News Director 
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – Racing returned to the historic Orange County Fair Speedway on Sunday and it was a very familiar face that returned to victory lane.
Anthony Perrego took the lead on lap 14 from Tyler Dippel and held off a hard charging Peter Britten to take the win, his 17th career Modified victory.
The 11th starting Perrego wasted little time getting into position to challenge for the lead, moving to the top 3 by lap 6. Anthony moved past Danny Creeden on lap 8 and after catching Dippel on lap 14, made the pass for the lead.
Dippel dropped out on lap 16 which elevated Billy VanInwegen up to 2nd. Further back in the pack,12th starting Britten was having a roller coaster type of race, gaining some and then losing some. By halfway, Britten was finally able to maintain some forward momentum and he steadily gained positions through the 2nd half of the feature.
Britten made it all the way to 3rd on lap 27 and took 2nd from VanInwegen on lap 28.
Perrego was able to keep Britten from his 2nd consecutive OCFS win by 0.814 over the popular racer from Australia.
“Peter’s been really good here, obviously good in the last race here,” Perrego said. Our guys worked really hard. A big thank you to everyone who helps us out. Our crew puts in a lot of hours and a lot of miles. I’m glad that we can get one here at home.”
It was a tired Britten who spoke to OCFS’s Tim Pitts after his runner-up placing.
“Yeah, that was a workout,” Britten said. “I think that we were really set up for it well in the beginning. I kind of went into survival mode. a little bit and definitely the longer the race went on, the better that we got. Congrats to Anthony and yeah, another good run for us here. Thanks for everyone for coming out.”
Even after losing the runner-up spot late in the race, VanInwegen was satisfied with his 3rd place finish.
“Our guys worked really hard. We haven’t had a chance to do a lot of Modified racing lately,’ said the versatile Billy V. “We just got to go to work a little bit. A 5th and a 3rd, we are right in the points with these two guys. Looking forward to the next race here. Thanks to the awesome crowd for coming out tonight.”
Billy Pauch Jr. was another racer who was able to greatly advance his finishing position from well back in the pack as he placed 4th. After dropping to the rear early on, Dillon Steuer impressively drove though the field on the excellently prepared racing surface to finish 5th.
Completing the Modified top 10 running order was Craig Mitchell 6th, Creeden 7th, David Schilling 8th, Charles Loiodice 9th and Louden Reimart 10th.
In Sportsman action, Hunter Lapp wasn’t the first car across the finish line at the checkers, but he was the beneficiary when apparent winner Jared LaBagh came up light at the scales. It was Lapp’s first ever win at OCFS.
“This morning, I didn’t expect to be down here the way the weather was looking. This is only our 3rd time out with the Sportsman car this year. This is pretty much a fun thing,” said the elated Lapp in Victory Lane. “Pretty cool to come down and get a win. Sucks that it went that way for Jared, but a win is a win.”
The race was marred but a big crash on lap 6 which saw the #151 of Gary Napolitano get upside down and injure Joey Conklin Jr. The extent of Conklin’s injuries was unknown as of this writing.
Lapp led the first 6 laps, but LaBagh was able to take the lead and impressively pull away. But according to a post on his Facebook page, LaBagh lost a rub rail at some point during the race and received the DQ afterwards.
Jimmy Leiby ended up placing 2nd with John Farissier finishing 3rd, Michael Sabia 4th and Grant Hilfiger 5th.
“We haven’t been down here on the frontstretch on the podium in a long time,” Leiby said. “We had a tough heat race, but we made a lot of changes.”
“It’s nice to get up here a couple times a year,” said Farissier. “The surface was definitely different, but the old setup worked and that’s all that matters.”
Rounding out the top 10 Sportsman finishing order was Dominic Roselli Jr. 6th, Ryan Neiger 7th, Ryan Behrent 8th, Pat Mann 9th and Brock Miller 10th.
Jack Beaumont, who makes an extremely long tow to race at OCFS, impressively was Sunday’s Street Stock winner.
“That was fun. I have to say, hats off to Brett Hearn and everybody who worked on this track,’ Beaumont said. “We were incredibly hooked. It was fun, I just ripped the lip.and we pulled off the win.”
Beaumont was quickly to the lead in this one as he took the lead brom Bob Sleight Jr. on lap 3 and proceeded to take the sin. Tom Cilurso Jr. finished 2nd with Jayden Sleight 3rd, JB Morris 4th and Bob Sleight 5th.
It was a brakeless Tyler Romer finishing 6th, Mike Vigiletti 7th, CJ Tinnelly 8th, Ray Tarantino 9th and Mary Van Nieuwland III 10th.
The final race in the 3 race Big Series will be on September 8th as it will be Hanry Sharp Memorial Night. It will also be full fender Nostalgia Night and the Street Stocks will have a huge race, the Marky Traverse Memorial race.
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