{"id":6883,"date":"2011-08-21T20:53:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T00:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2011-08-21T21:54:19","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T01:54:19","slug":"car-problem-kevin-chaffee-usac-dma-midgets-bear-ridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/car-problem-kevin-chaffee-usac-dma-midgets-bear-ridge\/","title":{"rendered":"New Car No Problem For Kevin Chaffee in USAC DMA Midgets at Bear Ridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Car No Problem For Kevin Chaffee in USAC DMA Midgets at Bear Ridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

BY MARK McKEON<\/p>\n

BRADFORD, VT \u2013 Wheeling a car that hadn\u2019t been raced since 2003 and which he hadn\u2019t laid eyes on until he got to the track, \u201cThe Fairlee Flier\u201d Kevin Chaffee of Fairlee, VT defeated a series record field of 18 entrants to win his second consecutive USAC Dirt Midget Association feature at Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford, VT on Saturday.
\n
\nStarting eighth in the 25 lap feature, Chaffee quickly moved through traffic until he encountered Hall of Famer Ray Miller, who had bolted from third to slide past Tim Gallant for the lead. Lap after lap, Chafee and Miller ran side by side and wheel to wheel until Chafee used his home track advantage to pass the hot-as-a-pistol veteran on lap 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cRay Miller may be 69 years old,\u201d an admiring Chaffee said after the race, \u201cbut he still drives like he\u2019s 19.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Miller behind him and a clear track ahead, Chafee had no trouble holding off his teammate, points leader and three time winner \u201cFlatfoot Joe\u201d Krawiec. Miller came home third and Tony Montesi, making only his second USAC DMA Midget start, galloped from deep in the pack to finish fourth. Tim Gallant came home fifth, after leading the first five laps. Both Montesi and Gallant were aboard mounts from the Rusty Tefft stable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Skip [Matczak] and his crew show up at the race track, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s the first time the car has been there or not, the car is ready to go,\u201d Chaffee said. \u201cThe effort they put in to preparing a car is unlike anything I\u2019ve ever seen. The work and the amount of time that they put into these cars make all the difference in the world.\u201d
\nRecalling the race, Chafee continued, \u201cI was a little nervous because Scott [Holcomb] started ahead of me and Joe [Krawiec] took off like a rocket at the start and I didn\u2019t think I was going to be able to catch either of them. But Joe made a little mistake \u2013 he doesn\u2019t make many- so I got by him and Scott\u2019s car wasn\u2019t as fast tonight as usual and I was able to get by him on the top. I was alongside Ray Miller for so long that I had time to look and I thought I saw the nose of his car skating just a little. My car had lots of pull from the bottom so I could get under him. After I got by him, it was all just left hand turns.\u201d<\/p>\n

After getting airborne at the start on an infield tire at turn two, second place finisher Krawiec made no excuses. \u201cI caught a tire with my left front at the start and when it bounced me, my foot got on the throttle, so when I landed, I launched myself over the second tire. It was a driver mistake; I should have stayed up a little higher. After that, the car ran well, but I was watching Kevin and he was running differently than me. I need to learn more and come back with a better arsenal for myself to be able to take him on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two- time NEMA Midget Champion Randy Cabral enjoyed himself in his USAC DMA Midget Debut, his first dirt track race in three years. \u201cI love it, but I\u2019m not sure it loves me,\u201d Cabral said after struggling with his car\u2019s handling during hotlaps. The 32 time NEMA feature winner was sidelined after an early race incident as was- coincidentally- 20 time NEMA winner Jeff Horn.<\/p>\n

The USAC DMA Midgets return to Bear Ridge Speedway \u201cThe Home of the Coupes\u201d on Saturday September 10.
\nUSAC DMA FEATURE: (25 laps) 1. Kevin Chaffee, Fairlee, VT. 2. Joe Krawiec, Bristol, CT, 3. Ray Miller, East Granby, CT 4. Tony Montesi, Roxbury, CT, 5. Tim Gallant, Wales, MA, 6. Scott Holcomb, Granby, CT, 7. Scott Viets, East. Granby, CT, 8. Dana Shaw, Plainfield, CT, 9. Denny Zimmerman, Suffield, CT, 10. Jim Close, Ellington, CT, 11. Adam Whitney, Warren, VT, 12. Dean Christenson, Granby, CT, 13. Tyler Rivard, Woonsocket, RI, 14. Thom Ring, Pascoag, RI, 15. Jeff Horn, Hudson, MA, 16. Randy Cabral, Plymouth, MA. DNS: Greg Olson, East Providence, RI, David Rose, Jr., Keene, NH. Holcomb and Krawiec won the heats while Chaffee picked up the first ever Bear Ridge Speedway DMA Semi-Feature, scored by USAC as a non-points Special Shootout.<\/p>\n

North East Racing Forum<\/strong> – http:\/\/www.neracingforum.com\/forum<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Car No Problem For Kevin Chaffee in USAC DMA Midgets at Bear Ridge BY MARK McKEON BRADFORD, VT \u2013 Wheeling a car that hadn\u2019t been raced since 2003 and which he hadn\u2019t laid eyes on until he got to the track, \u201cThe Fairlee Flier\u201d Kevin Chaffee of Fairlee, VT defeated a series record field […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4154,4172,126,200],"tags":[15804,4699,4670],"class_list":["post-6883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bear-ridge","category-dirt-track","category-new-england","category-vermont","tag-bear-ridge","tag-dma-midgets","tag-usac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883","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=6883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}