Preece Gets Third Win of Season on Miller Lite Night

The weather was perfect for a day of racing and car-crunching destruction and the fans responded by coming out in strong numbers. They were treated to a four-cylinder demolition derby, the NASCAR Modifieds, Late Models, Chargers, Super Pro Trucks, INEX Legends, and the car-eating, fire-breathing robotic dinosaur, Megasaurus.

The evening began with heat races for the Legend cars. Steve Smith led the field to the green flag with Jeffrey Goodale to his outside and it was Goodale who quickly took over the lead before they got to turn three. The eight-lap race’s only caution came out on the fourth lap for debris in turn two. Goodale won the heat race followed by Greg Harris, Richie Davidowitz, Anthony Marsh and Brendon Bock.

Race two saw Allan Pedersen leading the field at the start with Christian Conklin beside him. Kyle Ellwood quickly made his way to the front of the field and took the lead at the halfway point. Kyle Soper followed him to the front and took second on the fifth lap. The race went caution free and it was Ellwood who crossed the line first to secure the second starting position for the feature. Soper, Johnnie Gloor, Conklin, and Chris Rogers completed the top five.

Steve Hersey and Shawn Wanat led the final heat, the start was a bit slow and Kevin Nowak took advantage and jumped to the lead in the first corner. The yellow flag flew one lap later for debris as a fender laid on the backstretch. Timmy Solomito restarted in fourth and charged to the front in the remaining laps. But he was able to get no farther than second as Nowak held him off to secure the third starting position for the feature. Solomito, Vinny Delaney, Brad Van Houten, and Artie Pedersen III rounded out the top five.

Next on the schedule was time-trials to set the field for the Modifieds. After being absent from Riverhead for a couple of weeks due to his commitments on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Ryan Preece returned and set the fastest time with a lap of 11.876 seconds. Shawn Solomito had the second fastest lap with a time of 11.933 seconds. Timmy Solomito, Dave Sapienza and Chuck Steuer completed the top five fastest qualifiers. Steuer, a two-time Modified track champion at Riverhead now competes normally at New Egypt Speedway in New Jersey. He put down a lap of 11.967, good enough for fifth fastest of the 18 cars. As is usually done at Riverhead for time-trials the top eight starting positions were determined by a redraw. Jason Agugliaro qualified sixth but he picked the pole position. Dave Brigati drew second, Sapienza third, Timmy Solomito fourth, Preece picked fifth, Steuer sixth, Howie Brode drew seventh, and Shawn Solomito picked eighth.

The first feature of the night was a 20-lap event for the Super Pro Trucks. Brian McElearney started on the pole with Frank Dumicich Sr. to his outside. The first and only caution of the race came out on the second lap when Dave Koenig hit the turn one wall hard. After battling for four laps with Dumicich Sr., Mike Albasini finally made his way into second place on the sixth lap of the race. Roger Turbush followed and moved to third. Albasini and Turbush then set their sights on McElearney who had started to pull away just a bit. The two drivers chased down McElearney and caught him with just five laps left. Albasini had trouble getting underneath McElearney to make a move for the lead, and Turbush was having trouble doing the same to Albasini. Turbush then went to the outside with two laps to go and managed to get by both drivers to score the victory. McElearney, Albasini, Frank Dumicich Jr., and Lou Maestri completed the top five.

The Legends followed the Super Pro Trucks for their 20-lap feature. Goodie Racing teammates Jeffrey Goodale and Kyle Ellwood led the 27-car field to the green flag. Ellwood and Goodale completed the first lap side-by-side, but Ellwood was able to edge ahead for the lead. The first caution came out on the second lap for an incident involving Mike Van Houten and Steve Hersey in turn two. Ellwood led the field to the restart with Goodale to his outside. Kyle Soper restarted third and used his inside restart position to his advantage to take second away from Goodale. The second caution came out on lap seven for a single-car spin by George Tomko Jr. in turn two. Timmy Solomito made his way to fourth before the caution came out and then made his way to second just two laps after the restart. Solomito chased down Ellwood and started the battle for the lead just before the race’s final caution came out on lap 16. Brad Van Houten spun on the exit of turn four and was slammed at the start/finish line by Vinny Delaney. Delaney’s no. 17 took heavy damage and leaked a lot of fluid on the track causing a lengthy delay. Solomito lined up right behind Ellwood for the single-file restart. He looked to the inside of Ellwood as well as the outside but wasn’t able to make his way past. Ellwood scored his fourth victory of the season. Solomito, Soper, Richie Davidowitz, and Greg Harris completed the top five.

“I thought for sure that the guys behind me would have something for me and they did,” said Ellwood. “I just did all I could to keep them behind me. I just want to thank my guys for getting the car back together after that hard hit last week. They really busted tail to get the thing back together and I can’t thank them enough.”

Tom Anderson led the Chargers to the green flag with Richard Wilson to his outside. The front four drivers were side-by-side for the first seven laps until the caution came out on lap eight. Chad Churilla blew a right-front tire and came to a stop in turn one. He took his car to the pits to get the tire changed and quickly returned. Cj Lehmann had made his way from his fifth-place starting spot to second before the caution came out. He restarted to the outside of Anderson and took the lead on the exit of turn two. Eric Zeh followed Lehmann from fourth to second. The caution came out again just one lap later when Cory Midgett spun out Anderson on the exit of turn four. Midgett was sent to the rear of the field for rough riding. Lehmann and Zeh battled side-by-side for three laps after the restart until Lehmann was finally able to clear him. Ray Minieri got underneath Zeh and took second. Minieri and Lehmann then battled side-by-side for four laps until Lehmann cleared him with two laps to go. Lehmann held on to score his first win of the season. Chad Churilla got by Minieri late, as did Chris Turbush and Zeh. Minieri had to settle for fifth.

“Me and Eric always race hard, but clean because we are good friends out of the cars,” said Lehmann. “I really got lucky with the guys I had to race for the win. We all respect each other and we had a lot of fun.”

The 25-lap race for the Late Models was the penultimate feature of the night. Arne Pedersen spun in hot laps and was then hit by Derek Stacheki. Both cars took a lot of damage, but Stacheki was able to participate in the feature.

Shawn Patrick started on the pole with Jeremy McDermott alongside. Patrick and McDermott battled side-by-side for two laps before McDermott cleared Patrick from the outside to take the lead. On the sixth lap, the yellow flag was displayed for a spin by Scott Kulesa in turn four after he and Chris La Spisa made contact. The caution came out again just one lap later when La Spisa’s left-front tire went flat and he came to a stop on the backstretch. The race went green to the end from there and it was McDermott who held on to score the victory. Patrick, La Spisa, Mike Bologna, and Kevin Metzger completed the top five.

“We started third again,” said McDermott, “so that helped a lot. The car was just about as good as it was last week. We really didn’t hurt it too much last week. Just broke a shock. We came back and the car was right on it again. This one feels great.”

Jason Agugliaro and Dave Brigati led the Modifieds to the green flag for the final race of the evening. Agugliaro cleared Brigati for the lead on the second lap. Ryan Preece took third place on lap three. The first caution of the race came out on lap 13. Vinny Biondolillo spun in turn two. Danny Watts, Jerry Solomito, and Ken Darch all were collected as a result. Agugliaro led the field to the restart. Brigati, Preece, Dave Sapienza and Howie Brode were the top five on the restart. The field didn’t complete the lap before the caution was out again. Kyle Ellwood, Marisa Niederauer, and EJ Heim crashed together in turn two. Kevin Orlando spun on the next restart in turn four to bring out the caution once again. The race went green to the finish from the next restart. Preece took second place from Brigati on lap 20 and set his sights on Agugliaro for the lead. Eight laps later he took the lead off of turn two from Agugliaro. Preece led the final seven laps to score his third NASCAR Whelen All American Series win at Riverhead. Agugliaro, Sapienza, Chuck Steuer, and Timmy Solomito completed the top five.

“When the car is as good as it is it makes my life easy,” said Preece. “And winning these races wouldn’t be possible without the great teams I’m with. To be able to pull another win here, that’s three this year, is great. Hopefully there’s still more full fields so I can try and make a run at least at the top three in national points.”

Jason Savoy won the four-cylinder demolition derby.

Photos available at: http://www.racerhub.com/photos/index.php?cat=2168

Super Pro Truck Results:

1. (8) Roger Turbush

2. (1) Brian McElearney

3. (6) Mike Albasini

4. (11) Frank Dumicich Jr.

5. (9) Lou Maestri

6. (5) Erin Dumicich-Solomito

7. (10) Mark Stewart

8. (2) Frank Dumicich Sr.

9. (3) Rob Bader

10. (7) Anthony Vecchio

11. (13) Kevin Scharfenberg

12. (13) Rich Campo

13. (12) Dave Koenig

Legends:

1. (2) Kyle Ellwood

2. (6) Timmy Solomito

3. (5) Kyle Soper

4. (7) Richie Davidowitz

5. (4) Greg Harris

6. (1) Jeffrey Goodale

7. (13) Brendon Bock

8. (16) Justin Strumpf

9. (3) Kevin Nowak

10. (8) Johnnie Gloor

11. (14) Chris Rogers

12. (20) Shawn Wanat

13. (18) Eric Hersey

14. (10) Anthony Marsh

15. (11) Christian Conklin

16. (17) Dylan Slepian

17. (22) Allan Pedersen

18. (26) Bobby Jones

19. (24) Steve Smith

20. (23) Steve Hersey

21. (15) Artie Pedersen III

22. (12) Brad Van Houten

23. (9) Vinny Delaney

24. (27) Bob Goleski

25. (19) George Tomko Jr.

26. (25) Mike Van Houten

27. (21) Gary Molner

Chargers:

1. (5) Cj Lehmann

2. (4) Chad Churilla

3. (6) Chris Turbush

4. (7) Eric Zeh

5. (8) Ray Minieri

6. (3) Cory Midgett

7. (2) Richard Wilson

8. (1) Tom Anderson

Late Models:

1. (2) Jeremy McDermott

2. (1) Shawn Patrick

3. (4) Chris La Spisa

4. (6) Mike Bologna

5. (3) Kevin Metzger

6. (13) Chris McGuire

7. (7) Ken Alfano

8. (10) Jarrod Hayes

9. (9) Derek Stacheki

10. (11) Kevin Orlando

11. (5) Roger Oxee

12. (8) Scott Kulesa

13. (12) Arne Pedersen

Modifieds:

1. (5) Ryan Preece

2. (1) Jason Agugliaro

3. (3) Dave Sapienza

4. (2) Dave Brigati

5. (6) Chuck Steuer

6. (4) Timmy Solomito

7. (7) Howie Brode

8. (8) Shawn Solomito

9. (13) Dave Roys

10. (9) Kevin Orlando

11. (12) Kyle Ellwood

12. (14) Ed Brunnhoelzl III

13. (18) EJ Heim

14. (10) Vinny Biondolillo

15. (15) Danny Watts

16. (16) Marisa Niederauer

17. (17) Ken Darch

18. (11) Jerry Solomito

 

 

Source: Rob Blount/LongIslandJam