RPW Exclusive: Alex Yankowski Avenges Thursday’s Tough Loss With Fonda 200 Qualifier Win Friday
Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – FONDA, NY – What a whirlwind 24 hours at the Track of Champions for Alex Yankowski.
Thursday night, the driver from Jermyn, PA looked to have the Underdog 33 feature in his grasps only to have a suspension failure five laps from the finish take it away.
Friday night, he wasn’t leaving anything to chance, leading from start to finish to collect the win in the first 15-lap qualifier for Saturday night’s Fonda 200.
“We’ve just been busting our butts all year long here,” Yankowski said. “The people at Wilcox Construction, Wilcox Sealing & Paving as well as Brodel Fuel Group and Training Tails have been awesome and make this all possible.”
Yankowski’s ride has been super fast since the team unloaded for Thursday’s action, and the young driver was quick to thank his engine builder for his due diligence.
“Murray (Performance) is doing a heck of a job with our engine program,” he said. “He saw something he wasn’t thrilled with when he was doing motor maintenance last week.”
The team worked to freshen the powerplant for this weekend’s action, and it looks like the hard work paid off.
“We did what we thought was best,” he said. “We took it out on Monday and stripped it down to the bare block that night. Then, we rebuilt it on Tuesday and Wednesday and got it in the car. I can’t thank them and my guys enough. They’re just awesome and I’m super grateful to have them.”
While he didn’t grab a win in 2023 at Fonda, he was extremely consistent and came home third in the season-long point standings on the strength of six top 5’s and ten top 10 finishes.
“I’ve had years where we’ve won a race but weren’t really that great,” he said. “I feel like we’re a lot more deserving of it now but we’re just going to keep plugging away at it. What’s meant to be is meant to be.”
He knows the competition he’s competing against is some of the toughest in the Northeast.
“These guys out here are awesome,” he said. “All we can do is keep putting ourselves in position and keep bringing fast race cars to the track and that’s what we’re going to do.”
84Y-Alex Yankowski[1]; 2. 111-Demetrios Drellos[5]; 3. 3W-Mat Williamson[9]; 4. 9J-Marc Johnson[4]; 5. 1-Rocky Warner[12]; 6. 21P-Luciano (Pep) Corradi[2]; 7. 42-Tucker O’Connor[8]; 8. 28-Michael Trautschold[7]; 9. 21C-Brian Calabrese[3]; 10. 87-Neil Stratton[10]; 11. 24-Dave Camara[6]; 12. 22-Ancel Collins[11]
