COLORFUL
XTRAMART WORLD SERIES OF RACING
by Walter
Johnston
While the weather was right at all the right times, it
was seasonably cool, and the racing was hot, so it made for a
great long weekend of racing at the Thompson World Series. The
car count was good, the crowd was large, and the racing just
the way it ought to be, fast and competitive. After 3 days and
nights of racing every imaginable type of car, the World
Series weekend is history for 2004, and it was good.
The highlighted feature of the weekend of course is the
Featherlite Modified Series tour race. 50 race teams entered
the competition for 32 spots on the staring grid, and many
surprises were in store. Mike Andrews Jr. turned in the
surprising fast time in qualifying: 18.877, and some other
name drivers didn’t fare so well, including Reggie Ruggiero,
Tony Ferrante, Rob Summers, Chuck Steuer, Johnny Bush, and
Jimmy Kuhn Jr., all of whom failed to qualify through time,
and didn’t have a provisional to get into the feature. In
all, 18 teams went away with nothing.
The top 8 from time redrew for their positions, and our
own Mike Andrews and Donny Lia, the two fastest drivers from
time trials, would start 5th and 6th
respectively. Prior to the start of the race, the 2004 Sonny
“King” Richards memorial award was given posthumously to
Tommy Baldwin, with Steve Halpin and Dave Roys accepting it at
the presentation.
Now, on to the race. During
parade laps, the cars left starting position 7 open in what
was referred to as “The Tommy Baldwin Lap”, as a tribute
to Tommy. At the
drop of the green, at 5:53 PM, #48 Tony Hirschman jumped right
into the lead, stretching it to 8 car lengths in one lap.
Yellow was out on lap 2 as #90 Rene Dupuis and #10 Tony Papale
got together coming off turn 2. Back to green again on lap 6,
Tony Hirschman once again grabbed the lead, but now #4 Chuck
Hossfeld and #13 Ted Christopher were right behind him and
staying close. The rest of the top ten were running close
behind the top 3, and ran single file until the yellow came
out on lap 18 for what turned out to be the most serious wreck
of the race, involving 4 cars that spun and crashed in 2
separate incidents off turn 2. As #76 Tom Bolles and #5
Charlie Pasteryak came together and stopped off 2, #19 Eric
Beers and #62 Alex Hoag collided trying to avoid the incident,
but Beers hit Bolles’ cars and ramped right over the left
front and roof of Bolles’ car, ripping the roof right off.
Fortunately, no one was hurt, and after a fairly lengthy
cleanup, racing resumed on lap 26. Hirschman held the lead,
but 5 laps later, Teddy Christopher got around Hossfeld for 2nd,
and on lap 35, Christopher passed Hirschman to take the lead,
while #79 Ed Flemke Jr. who had started 24th, had
worked his way up to 6th place. On lap 43, #18
Donny Lia spun in turn 4, bringing out yellow again. Lia
needed a double hook because of the damage to his car, but
racing was underway again on lap 51. Only 2 laps later, #58
Kevin Goodale spun into the front stretch pit wall, bringing
out yellow once again. With green out once again on lap 57,
Christopher kept the lead, but yellow was out immediately as a
mid pack pile-up on the backstretch jumbled up the running
order, with many teams electing to pit for tires under this
caution. Caught up in it all was #79 Ed Flemke Jr. who had
damage to his car from this series of wrecks, and was all but
done for the championship point chase as he lost 2 laps making
repairs to his machine.
Green came back out on lap 62, as #50 Todd Szegedy
worked his way to 2nd, and passed Christopher for
the lead 1 lap later. Szegedy stretched his lead to 10 cars
lengths over Christopher and Hossfeld, who were battling it
out for 2nd. By lap 79, Christopher started closing
on Szegedy and #16 Mike Stefanik had now worked his way up to
4th position, and Hirschman was 5th.
On lap 83, Christopher’s right rear tire started
going down as he was entering turn 3, and he spun, bringing
out the caution once more.
Stefanik had gotten around 3rd place
Hossfeld and restarted in 2nd behind Szegedy when
the green came out again on lap 90. 2 laps later, Stefanik
mounted a challenge for the lead, successfully completing the
pass on lap 92, only to have Hossfeld retake the lead 2 laps
later. The two battled side by side until Stefanik took the
lead for good on lap 97. Yellow came out again on lap 105 as a
car spun in turn 4, and oil was found on the track, caused by
Jerry Marquis’ #3, and required an extensive cleanup of the
track and pit road after Marquis was sent to the pits to
correct the problem. Green came out again on lap 114, with
Stefanik maintaining his lead over Szegedy, with Hossfeld,
Hirschman, and rookie #15 Zack Sylvester rounding out the top
5. With only 2 to go, Szegedy was pounding Stefanik’s rear
bumper, but suddenly Szegedy’s right front started going
flat, causing him to lose control and travel through the back
stretch grass as everyone else went by and Stefanik held on
for the win over Hossfeld, Hirschman, Sylvester and #20 Ken
Barry.
In victory lane, Mike stated is was nice to be back and
nicer to have won the very last Featherlite Modified Tour
race, as next season, Whelen Manufacturing takes over as title
sponsor of the series.
Of note locally, Mike Andrews finished 19th,
the last car on the lead lap. Mike had dropped back from his 5th
starting position at the beginning of the race so as not to be
in the way of the Tour regulars as they battled it out in
their final points race, electing instead to follow along and
learn both the track and what it was like to run with the Tour
drivers, a real gentlemanly move on Mike’s part. Donny Lia
did repairs on the damage to his car, and rejoined the race,
but finished in 27th place, completing only 59
laps.
