(Stafford Springs, CT)—After finishing first and third in the SK Light
\nModified points standings last season at Stafford, young guns Matt Galko and
\nJoey Cipriano have picked up where they left off last year. Both drivers
\nhave a win and a second place finish in the first 2 races of the 2011 season
\nand head into the May 13th NASCAR Whelen All-American Series program at
\nStafford tied for the championship lead.
\n
\n\u201cSo far it\u2019s been a really good season for us,\u201d said defending track
\nchampion Galko. \u201cWe\u2019ve picked up right where we left off last season. We
\nhaven\u2019t had any bad luck so far, knock on wood. We\u2019re running the same
\nstuff we ran last year, we\u2019re trying some new setups and we\u2019ve had a lot of
\nfun so far racing hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing for us this year is we have a straight car,\u201d said
\nCipriano. \u201cLast year we flipped the car and it was bent a bit, so in the
\nwinter we cut the car up and we re-clipped the car. We weren\u2019t quite sure
\nhow the car was going to run, but it\u2019s been a total team effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
With both drivers earning first and second place finishes this season, both
\nGalko and Cipriano have enjoyed the benefits of the Stafford contingency
\nprogram. For the SK Lights, The Davidson Company pays $75 to the winner,
\n$50 to the second place finsiher, and $25 to the third place finsiher. New
\nEngland Racing Fuel provides a $25 gas credit to each of the top-3
\nfinishers, and Gunsmoke Stables is providing a $100 bonus to feature winners
\nthat will rollover week to week if there are repeat winners until there is a
\nfirst time winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contingency money has been a big help to us,\u201d said Galko. \u201cThe Sunoco
\nbonus really helps us out with paying for \\ gas each week and every dollar
\nthat we can save really helps us out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contingency money helps us out a lot,\u201d said Cipriano. \u201cLike a lot of
\nteams, we don\u2019t have a lot of money to spend so every extra dollar that we
\nearn is a huge help. The Sunoco bonus helps us with our gas money, The
\nDavidson Company money has been a big help, and Steve Greer with Gunsmoke
\nStables has been a huge help.\u201d<\/p>\n
While both drivers know that the 2011 season is still in the early days,
\nthey are both aware of where they are in the standings and would like to
\nfinish the season in the same spot that they are in now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still early in the year, but we saw last year that it\u2019s never too
\nearly to start thinking about points,\u201d said Galko. \u201cI\u2019m not points racing
\nright now, we\u2019re going for race wins, but it\u2019s always in the back of our
\nminds. We won the championship last year and we\u2019d like to defend our title
\nand win the championship again this year. My main goal is to win more races
\nthan we won last year and I\u2019d like to be in the top-3 of the Division 3
\nstandings. The top-3 drivers get invited to the NASCAR Banquet at the Hall
\nof Fame and last year we missed it by 2 points.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to keep doing what we\u2019ve been doing so far this year,\u201d said
\nCipriano. \u201cWe need to continue putting in hard work at the garage during
\nthe week because I think preparation is where you can win or lose races. It
\n\u2019s too early in the year to be thinking about points, but we\u2019re happy to be
\nwhere we are so far this year. Last week, we really struggled with the car,
\nwe couldn\u2019t get the tires to size up and the car wasn\u2019t handling. We threw
\nsomething at the car for the feature and it worked out for us, so I can\u2019t
\nthank all my guys on the team for the hard work they put into the car.\u201d
\nIf Galko and Cipriano can maintain their finishing record and build upon
\ntheir 2010 results, it may just be one of the young guns celebrating a
\nchampionship at season\u2019s end again.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at (Stafford Springs, CT)—After finishing first and third in the SK Light Modified points standings last season at Stafford, young guns Matt Galko and Joey Cipriano have picked up where they left off last year. Both drivers have a win and a second place finish in the first 2 races of the 2011 season and head […]<\/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":[196,4163,126,197],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-5160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-modified","category-new-england","category-stafford-connecticut","tag-stafford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160","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=5160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com
\n