galko. \u201cIt feels amazing, I still can\u2019t put it into words.
\nI\u2019ve always wanted to race at Stafford and to give Tim [Rowe] his first
\nchampionship after he gave me the opportunity to drive his car this year
\nmakes it really special. We knew that we couldn\u2019t be worse than second so
\nwe set out to win that last race.\u201d
\nWith the Reliable Welding and Speed Rookie of the Year title and a track
\nchampionship under his belt, Galko plans to return to the SK Light ranks
\nwith the #20 Davidson Company team.
\n\u201cWe have to see what Tim wants to do for next year, but the plan is to come
\nback and defend our championship,\u201d said Galko. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of good
\ndrivers so it\u2019s going to be tough next year, but we feel pretty confident
\nthat we can pick up where we left off this season and try to come out and
\nwin the Spring Sizzler.\u201d
\nFor the season, Galko posted 4 wins, 13 top-5, and 16 top-10 finishes in 21
\nstarts. Galko will receive his 2010 SK Light Modified Rookie of the Year
\naward at the 41st Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony
\non Friday, November 19 at the La Renaissance Banquet Facility in East
\nWindsor.
\nFor more information about the Champions Awards Ceremony, or to order
\ntickets, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or
\nvisit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MATT GALKO WINS RELIABLE WELDING AND SPEED SK LIGHT MODIFIED ROOKIE OF THE YEAR HONORS AT STAFFORD SPEEDWAY (Stafford Springs, CT)—For the second consecutive season, Stafford\u2019s SK Light Modified division saw a rookie driver win the track championship as well as the Reliable Welding and Speed Rookie of the Year title. Matt Galko followed Michael […]<\/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-3800","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\/3800","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=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}