Eastern States Pit Notes – Williamson, Phelps and Von Doren Claim Wins at OCFS

Day 2 of the Eastern States closed out Orange County Fair Speedway’s season with an epic day of racing in 602 Crates, small blocks and big blocks with over 200 cars participating in the final day of the Eastern States Championships.

Larry Wight and Max McLaughlin lead the 38 car field to green for the 200 lap feature event.  Wight held the lead for 55 laps until Friesen took the lead over as Wight’s tires started to fade.  Friesen held the lead until lap 144 when his tires began to fade and both Matt Williamson and Mike Mahaney passed Friesen who then decided to pit for a new right rear during a lap 164 caution. After going to the rear of the field and back to 24^th place Friesen was already back to 4^th place by lap 178 and moving back in on Williamson and Mahaney.  Despite a lap 194 caution and double file restart Williamson was able to hold Friesen off by over a 3 second margin to take the “Big Money” race for the second week in a row with Friesen 2^nd place in both races which is a place Friesen is not accustom to be when it comes to the “Big Money” races.  Mike Mahaney got another podium finish which continues to add to his strongest and most consistent month of the season.

In victory lane Williamson noted “When we took the tires on the pit stop around lap 95 that won us the race.  We were able to hold Stewart off for the second week in a row which is really something.  We have been able to win a trifecta of the big races this month.”

The top 10 was rounded out with Friesen in 2^nd and followed by Mike Mahaney, Tim Sears Jr, Tyler Dipple, Jimmy Phelps, Pat Ward, Max Mclaughlin, Billy VanInwegen and Jeff Heotzler.

ORANGE COUNTY FAIR SPEEDWAY -EASTERN STATES WEEKEND BIG BLOCK MODIFIEDS FEATURE FINISH (200-LAPS):

1. Mat Williamson, 2 Stewart Friesen 3 Mike Mahaney 4 Tim Sears Jr. 5 Tyler Dippel
6 Jimmy Phelps 7 Pat Ward 8 Max McLaughlin 9 Billy VanInwegen 10 Jeff Heotzler
11 Tommy Meier 12 Peter Britten 13 Ryan Godown 14 Marc Johnson 15 Anthony Perrego
16 Jack Lehner 17 Dillon Steuer 18 Kevin Root 19 Allison Ricci 20 Jessica Friesen
21 Matt Hitchcock 22 Richard Smith 23 Tim Fuller 24 Ronnie Johnson 25 Andy Bachetti
26 Larry Wight 27 Billy Decker 28 Matt Sheppard 29 Shane Jablonka 30 Jimmy Horton
31 Tyler Trump 32 LJ Lombardo 33 Tyler Boniface 34 Bobby Henschel 35 Rocky Warner
36 Kyle Armstrong 37 JR Heffner 38 Jerry Higbie

DNQ – Duane Howard, Kenny Tremont, Craig Mitchell, Tuyler Jashenbowski, Corey Lowett,

Danny Ceeden, Ricky Davis, CG Morey, Bob McGannon, Sam Martz, Chris Shultz, Brad Rothaupt,

Jimmy Maher, Ken Anonsen, Kirk Horton, Steve Dodd, Brenden Finley, Jimmy Spellman, Kyle Armstrong

BIG BLOCK MODIFIED – PIT NOTES

For the second “Big Money” race in a week it came down to Matt Williamson and Stewart Friesen at the end of 200 laps with Williamson coming out on top in both races as Friesen ran out of time to track down Williamson.

Mike Mahaney returned to form with another 3^rd place finish.  Coming out of Octoberfast week Mahaney was arguably the hottest driver on the tour with consistent top 3 and one top 10 finish due to an unexpected tech issue.  He cooled off a bit last week with a 12^th place finish at the Port Royal 200 lap race but seemed to apply the lessons learned at last week’s 200 lap race and had one of the fastest cars on the track in the last 10 laps of this week’s race.

Of the drivers in the modified top 10; the driver with the best combined big block modified and small block modified finish was a surprising Tim Sears Jr.  Tim put together a performance of a lifetime with a 2^nd place small block finish which he followed with a 4^th place finish in the 200 lap big block race.  Sears was prepared to conclude his season after last week’s trip to Port Royal but made a last minute decision early in the week to attend one more race at the Eastern States and it turned out to be the highlight of the Sears team’s season.

Jimmy Phelps is another driver like Mahaney that has had a consistent and strong fall season in the past few weeks.  Phelps added another small block win and a 6^th place big block finish to his sweep of the Octoberfast event at Fulton were he won both the small block and big block title on the same night.

Billy Vaninwegan started in the 27^th position and fought his way into the top 10 after pit stops at around the 100 lap mark and came home with a strong 9^th place finish completing all 200 laps.

Both Peter Brittan and Ryan Godown Qualified in the last chance consolations.  Brittan managed a 12^th place finish from his 32^nd starting position while Godown finished 13^th from his 33^rd starting position.  Both drivers were tied for the hard charger of the event with +20 positions on the event.

Both Jessica Friesen and Allison Ricci qualified their Halmar entries in the Eastern States field and finished 19^th and 20^th respectively.

Matt Sheppard had mechanical issues in the first 10 laps and got down 5 laps early on and ultimately retired to the pits on lap 86.  Larry Wight was able to lead 55 laps from the pole position only to retire to the pits on lap 92 due to mechanical issues.

Tim Fuller ran in the top 5 for the entire race until mechanical issues forced him to retire to the pits on lap 185 relegating Fuller to a disappointing 23^rd place finish.

Dillon Steuer stopped at flagger stand late in the race to dispute his being a lap down. Post race several drivers including Dillon Steuer and Ryan Godown aired complaints that they were incorrectly scored a lap down during caution lap pit stops.

49 laps were scored under caution while 151 were run under green flag conditions.

SMALL BLOCK MODIFIED

The 75 lap small block modified feature was another dominate performance by Jimmy Phelps from the pole who again led the race from green to checked flag his 3^rd win in the month of October.  Tim Sears Jr and Rocky Warner were out of towners who had impressive podium finishes at one of the biggest races of the year. 

Postrace Phelps noted “We hadn’t been on the track all day and together with a narrow track and constant lapped traffic that was the only thing that scared me and fortunately we were able to negotiate the lapped traffic without incident.”

The top ten was rounded out by Tim Sears Jr in 2^nd followed by Rocky Warner, Billy Decker, Larry Wight, Tyler Boniface, Anthony Perrego, David Schilling, Marc Johnson and Ben Bushaw.

ORANGE COUNTY FAIR SPEEDWAY – EASTERN STATES WEEKEND SMALL-BLOCK MODIFIEDS FEATURE FINISH (75-LAPS):

1 Jimmy Phelps 2 Tim Sears Jr 3 Rocky Warner 4 Billy Decker 5 Larry Wight 6 Tyler Boniface
7 Anthony Perrego 8 David Schilling 9 Marc Johnson 10 Ben Bushaw 11 Roger Henion Jr.
12 Tyler Dippel 13 Kevin Root 14 Mat Williamson 15 Neil Stratton 16 Chris Stevens
17 Bob McGannon 18 Joe Bonetti 19 Shane Jablonka 20 Corey Cormier 21 Allison Ricci
22 Patrick Reiser 23 Dave Constantino 24 Dillon Steuer 25 Stewart Friesen 26 Gary Edwards Jr.
27 Richard Smith 28 Pat Ward 29 Jackson Gill 39 Andy Bachetti 31 Dave Marcuccili

32 Billy VanInwegen 33 Frank Venezia 34 Tommy Meier 35 Louden Reimert 36 Bobby Flood

DNQ – Mike Mahaney, John Ferrier, Danny Morgiewicz, Ray Hall, Randy Green, Alissa Cody, Derrick McGrew, Jimmy Spellmon, Christopher Curtis, Craig Mitchell, Ryan Darcy, Johnny Gaurino, Leo Folopoulos, Kirk Horton, Jimmh Maher, Matt Shultz, Sean Mandel, Eric Holmgren, James Meehan,

Randy Green, Mike Kolka, Roddy Watts, Ryan Darcy

SMALL BLOCK MODIFIED PIT NOTES

Tyler Dipple qualified in the last available spot in the last chance consolation and started 36^th in the 75 lap feature.  Dipple finished 12^th from a 36^th starting position on the grid and was the hard charger of the small block feature.

Anthony Perrego finished in 7th place from a 22^nd starting position

Matt Williamson and Stewart Friesen were in the small block feature but turned out not to be a factor.  Friesen pulled in on lap 65 while Matt Williamson finished 14^th from a 26^th starting position.

602 CRATE SPORTSMAN

The 602 Crates 50 lap feature was led to green by Allen Fink and Tommy Collins with Joey Brunning spinning in front of the field before lap 1 collecting 3 cars in the first melee of the day which Tanner Van Doren and the leaders were able to avoid.  Allen Fink maintained the lead until lap 35 when Tanner Van Doren was able to secure the pass for the lead he had been trying to make all day.  Fink stayed right on Van Doren’s bumper but just couldn’t find a way around the savvy 2nd year twelve year old crate driver Von Doren.  The 50 lap event had 12 cautions and one 15 car melee and took an hour and twenty minutes to complete the 50 laps but in the end it was 12 year old Tanner Van Doren with his second win of the season to add to his first OCFG point championship this year.

In victory lane Van Doren noted “This is awesome and I had a lot of fun battling with the #8 guy and this track was one lane and really hard to pass on and got real tricky in the end.  Had to finally get a good restart on top to make my one pass of the day.  I got in Pat Giuliano’s # 51 car for the first time at a practice earlier this week.  Thanks to Pat this car runs pretty good.”

The Slatington, PA youngster was the first Eastern States rookie to win at Eastern States and the youngest winner in the 101 years of OCFG racing.

The top 10 was rounded out by Alan Fink, Zack Sobotka, Matt Janczuk, Tommy Collins, Joe Toth, Kevin Root, Travis Green, Robert Bublack and LJ Lombardo.

602 Sportsman Pit Notes

Tanner Van Doren made his most important move of the race before lap 1 when the car in front of Van Doren in the starting grip spun in front of the field and Tanner managed to not get involved.  Another incident involved 15 cars and Van Doren was able to avoid that one too.  But perhaps the hardest part of the win was making a pass for the lead on a one groove track but he got that done and collected his second win of the season with his first Eastern States Championship.

Despite 12 cautions and the “big one” a couple of drivers made some outstanding runs from the back of the field in just 50 laps.  Joe Toth finished in 6^th place from a 31^st starting position while L.J Lombardo finished 10^th from a 34^th starting position. 

88 crate entries were on hand attempting to qualify for the 36 car field.

Orange County Fair Speedway closed their season out with the Eastern States Weekend and is looking forward to a full season of events in 2021.