Race Report July 5th, 2009

WEEK #10

Finally, no rain forecast for today. (Sunday). Over the last couple of days there was much to do to get the track ready for the race. Friday night the grass was mowed. On Saturday about 8 man hours were spent on the track surface itself thanks to the guys from Massachusetts; A.J Roy, Nick Roy, Mike Vallone and one other guy whose name I have forgotten. These guys came down to ride and ended up helping me for a couple of hours. On Sunday morning more volunteers (Tom Pannullo and Greg Fantano) helped get the track surface manicured as the weeks rains really did some damage. Now, with it being the 4th of July Holiday weekend could we enjoy a decent rider count? Our food vendor, Nick Macri had called and said his trailer broke down coming back from New York the night before and he wouldn’t be there. The Sno-Cone lady called and said she wouldn’t make it either. By 11:30 the place was a ghost town. What else could go wrong? Well, Pat Maher called and let us know that he was hung up and wouldn’t be there to announce the second round so now pictures were in jeopardy also. As practice progressed the crowd built slowly but steadily. When registration closed we had 157 riders and 45 motos. Not as good as last year but a decent turnout anyway.
Colin Stiles, in the state for the Stileman Clinic/camp in Trumbull stopped in to hang out and he volunteered to announce the second round so I could take the photos. He did a great job.
Anyway, in pre-race ceremonies William Guido was named the Rider-Of-The-Week for his efforts last week. He named Steve Hull his favorite rider. Now another problem. We have an unwritten rule that we usually don’t award this honor to the same rider more then once. We realized after the fact that William had gotten it last year as well. That does not take anything away from the great week he had last week and we are proud to have named him the ROTW. However, we feel the right thing to do is to name a “Co-Rider Of The Week for the June 28th race. Watch for that rider to be named with these weeks ROTW at our next race.
In our 16-29 Open Wheels money open seven riders were vying for a spot in the 5 rider main event. With the new scrambled moto rules in effect the motos were shear excitement. In the first round, Elliott McGrath , part of the Stileman organization won a mot as did Pete Lorenzo. Round 2 winners were Enzo Perez and McGrath. Lorenzo crashed on the back stretch and it was feared that he had broken his hand. He would withdraw from further competition. In the third round Shawn O’Connor and Enzo Perez were the winners. The moto money would go to Enzo first and McGrath second. The main event lineup was McGrath 1st, O’Connor 2nd, Perez 3rd.
In the regular racing action there seemed to be more passing going on then recent memory can recall.
Jorge Requena would be the winner in the 19-25 Expert group With novice rider Devin Kelly second.
Enzo Perez won the 17-18 Expert class as he and Elliott McGrath were really going at it. McGrath was saving himself for the “Open” and Colby Lake drew tough duty racing these two hot-rods. He finished third.
With 16 X Paul Maher just touching the gate, it allowed two novices Halton McCready and Sean Perkins to really get it on in their motos. The other half of the group featured Colby Benoit acing a perfect. In the Main Event Aggro’s Shaun O’Connor held off Perkins and McCready for the win.
Kyle Block, after winning the first round, riding the rear wheel in the second round, then bouncing back to win the third round for the overall win in 14X. Jason Chamis was second and Steve Kallas was third.
Shawn McAuley was again perfect in 13 X, Josh Thimmish was second and Chris Pfeffer (George’s Music Center) was third. In 11 Expert racing a determined Spencer Martin (New York) would win two of three with Chris Therriault finishing second and Troy Atchison was third.
Angela Therriault raked up another win in her mixed class as the only 15 yr old girl in the moto. 17 yr old Christine Gryzbek was second and 16 yr old Amy Block was third.
Ali Thimmish had it all her way in the 14 girls class as she used all her experience to dominate new rider Ashley Royer who made me promise not to tell her brother her brakes fell apart in practice. I never did tell him.
Katie Moody and Aggro’s Nicole O’Connor really battled hard in the 13 girls class trading moto wins in the first two rounds. The ty breaking third round went to Nicole. Ashlee Hodge, Here on vacation was third behind the two more experienced girls. In 12 yr old girls racing Jess Maher won all three rounds of racing. Jen Cote’ was second but new comer Machaela Groves, in her first race ever, shown some bike handling skills that will make her a force to contend with in short order. She would finish third in front of Kendra Covington.
Alexus Doty (Connecticut Wells) and Jen Rossi traded wins in the 10-11 girls class. Alexus won the ty breaking third round.
In 8-9 girls action Kyly Milton seems to be in a class by herself at times as she stretched out 3 impressive easy wins. Katrina Campbell and Keely Michaud battled for the second spot which eventually went to Campbell.
In 5-7 Girls things got pretty hairy in the second round. Beth Passeck, who wrecked in the rhythm section in the first round, was really ripping it up in the second round as she had the lead coming up the second straight. She would lose it and crash hard right in front of Hope Maher (Mark T Kelley Construction) who rode right over the top of her. Hope would not recover control after riding over Beth and she fell hard further down the track. (See photo section). Ashley Jasensky coasted in for the second round moto win. Both girls were okay and Hope bounced back to be the overall winner with Ashley second.
Its rare to have the need to combine Rookies with Novices of the same age but that’s what happened today. 14 yr old Alex Hubbard (Absolute Masonry & Home Improvement) was the only 14 Rookie here so the computer combined him with the 14 Novice class. Alex would finish behind Tim Osborne, Sawyer Martin and Roberto Elizondo.
12X and 13N are considered the same class in the NBL so its not a “combined” class. Dan Delisle was today’s winner with Chris Pannullo (Fusco’s Auto Salvage) second and Travis Perkins third.
Drew Scheinost won the five rider 12 novice class with Wes Reel second and Matt Bovat (Uncle Pat’s Memory) third.
In 10X-11N action the “D-Man” Dave Moody was unbeatable with Johnny Anton second and Trevor Fox third.
Nick Cote’ was the same dominator in 10n-9X racing as he won every moto. Pesky Justin Boissonneault was second and Josh Walsh was third.
In 8X-9N racing Lane Maher (Hartford County Tattoo) and Sky Domain battled hard with Lane winning tow of three. Doman was second and Mac Atchison was third.
The 8 yr old Novice win went to Collin Penn, Jagur Layman was second and the third spot went to Lucas Petosa.
Big combining in the next class with 5N-6X-6N-7N all thrown together. Arefin Milton (6N) was first across the stripe, Zach Ferris (Tactical Arms) was second, and Hunter Zeiner was third. Derek Fantano (5N) crossed the stripe fourth. Hunter Zeiner fell in the second round and just kinda rode it out after that.
In the 50& over class, Butch Feitel would get the best of Dave Beckwith (In more ways then one) in two of three motos. In the first round Butch couldnt hear the gate cadence and when it dropped he was stuck there holding the bag. Dave saw that he didnt leave and stopped then came back to the top of the hill. The moto was rerun. Great sportsmanship!
“The Hare” aka Steve Rossi and Stu McCready really went handlebar to handlebar in the 40-44 Cruiser class. Rossi would prevail but McCready gave him all he could handle.
Marianne Sklarsky beat Therese Campbell in 40 & over women.
Angela Therriault (15 yrs old) and Gina Layman (30+) had to race each other with Angela coming out on top. Curtis Jackson and Greg Sloan went head to head in 30-34 / 35-39 cruiser action with the action-man Curtis Jackson the winner.
The 25-29 Cruiser class was interesting in the first rund. As Matt Theriault and AJ Roy headed for turn one Matt had the lead. AJ (from my point of view) came into the turn way too low and drifted up and into Matt. I wish I had my camera ready as you could clearly see AJ leaning hard to the inside trying to avoid contact with Matt but to no avail. They traded paint and Matt became the first person to hit the turn one fence. I’m not sure if any and all hard feelings were abated but it sure looked from the tower like AJ did everything he could to avoid hitting Matt. He simply took the wrong line into the turn. At the end of the day Matt was the overall winner. In 13-14 / 17-24 Cruiser racing Chris Pfeffer and Mike Vallone traded wins but Mike won the ty breaker.
In 11-12 Cruiser racing Dan Delisle and Chris Pannullo (National Mail) had their usual weekly battle going on but it would be Delisle winning two of three for the overall win. Chris Therriault was third.
Nick Cote’ won the 9-10 cruiser class with Josh Walsh second and Sky Domain (8 & under) third. RJ Miville, making his cruiser debut was fourth.
51 Rookies were on hand for their special brand of racing. In the 16 & over gang Nick Roy, riding under the Bring-a-Buddy program won his first title in his first day of racing. It looked obvious that this guy was a free-styler making the cross-over as he has some mad skills. Nick Landi finished second and the third place award went to Dan Livingston.
The 12-13 Rookies class would feature Dave Lambs perfect. Even suffering a hard wreck in the third round Dylan Vadney had enough to salvage a second place finish. Dr. Darren Zimmerman was third. With 8 riders in the 11 Rookie class a Main event was required to determine the winner. Taylor Nelson would be the champ as he simply won everything including the main event. Chris Stewart, who won all of his motos had to settle for the second place award. Third across the stripe was Awesome Austin Wagner.
Eric Passeck aced yet another perfect in the 10 Rookies class. Even after wrecking in turn one in round two, Bryan Basile still had enough points to salvage a solid second place finish. The third spot went to Nick Bates.
Steve Hull won all his motos plus the 9 yr old Rookie main event. William Guido, also perfect in his motos was second and Brandon Galeski (Gold Seal Roofing) was third. No main in the 8 yr old rookie class this week. Connor Calarco, looking like he’s starting to like Foothills BMX, got the job done in this highly competitive class. Colin Riggs settled for second fiddle and the third spot went to Jason Lee.
The 7 Rookie class featured a full gate with six riders strong vying for the overall win. When the dust settled, Dustin Souza won it with Chris Guido second and third was Jon Todd third.
Landon Richard won the 5 & under class as he kept Lucas North at bay and also Aman Egan.
Well, it was a crazy day and after all that preparation, the racing action was done in two hours. Hope everyone had a great weekend.
Cya next week.

For a complete finish report

As always, thanks for your support. See you next week