Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – With two laps to go Saturday evening in the season finale for the 358-Modifieds at the Lebanon Valley Speedway, it looked as if Chris Curtis was headed to victory lane.
That’s when things got interesting.
Second place runner Ryan Charland began to apply pressure to the leader and looked like he had something to mount a charge. However, in turn three on lap 22, he made one slip and that allowed the #1 of Jason Herrington to slip into the runner-up position.
Herrington wasn’t done. He then began to apply pressure to the leader and made the move to the inside of the 35 as the two entered turn one on the white flag lap. Jason was able to get by and brought the 10 of Charland with him, sliding Curtis, who led the entire way up until this point, back to third.
That was all she wrote for Herrington as he went on to capture the $1,500-to-win Cathy Plotz Memorial feature event.
“I really think those guy’s tires began to wear off,” Herrington said. “Mine started to come in towards the end. My car was a little tight on and off but man, I was like, there’s two more laps. I might be able to do this and by golly we did.”
For any of the spectators in the track on Saturday, watching the closing laps of this feature was thrilling, as it was, apparently, from the cockpit of the big red #1 as well.
“That’s what makes it fun,” he said. “Putting on a good show for everybody here, makes them want to come back. Guys (the fans), I promise you, the first race you come back to, we’ll be doing the same thing again.”
For the third race in-a-row, Herrington has been able to be victorious on the season finale at the Valley. What is it about the final night of racing that suits the “Flyin’ Farmer”?
“I don’t have to come back next week,” he said with a laugh. “We get to savor this win all winter. On the last night, you get to put all your cards on the table. Whatever happens, happens and it’s like, let’s give her hell.”
Charland came home second to finish off a career year for the Stafford, CT driver. While he didn’t visit victory lane, he was a constant front runner in the division this season with several top five runs and came home second in points to champion Andy Bachetti.
Curtis crossed the line in third but was placed to the final position in the rundown, 18th, after his post-race bumping of Herrington on the cool down lap. That moved the aforementioned champion Bachetti into third with Kim LaVoy and Joey Coppola rounding out the top five.
Last week, Sportsman racer Michael Sabia got passed for the lead with just two circuits remaining by John Virgilio and missed out on winning on Mr. DIRT Track USA night in front of a large crowd.
This week however, he wasn’t letting anything stop him from getting the victory and he made sure of it, using every inch of the speedway to protect his position and the Connecticut driver brought his Teo Pro Car home for his second win of the 2021 season.
“After getting past last weekend through the infield, I wasn’t going to let that happen again,” Sabia said. “I was using the whole track from the outside wall to the infield, back and forth. I wasn’t letting anyone get by me this week once I got to the lead.”
It looked like Sabia was headed to victory as he exited turn four on the final lap. However, he saw the yellow flag instead of the checkers as the caution flew. That put the 98H of Walter Hammond on his back bumper with champion John Virgilio in third for a one lap shootout. Sabia wasn’t to be denied, however.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “The leader’s coming off of four and there’s a wreck and they throw the caution. Only me!”
This was a great race for Sabia to win, the final night at the Valley, as he looks to more evens to close out his 2021 season.
“This win will help us carry momentum into Super DIRT Week and Eastern States,” he said. “This will definitely keep us on a high and keep us going.”
Hammond finished second with Virgilio finishing off another titles season in third. Whitey Slavin and Rob Maxon completed the top five.
Zach Seyerlein passed Dave Stickles with three laps remaining to win the 12-lap Pro Stock Dash on Saturday evening with Nick Hilt, Zach Sorrentino and Brian Keough the rest of the top five.
Brian Walsh, John Devine and Rob Partridge each took home wins in the Pure Stock races with Jim Dellea winning the Pure Stock dash.
Then, in the 20-lap Pure Stock finale, the Fallen Heroes 20, it was Dave Striebel Jr. passing John Devine late to take the victory.
Dylan Fachini, Chris Stalker and Ryan Brown were third through fifth, respectively, in that one.
Jon Sheppard (Single Cam) and Brandon Ely (Dual Cam) were victorious in 4-Cylinder action.
SMALL BLOCK MODIFIED FEATURE RESULTS (24 LAPS) 1) Jason Herrington** 1 2) Ryan Charland, 10C 3) Andy Bachetti*** 4 4) Kim Lavoy* 3 5) Joey Coppola* 94 6) Frank Harper* 25 7) Mike Sabia 7S 8) Ryan Larkin** 39 9) Kevin Petrucci 24 10) Brian Sandstedt, 12S 11) Mark Pullen 30 12) Olden Dwyer** 88JR 13) John Lutes JR. 21L 14) Sean Mandel 66P 15) Ray Hall Jr, 72 16) Montgomery Tremont 115 17) Alan Houghtaling, 250 18) Chris Curtis 35C
SPORTSMAN FEATURE RESULTS (20 LAPS) 1) Micheal Sabia** 7S 2) Walter J. Hammond 98H 3) John Virgilio*** 14 4) Whitey Slavin* 5 5) Rob Maxon* 96 6) Chris Lynch*** 74 7) Matt Burke, 12 8) Dylan Gibson 22G 9) Robbie Colburn, 18 10) Angelo Dicarlo, 81D 11) Jeff Gallup 4MA 12) Pete Lorenzo 3G 13) John Stowell, 8JS 14) Bob Fachini 728 15) Karl Barnes, 307 16) Brady Cordova 3 17) Jared Powell 18P 18) Pete Carlotto, 12C 19) Matt Gallo 16B 20) Keith Patnode, 2X 21) Shane Powell, 33S 22) Dave Fachini 122 23) Joe Mennitte 112 24) Jimmy VanZandt 313 25) Shane Henion 39 26) Frank Twing JR. 1T 27) Tim Hartman* 22H 28) Kevin Ames 43 29) Bryce Breault 2B 30) Rob Hallaback, 2H 31) Harold Robitaille O3 32) Jeff Reis 21J 33) Walter Hammond JR., 88 34) Joey Scarborough 11VT 35) Keith Johannessen 4NY
PRO STOCKS FEATURE RESULTS (12 LAPS) 1) Zach Seyerlein* 33 2) Dave Stickles* 55 3) Nick Hilt*** 17 4) Zach Sorrentino, 54S 5) Brian Keough 311 6) Frank Twing 1 7) Tom O’Connor 52 8) Doug Olds 73 9) Rick Spencer 32 10) Dominique Hilt 17H 11) Rich Colesanti 41
PURE STOCK # 1 FEATURE RESULTS (8 LAPS) 1) Brian Walsh*** 43 2) Clifford Booth** 17 3) Dylan Fachini*** 35 4) Ryan Brown* O10 5) Franklin Smith, 76 6) Janai St. Pierre** 18 7) Ray Royals 6 8) Katarina Foster 10 9) Shawn Perez JR. O9
PURE STOCK # 2 FEATURE RESULTS (8 LAPS) 1) John Devine*** 24 2) Rocco Procopio***** 62 3) Chris Stalker****** 177 4) Jeff Meltz SR.****** 5X 5) Craig Coons, 133C 6) Jim Dellea, 77 7) Chris Brown, OO9 8) Peter Huntoon, 3
PURE STOCK # 3 FEATURE RESULTS (8 LAPS) 1) Rob Partridge***** 22 2) Chris Murphy, O11 3) Dave Striebel JR.** 73 4) Dave Striebel** 273 5) Keri Vandenburg* 89 6) Colby Kokosa** OOK 7) Mike Dianda 315 8) Scott Morris, 84
4 CYLINDER SINGLE CAM FEATURE RESULTS (15 LAPS) 1) Jon Shepard*** 99S 2) Bradley Batho* O7s 3) Victor Duncan JR.* 73S 4) Tim Meltz*** 515S 5) Tom Meltz 15S 6) Joey Batho, 7S 7) Victor Duncan SR. 60S 8) Althea Roy 35S 9) Joe Wolfe 777S 10) Bob Ely XS 6) Austin McDonald 4S
4 CYLINDER DUAL CAM FEATURE RESULTS (15 LAPS) 1) Brandon Ely*** 5D 2) Slappy White 43 3) Lucas Ballard*** 54D 4) Gary Malloy* 39D 5) Jim Guertin, 7D 6) Chris Hall 4XD 7) Garrett Biagiarelli, 343D 8) Frank Twing SR. 501D 9) Steve Burbank, 22D 10) Helina Yeno 313D