To say 2006 has been a rough year for Stafford Motor Speedway is not quite stating the obvious, but it's pretty close. Six rainouts this season had resulted in only four race programs being run entering the first weekend of July. Periodic rainouts have been fairly common to Stafford over the years but one is a little hard-pressed to remember this many rainouts in so short a span of racing at the half-miler in Connecticutt.
Rainouts have come amid the bittersweet quality that permeated the season following the passing of Jack Arute Sr. early in 2006. The Spring Sizzler was a fitting tribute to Jack Sr. and another such tribute took place on June 30 with the track's Late Model 100, a long-distance affair with sponsored ship American Sleeve Bearing, a long-time sponsor at Stafford that always gets its money's worth here.
The Late Model ASB 100 gave new meaning to the term Late Model, as between heat races, B-mains, and features involving Late Models, SK Modifieds, and SK Lights, the program pushed toward midnight by the time it concluded. The lengthy elpased time, though, didn't dampen what was a spirited affair.
Late Models may have run 100 laps, but they combined the patience needed for long-distance racing with the short-tempered intensity of 30-lap features. Ryan Posacco, three-time defending division champion at Stafford, found this out some 15 laps into the feature when he got tagged by Brad Boissenault in Turn Three; Posacco spun into the grass heading toward the frontstretch but got back onto the track.
Posacco, however, got a break when Boissenault, returning to Stafford racing after over five years away, got sideswiped by former track champ Jim Peterson and hammered the wall off Two. "As Peterson was coming up I couldn't get off him, it was just a racing accident," Boissenault. "We don't have the sponsorship to bring the car back week after week, but we'll keep trying and we'll be back next week and try to put on a good show."
Jim Mavloganes had two cars in the field, but one of them, driven by Wayne Coury Jr., got caught up in a four-car scramble in Three on the ensuing restart. From there the race eventually saw a lengthy period of green-flag racing and Scott Foster Jr., the event's 2005 winner, clawed into contention. Ed Ricard and Tom Fearn ran one-two for awhile while Todd Owen and Mike Quintiliano, in a new ride in the #7 Chevrolet, slugged it out for third.
Foster soon got around into third and pushed Tom Fearn into the lead at Lap 27. Fearn held the lead with considerable authority even though the top four of Fearn, Foster, Mike Quintiliano, and Todd Owen were nose to tail as the race reached halfway. Past halfway Foster caught Fearn and swept into the lead, and now be began putting some daylight on the field.
But Posacco was still on the lead lap and as Foster was lapping backmarkers it allowed Posacco, by now in the top five, to close up. Foster, though, put half a straightaway on the field, but backmarkers continued to be an issue as just seven cars were left on the lead lap by Lap 73.
But Foster's day began to sour when a lapped car sideswiped him with 20 to go and cost him some distance to the closing #3 of Posacco. Tom Fearn's engine erupted in flame at Lap 83, but surprisingly no yellow as he pulled into the garage. This, though, was a harbinger - Mike Quintiliano hit the wall on the frontstretch and limped around to the pits, and two laps later everything fell apart for Foster as his transmission blew up with 13 to go.
The remainder of the race proved somewhat anticlimatic as despite several late yellows and a green-white-checker finish, Posacco waltzed away from Jim Peterson and Mark Lewis, while Tom Butler, driving Mark Kline's #13 Dodge, snuck up into fourth.
Thus did the gamut of competitive emotion get run as Ryan Posacco continues building a legend in the history of Stafford Motor Speedway.
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The star of Stafford Motor Speedway, however, remains SK Modifieds. Basically detuned Tour Modifieds, SKs have been putting on exciting racing at Stafford since the early 1980s. Ted Christopher is the all-time winner in SKs but the disintegration of Mystique Motorsports has effctively cancelled Terrible Ted's 2006 Stafford season.
Thus is the SK division a more wide-open affair, and for June 30 it also served as a quintessential point about Buschwacking. There has been talk that NASCAR will change car specs in BGN toward a Pony car configuration, the idea being that the different configuration will handle so differently that drivers won't benefit from Buschwacking and will thus be dissuaded.
The SK Modified feature on June 30 should dispel such a notion. Todd Owen ran the Late Model 100 and then jumped into one of Brad Hietala's SK cars for the SK feature, a 40-lap affair. Curt Brainerd had the pole and jumped into the early lead, a lead wiped out by several early yellows. On a restart at Lap Three the boldest move in years erupted entering Turn Three as Frank Ruocco sliced up the middle between Zach Sylvester and Kurt Lenihan into second, then tried for the lead just as Chris Osella spun and Chuck Docherty flew over the left front wheel of Jeff Johnson.
Brainerd held onto the lead after this was cleaned up. Ruocco began trying the inside on Brainerd but Owens swept into second on the outside and wasn't done, clawing past Brainerd at Lap Nine. Clawing into the top five, meanwhile, was Bo Gunning, a strong competitor over the years and one who has clashed with the speedway at times. Willie Hardie, another Stafford vet, got sideways on the frontstretch at Lap 12 but rocketed to fifth as Gunning tried Brainerd repeatedly over ten laps.
Chris Osella's spin in Four set up a restart past halfway but nothing could stop Todd Owen as he stayed two lengths ahead of Frank Ruocco for the win. Owen's win came after 100 laps in the Late Model, a racecar that handles differently from the SK Modified yet still provided Owen with the realtime track knowledge that is the biggest single edge held by Buschwackers.
Thus did SK Modifieds get back in gear at Stafford and also serve as a reality-check about Buschwacking.
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