(Stafford Springs, CT)—After a year away from racing at Stafford Speedway,
\nNorm Sears has returned to NASCAR Whelen All-American Series competition at
\nthe Connecticut half-mile, and he is currently at the top of the Limited
\nLate Model standings after finishes of second and first in the first 2 races
\nof the season. The fact that Sears and the #71 Kar Kare Collision Center
\nteam are leading the points after 2 races is quite the feat considering how
\nlate Sears and car owner Barry Fluckiger put a deal together to race this
\nyear.
\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ve always said Stafford feels like home, so it\u2019s nice to be back home
\nthis year,\u201d said Sears. \u201cI was at Thompson helping Corey Hutchings out with
\nhis Late Model and Barry gave me a call and said he was putting a team
\ntogether and asked me if I wanted to drive a car this year at Stafford. I
\nsaid sure and Barry asked if I could meet him in an hour to go look at a
\ncar. So I drove from Thompson to meet Barry at Rick Charette\u2019s house to
\nlook at the car and the next day Barry bought the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the car was purchased, Fluckiger and Sears had to convert it from a
\nStafford Late Model to Limited Late Model.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to put a new rear end in it, a new motor, new transmission, and we
\nhad to change the setup on the car,\u201d said Sears. \u201cWe showed up for the
\nfirst race with the car looking like it was when we got it from Rick with
\nsome duct tape numbers on it. We ended up not hurting the car the first
\nrace so we brought the car back to the shop and painted it and we came back
\nthe second week with my old yellow paint scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n
The beginning of the 2011 season has been a much better start than Sears had
\nin his first foray into the Limited Late Model division in 2009. Sears had
\na throttle stick during his heat race and he ended up making hard contact
\nwith the turn 1 wall, which forced him to miss that first race. Considering
\nthe quick turnaround that they had to perform on the car to get it ready to
\nrace, the first two races of the year have far exceeded expectation.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a much better start to the year for us,\u201d said Sears.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering my history in the Limited division in 2009 and destroying the
\ncar after the first race, having the car in one piece is a beautiful thing.
\nWe had some expectations with the new spec engine and some setup help from
\nCorey Hutchings, so we had a good baseline, but we never expected to run
\nthis well. I think we had a fifth place car in the first race, but things
\nopened up for us with a restart at the end of that first race and we were
\nable to get a second out of it. We never thought we\u2019d have a first and a
\nsecond in our first two races.\u201d<\/p>\n
After visiting CARQUEST Victory Lane in the second race of the season, Sears
\nfeels like there is still more performance in his car to be unlocked
\nthroughout the course of the 2011 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cDriving with a locked rear end, it\u2019s totally different than the old Limited
\nLate Model or DARE Stock cars,\u201d said Sears. \u201cThe chassis are identical, but
\nthis rear end is totally different than anything I\u2019ve raced and worked on
\nbefore. Corey Hutchings has been a huge help for us with figuring out the
\nfront end geometry. That stuff takes years to learn and if you don\u2019t know
\nthat stuff with setting up the car, then you\u2019re going to get beat. We\u2019re
\nstarting a new notebook this season and having Corey helping us out has been
\nhuge. We definitely think there is more speed in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the 2011 season is still in its infancy stages, Sears is currently
\nthe Limited Late Model championship leader, which is a position that he
\nwould like to remain in throughout the course of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of now, we\u2019re going to race for the championship,\u201d said Sears. \u201cWe\u2019ve
\nhad two real good races to start out with and the prize money that we have
\nwon so far will help us maintain the car. As long as we can keep running up
\nfront and getting those prize money checks and not ball the car up, I think
\nwe\u2019ll be in pretty good shape. If we could find a sponsor that would be
\nhuge for us as well. As you can see the car is pretty plain right now, so
\nwe have plenty of room for any sponsors that would like to come on board.\u201d
\nAs one of only three drivers to win three consecutive track titles at
\nStafford, Sears knows what it takes to contend for and win a championship.
\nIf Sears can keep posting results like he has in the first two races of the
\n2011 season, he may just add another championship to his resume.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at (Stafford Springs, CT)—After a year away from racing at Stafford Speedway, Norm Sears has returned to NASCAR Whelen All-American Series competition at the Connecticut half-mile, and he is currently at the top of the Limited Late Model standings after finishes of second and first in the first 2 races of the season. The fact that […]<\/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":[196,126,197],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-5162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-new-england","category-stafford-connecticut","tag-stafford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162","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=5162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5162"}],"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