Former NASCAR modified champion Ted Christopher opened the 2012 auto racing season with a win in Friday\u2019s preliminary night action at the 10th annual Gambler\u2019s Classic inside Atlantic City\u2019s Boardwalk Hall.<\/p>\n
Christopher outran Joe Payne Jr. in the 30-lap three-quarter midget feature that headlined the event.<\/p>\n
Looking to become the first three-time winner of the Classic, Christopher was eliminated early in Saturday night\u2019s 40-lap finale.<\/p>\n
Teenage third-generation driver Erick Rudolph took advantage and recorded his first indoor victory in the Classic. He finished ahead of young Ryan Smith and TQ veteran Jon Gambuti.<\/p>\n
It was the third win of the weekend for Rudolph, who ran the NASCAR modified tour last season but will make only spot starts this summer as he concentrates on dirt-track action close to his western New York home. The 19-year-old also won the 20-lap features for 600cc micro-sprints on both Friday and Saturday in AC.<\/p>\n
The next action \u2014 and first outdoors \u2014 in the Northeast comes Feb. 25 when Pennsylvania\u2019s Lincoln Speedway opens its lengthy season with an afternoon show. One of the core sprint car tracks in Central Pa., Lincoln annually defies the odds by opting for an early opener. Wilton\u2019s Michael Ruttkamp has seen action in the 358 sprint division at Lincoln. The 358s join the headline 410 sprints on March 10.<\/p>\n
That is the same day that most of the indoor stars and cars of the AC TQ races return to action with another program \u2014 this one under the roof of the Dunkin\u2019 Donuts Center in downtown Providence. The schedule there calls for show Saturday night (March 10) and the next afternoon.<\/p>\n
Closer to home, the Waterford Speedbowl opens the 2012 season in Connecticut with its Blastoff weekend March 31 and April 1. The Valenti Modified Racing Series and NEMA midgets join the \u2018Bowl\u2019s regular divisions for a busy weekend.<\/p>\n
Thompson Speedway and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour both open their seasons April 14-15 with the Big T\u2019s traditional Icebreaker multi-division program, and Stafford Motor Speedway opens April 28-29 with the NASCAR mods headlining another multi-division effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former NASCAR modified champion Ted Christopher opened the 2012 auto racing season with a win in Friday\u2019s preliminary night action at the 10th annual Gambler\u2019s Classic inside Atlantic City\u2019s Boardwalk Hall. Christopher outran Joe Payne Jr. in the 30-lap three-quarter midget feature that headlined the event. Looking to become the first three-time winner of the […]<\/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":[126],"tags":[171],"class_list":["post-8962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-england","tag-ted-christopher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8962","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=8962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}