RPW Exclusive: Clutch Time! Danny Varin Steals ESS CNY Speedweek Win At Weedsport With Last Lap Pass

Column By: MARTY CZEKALA / RPW – WEEDSPORT, NY – Entering Sunday night’s 25-lap Empire Super Sprints feature at Weedsport Speedway, very few people had Danny Varin taking the twin checkers from 10th.

But it happened. It was challenging.

The driver of the No. 01 made it happen with a last-lap pass on Matt Tanner to score his second ESS win of the season.

“The last lap passes mean more every year the older I get,” Varin told RPW post-race. “It seems like it’s harder to keep pace with the amount of work back home, the traveling and the family growing.”

Initially, Varin was headed for a third-place finish coming to the initial checkered flag until race leader Jordan Thomas went too high in turn four, making contact with the sand barrels. Race control threw a yellow before Matt Tanner, who took the lead, could cross the timing line, setting up a one-lap shootout.

“[Thomas] was alright but he was living and dying off the cushion,” Varin said.

“Tanner showed me his nose going down the backstretch, and the only thing I had in my head was to run it as hard as I could,” said Thomas, who had up to an eight-second lead at one point. “Had the car a little too snug for plugging it on the cushion. I should’ve rolled into the corner and turned down the track.”

On the one-lap shootout, Tanner had a later restart than past restarts, which allowed Varin on his outside to time the reaction well. While Tanner found bite off the bottom of turn two, Varin would send it around the outside of three and four to gain momentum. The two made contact, drag racing to the line and gave Varin the victory by just under a tenth of a second.

This was a race that Varin almost considered skipping due to having to swap motors on the road before the race.

“I knew they weren’t faster than me, but starting deep like we did, it was going to be a challenge,” said Varin. “A huge thank you to this team.”

“The last restart with Danny, I played too nice going into three,” explained Tanner. “I should’ve taken the top on him. If I could run the bottom clean that was the ticket for us. Short runs and clean air were really good.”

Defending ESS champion Jordan Poirier won the CNY Speedweek championship by a few markers, finishing fourth place ahead of Davie Franek and Jason Barney tonight. Poirier had an impressive average finish of 3.75 in Speedweek with a best finish of second at Utica-Rome Thursday.

“It was all about consistency,” Poirier said post-race. “We’ve been really good at Utica. Tonight, it was all about surviving. I stuck to the bottom and tried to survive. We’re decent at points racing but we don’t want to make mistakes.”

34 drivers checked in Sunday. The average car count throughout CNY Speedweek was 34.5 drivers per race.

ESS will focus on NASCAR Night and the Northern Summer Nationals Thursday and Friday at Ohsweken Speedway, then return to New York July 19 at Albany-Saratoga Speedway.

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A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. #01-Danny Varin[10]; 2. 90-Matt Tanner[3]; 3. 22-Jonathan Preston[4]; 4. 28-Jordan Poirier[5]; 5. #99L-Larry Wight[7]; 6. 28F-Davie Franek[17]; 7. #17-Sammy Reakes IV[12]; 8. 87-Jason Barney[9]; 9. 17X-Cory Turner[8]; 10. 96X-Chad Phelps[22]; 11. 98-Joe Trenca[2]; 12. #41-Dalton Rombough[19]; 13. 0-Glenn Styres[15]; 14. #79-Jordan Thomas[1]; 15. 10V-Billy VanInwegen Jr[16]; 16. 53-Shawn Donath[14]; 17. 4P-Chase Moran[25]; 18. 36-Logan Crisafulli[20]; 19. 33-Lacey Hanson[24]; 20. 3-Parker Evans[11]; 21. 10-Kelly Hebing[21]; 22. 13E-Evan Reynolds[26]; 23. #3Z-John Smith IV[13]; 24. #4-Emily VanInwegen[6]; 25. #88C-Chad Miller[18]; 26. 46-Ryan Coniam[23]

Lacaillade Masonry B Feature 1 (10 Laps): 1. 10-Kelly Hebing[1]; 2. 96X-Chad Phelps[3]; 3. 46-Ryan Coniam[2]; 4. 33-Lacey Hanson[5]; 5. 4P-Chase Moran[7]; 6. #25G-Tyler Graves[10]; 7. 2-Dave Axton[6]; 8. 13E-Evan Reynolds[13]; 9. 13-Keith Granholm[14]; 10. 23-Eric Cartier[11]; 11. X-Dan Bennett[8]; 12. 29-Dylan Menditto[4]; 13. (DNS) 66-Jordan Hutton; 14. (DNS) 13T-Trevor Years

The Wildcat Dash 1 (4 Laps): 1. #3Z-John Smith IV[4]; 2. 53-Shawn Donath[2]; 3. 0-Glenn Styres[1]; 4. 10V-Billy VanInwegen Jr[3]

E V Energy Heat 1 (10 Laps): 1. 87-Jason Barney[3]; 2. 17X-Cory Turner[1]; 3. 90-Matt Tanner[2]; 4. 0-Glenn Styres[5]; 5. 28F-Davie Franek[4]; 6. 10-Kelly Hebing[6]; 7. 33-Lacey Hanson[9]; 8. 66-Jordan Hutton[7]; 9. 13E-Evan Reynolds[8]

E V Energy Heat 2 (10 Laps): 1. 28-Jordan Poirier[2]; 2. #79-Jordan Thomas[1]; 3. 3-Parker Evans[3]; 4. 53-Shawn Donath[7]; 5. #88C-Chad Miller[6]; 6. 46-Ryan Coniam[4]; 7. 2-Dave Axton[5]; 8. #25G-Tyler Graves[9]; 9. 13-Keith Granholm[8]
E V Energy Heat 3 (10 Laps): 1. #01-Danny Varin[1]; 2. 98-Joe Trenca[2]; 3. 22-Jonathan Preston[4]; 4. 10V-Billy VanInwegen Jr[6]; 5. #41-Dalton Rombough[3]; 6. 96X-Chad Phelps[5]; 7. 4P-Chase Moran[7]; 8. 23-Eric Cartier[8]

E V Energy Heat 4 (10 Laps): 1. #99L-Larry Wight[1]; 2. #4-Emily VanInwegen[2]; 3. #17-Sammy Reakes IV[8]; 4. #3Z-John Smith IV[5]; 5. 36-Logan Crisafulli[3]; 6. 29-Dylan Menditto[4]; 7. X-Dan Bennett[7]; 8. (DNS) 13T-Trevor Years