Bridgeport Modified Pit Notes – Godown Sr. Makes it Two Modified Wins in a row at Bridgeport Motorsports Park

The modified feature saw Davey Sammons led the first 4 laps until Dominick Buffalino took over the top spot for the next 15 laps only to fall out with mechanical problems handing the lead back over to Sammons.  Sammons defended the lead until lap 29 when Ryan Godown swooped into the lead and pulled away to take his second Bridgeport trip to victory lane in a row.

Modified 30 Lap Feature:

 1. Ryan Godown, 2. Neal Williams, 3. Davey Sammons, 4. Richie Pratt Jr., 5. Jordan Watson, 6. Billy Pauch Jr., 7. Ryan Watt, 8. Joseph Watson, 9. Clay Butler, 10. Alex Yankowski , 11. Sam Martz Sr., 12. Jim Gallagher Jr., 13. Ryan Krachun, 14. Tommy Beamer, 15. Matt Peck, 16. Jim Britt, 17. W.B. James, 18. Matt Smith, 19. Roger Manning, 20. Ron Roberts, 21. Brett Kelly, 22. Dominick Buffalino, 23. Mike Franz, 24. Blaine Braclein, 25. Matt Stangle

Modified Pit Notes – 4/23/22

It may be early in the season but Ryan Godown and the 26 team has already proven they can both win and bounce back from setbacks in a hurry.  Opening night of the Bridgeport season Ryan was involved in 8-car wreck took them out before lap one.  The 26-team worked on the car all week and came back the following week and claimed their first Bridgeport win of the season.  Last Friday night Ryan had some bad draw and racing luck and ended up missing qualifying for the feature by a couple of spots.  After overnight maintenance they returned the next day to victory lane for their second consecutive win at Bridgeport.  Ryan took the win from his 15^th starting position and his big move was from 6^th to 2^nd after a lap 19 restart.  The 26-team had 7 wins at Bridgeport last year and already have 2 wins this year in 3 races.

In victory lane Ryan Godown Sr. noted “Track was racy tonight and you got to work your butt off for every spot here.  Guys are not giving an inch out there.  My guys are working hard in the shop every night and keep plugging away.  Last night was a late night turn around and here we are back in victory lane.  These long green flag runs are tough, and you got to be up on the wheel for 30 laps.  I didn’t think I had anything for Davey if we didn’t get that caution.”

Neal Williams finished 2^nd from his 7^th starting position.  Neil has already shown consistency and a progression forward this season with a 12^th, 10^th, and 2^nd place finish so far this year at Bridgeport.  This is just the early jump start that Neil needs to make a move toward a top 5 finish in 2022 season points and improving on his 10^th place standing in the 2021 points.

Postrace Neal reflected “We have been working for the past month to get where we were on Saturday.  It’s tough to hit on something when you are not racing more than once a week.  We looked at all our notes over the winter and circled areas we needed to get better.  The past month we have tweaked everything, and on Saturday I think we finally got were we need to be which enabled us to be fast and consistent all night long.  The longer that race went the better we got.”

  Davey Sammons led the 30-lap feature for the first 4 laps and then led again from lap 19-28 and finished with a solid 3^rd.  The #79 family team made a complete turn around from a 23^rd place finish last week to a 3^rd place finish just a week later.

Davey Sammons reflected “We made some really big gains this weekend. We have really been struggling on coils which we just switched to this year, and we still have a lot to learn.  The car has been so tight that I just pulled off in last week’s feature to not tear up anything since the car was that bad.  We have been battling a bad hop that makes the car feel like it is going to flip over. The hop was still there this weekend in practice, and we were one of the slowest cars to start the night in hot laps.  We made some big changes for the heat race that worked.  We weren’t great, but the car was drivable and allowed me to get some confidence back.  We made some more changes for the feature and now have a pretty good balanced car to work.  Hopefully we can just continue to fine tune the car and get better.”

Davey continued “The caution for Buffalino stopping on the 1/4-mile front stretch really hurt us.  If we stay green, I don’t think anyone had anything for us.  Godown went 6th to 2nd on that restart, that is where he won the race.  After that he made me make a mistake and it was over.  Godown and his team are one of the best around right now and he’s not making many driving mistakes.  It probably sounds funny being upset with a 3rd place finished after struggling so bad, but I want to win, and I know we can.  It’s unfortunate we didn’t get the win but on the bright side we did take advantage of our handicap.  We also learned a lot as a team, and I learned a lot about how the track races in a feature. I’ll learn from my mistakes in those final laps and hopefully be able to use it to pick up a win soon.”

Richie Pratt had another strong finish with a 4^th place finish from an 11^th starting position.  Richie has finished in the top 10 at all three Bridgeport point races with a 9^th, 3^rd, and tonight’s 4^th place finish.  Pratt has also finished in the top ten at every track he has gone to so far this year including Georgetown, New Egypt and Delaware International.

Richie noted “Once again we had a good car.  Now at Bridgeport restarts are more important than ever and we were able to be in the right lane for the last one and picked up some spots.”

Jordan Watson had a nice turn around to his season with a 5^th place finish from a 10^th starting position.  Jordan was caught up in the opening day 8 car wreck and made it back the following week but had electrical problems which appeared to be residual effects of the prior week’s wreck.

Jordan Watson stated “This week we had pretty good night at track. After the issues in the first two weeks at Bridgeport we just needed to make a full night on track and get some good notes.  In the heat the car was pretty decent we continued to fight a brake issue since the wreck on opening night.  After the win in the heat, we had some time to work on the brakes and get them a little better for feature.  During the heat the car was tight getting into corner, so we made a  small adjustment before feature, but it wasn’t quite the right adjustment to help get the car to where it needed to be.  We got a top 5 during the feature but just as important we got valuable track time to help work out some of our bugs and to get better for the coming weeks.”

Billy Pauch Jr. continued to run through the field with another 6^th place finish from his 13^th starting position.  Last week Billy ran from his 22^nd starting position to a 6^th place finish proving he can run to the front from any where on the starting grid. 

Alex Yankowski has added another ride to his modified list of cars as he jumped in the Rio Brothers R10 for the first time this season at Bridgeport and posted a 10^th place finish.  Alex piloted the Rick Stankewicz 2RS to a 2^nd place finish at Big Diamond’s Money in the Mountain on Friday night.

Alex stated “I got asked by the Rio family if I would be interested in the R10 and the answer was a quick yes.  We are going race by race with the R10 and don’t have a set schedule right now.  I will be running my 84Y weekly at Utica-Rome this Friday.”

Dominic Buffalino led for 14 laps only to have another mechanical failure send him to the infield for another DNF.  Dominic has been plagued by flat tires or some variety of mechanical failure so far this spring no matter where he has gone and is looking forward to getting the 126 back up front and in victory lane.

Next up at Bridgeport is USAC East Coast Sprint Cars, 602 Sportsman and Street Stocks with hot laps at 6:00 PM on April 30.