Entries for June 2010

Bobby Santos' dream season continued Sunday at Martinsville Speedway as he captured the checkered flag in the Made In America Whelen 200.
 
Santos pulled away from the field on a green-white-checkered finish to claim his third win in four NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races to start the 2010 season.
 
Rookie Justin Bonsignore had a career-best second-place finish, followed by Todd Szegedy. Mike Stefanik, the defending race winner, settled for fourth. Stefanik, who won the Coors Light Pole Award Saturday, lined up on the outside of the front row on the final restart but was shuffled back on the final two laps. Burt Myers finished fifth.
 
James Civali, Eric Beers, Woody Pitkat, Richie Pallai Jr. and Wade Cole rounded out the top 10.
 
The 24-year-old Santos, from Franklin, Mass., entered the season with one career win in 28 Tour starts and had never run a full season. Late in the offseason, he was picked to replace defending champion Donny Lia in the No. 4 "Mystic Missile" Dodge when Lia departed to run in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Santos has responded with three Coors Light Pole Awards and three wins.
 
Santos finished second in the race he did not win, and has forged an 89-point lead in the standings on Stefanik.
 
Ron Silk appeared to have a car to challenge Santos. However, he pulled out of the lead under caution on Lap 174 and ran out of gas on pit lane.
 

Drivers will be getting in the racing groove on June 6 in the Made In America Whelen 200/UNOH Performance 200 at Martinsville Speedway. But the night before, fans can “Get In The Groove” on the front stretch of the historic speedway.

Martinsville Speedway will present  “Get In The Groove,” an evening of music and fun on Saturday, June 5 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

When the gates to the front stretch open at 6 p.m., the track will have barely cooled down from a full day of practice and qualifying for the Made In America Whelen 200/UNOH Performance 200.

“We wanted to make this a full weekend fun for everyone. It’s a chance for race fans to get down on the track and a chance for the non-race fans to come out, enjoy an evening of music and see what’s going on out here,” said Martinsville Speedway President W. Clay Campbell.

“We’re pretty sure most of the drivers and crew chief are going to stick around, so it’s a chance to mingle with them and while fans can’t go into the pits, everything will be close enough they can get a good up close look.”

FATZ, a classic country-rock band, will provide the music, playing from a stage set up across the front stretch, just past the start-finish line. There will also be food vendors and a beer vendor on the track.

Admission to “Get In The Groove” is $5. The event will benefit the Martinsville Speedway Children’s Foundation.

Qualifying for the Whelen 200 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race is set for 3:30 p.m. on June 5 followed by qualifying for the UNOH Performance 200 K&N Pro Series East race.

Race day on Sunday, June 6 will kick off with a on-track autograph session with all drivers from each event in attendance. Fans will enter the track through the flag stand at the start-finish line and the drivers will be along the front stretch signing autographs.
 

When Bobby Santos was two, his father plopped him down in a go-kart. He’s been in a racing seat ever since.

And now, some 23 years later, he’s sitting in the best seat in the NASCAR Modified Tour house – the famed Mystic Missile, owned by legendary Bob Garbarino.

After two races Santos is leading the NASCAR Modified points chase. He has a win, two top-five finishes and two pole wins headed into the Made In America Whelen 200/UNOH Performance 200 at Martinsville Speedway on June 6

A year ago Santos ran just two NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races as he concentrated on other series. At the same time Garbarino was winning his second Modified championship in three years with Donny Lia in the bright yellow number four. Not long after the season ended, Lia bolted for other opportunities and Garbarino was searching for a new driver. He didn’t search long or far, tabbing Santos to pilot the Mystic Missile.

“They were looking for a driver. They had a few different options and it’s pretty cool they chose me,” said Santos, a third generation driver from Franklin, MA. “It’s an honor to drive for Bob. I knew a lot about the Mystic Missile long before I sat in it. I watched it win a lot of races when I was just a kid.”

The 25-year-old Santos is running some races outside of the NASCAR Modified Tour this season, but no where near the 60 to 70 events he’s run in years’ past.

“I’ve run all three USAC divisions, I’ve done some super modified stuff here and there, some different types of dirt stuff and we just picked the big (NASCAR) Modified races,” said Santos. “This year we’re focusing on racing with Bob’s team and then some big USAC races.”

While Santos knew he was getting top-notch equipment with Garbarino, he didn’t realize how good until he crawled through the window for the first time.

“We’ve got awesome equipment and really great people working on it,” said Santos. “Bob has been so easy to work with from the beginning. All he expects me do to is drive it. That’s the way it’s been from the beginning.

“A lot of people say there has got to be a lot of pressure on me because of the ride I’m in, but I’m the only one putting pressure on me. “

Santos has raced on Martinsville Speedway’s tough .526-mile just one time, in 2007. He remembers having a pretty good car then, but got caught up in a wreck past the halfway point. But even before that 2007 trip to Martinsville, he understood the importance of the track to his family. His grandfather, Bob Santos, the patriarch of the racing family, won the Modified portion of the 1972 Cardinal Classic at Martinsville.

I’m very confident going to Martinsville. I enjoyed in when I was there and I know this car has had a lot of success there and there’s no reason we can’t go there together and win. That’s what all of us expect,” said Santos.

“Nobody wants to win it more than me, though.  To win the grandfather clock (winner’s trophy) at Martinsville would mean the world to me. I’ve seen my grandfather’s grandfather clock he got for winning there. I would love to have one of my own.”

 

Ryan Gifford’s grandfather was a drag racer. But when it came time for Gifford to choose a path, he opted for straightaways that had a turn at the end.

It seems like it was a pretty good decision. The 21-year-old Gifford has finished in the top five in two of the first three races of the season on the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and headed into the Made In America Whelen 200/UNOH Performance 200 at Martinsville Speedway on June 6, he is fifth in the series points standings.

“My grandfather used to be a drag racer. I had a big interest in either racing junior dragsters or go karts. There was a go-kart track about 15 minutes down the road from us,” said the Winchester, TN driver, who was eight years old at the time. “He took me down there and I fell in love with it. “

He conquered the World Karting Association and moved to dirt late models in 2005 and immediately started winning races. He caught the eye of Sprint Cup team owner Richard Childress and signed on as a developmental driver for RCR in 2009. He remains an RCR driver, but is also a member of the 2010 Drive For Diversity Class, racing for Revolution Racing.

He raced in five East Series races last year, finishing in the top 10 in all five and in the top five in three of them. Gifford has started strong this season, but concedes there is pressure involved.

“There’s a lot of pressure. There are a lot more talented race drivers than there are good race cars,” said Gifford. “You have to perform. That’s the bottom line.”

While he’s never turned a lap at Martinsville, he’s excited about the upcoming trip to the storied track.

“That place has so much history … it’s just crazy. I’ve always wanted to race at places like Martinsville … it’s the Mecca of short track racing,” said Gifford.

And it doesn’t hurt that he’s got an affinity for short tracks.

“I’m big on short-track racing. And the go-kart track I learned on was shaped a lot like Martinsville, but just a smaller version. It had long straights and tight turns.”

 

Pole Winners … There have been 21 different pole winners at Martinsville, led by four apiece from Jeff Fuller, Jan Leaty and Stefanik. Ron Silk was the pole winner in last year’s event.

Santos Surges To Early Championship Lead

The first championship chase in the diverse racing career of Bobby Santos is off to a stellar start.

Santos, a 24-year-old that grew up in a racing family, has been behind the wheel of various types of race cars and various levels of competition throughout his still-budding career. This season marks the first time the Franklin, Mass., native has competed for a championship at the higher levels of the sport.

Maybe he should have tried this before.

After just three 2010 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour races Santos has already shot out to a 64-point lead in the championship standings. While the season is not even to the quarter pole, to put his fast start in perspective, that is the largest differential between first and second place after three races since Mike McLaughlin led Reggie Ruggiero by 73 tallies in 1989.

Santos’ current margin is also the largest in the midst of a season since Ted Christopher led by 89 points following the 13th race of the 2008 campaign. Christopher closed that season with a 127-point margin following the season finale, but neither Christopher nor eventual champion Donny Lia had a lead of more than 53 points a year ago.

While Santos might not have experience with staying the course to a championship, his team does. Santos took over Bob Garbarino’s famed No. 4 “Mystic Missile” this year after Lia had piloted it to the title in 2007 and 2008. Chuck Hossfeld also paced the points standings in the car for half of the 2008 campaign.

To Santos’ credit, however, it’s not just the car. In the same equipment that many have piloted before him, Santos set track qualifying records at the two most-raced tracks in the history of northeast Modified racing in Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway and Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway to begin the season. Santos earned the second win of his career in the opener at Thompson, was runner-up at Stafford in the second outing of the season after he was spun mid-race, and then won in the return to Stafford last week.

Aside from the rally at Stafford in the second race after he was spun while in the lead, Santos has been at or near the front the entire season. He’s led 37-percent (179 of 487) of all laps completed this year, and has taken advantage of the lap leader bonus points that are new to the Whelen Modified Tour this year by compiling 20 so far.

For Santos, who has participated in Whelen Modified Tour races as a part-timer since 2004 prior to this year, the majority of his starts have come at Stafford and Thompson. To keep up the pace he’ll need to adapt to different tracks quickly. Next up is Martinsville Speedway, where he has just one career Modified appearance in which he started third and finished 20th. After that will be New Hampshire Motor Speedway where he has had mixed results in six starts.

 

Perhaps overlooked in preseason talk of NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship contenders, Max Gresham has quickly emerged as a title threat in 2010.

Gresham, a 17-year-old from Griffin, GA, enters Sunday’s Made In America Whelen 200/UNOH Performance 200 at Martinsville Speedway as the East points leader after three races thanks to wins in the last two outings.

The first win of his young career came on April 3 at South Boston Speedway in just his fourth series start.

“The feeling I got after the South Boston win was unbelievable,” Gresham said. “It felt great to finally have a strike in the ‘W’ column because the Joe Gibbs team deserved it and I felt, as the driver, it was about time to get them another win.”

Gresham stayed hot as he outdueled fellow high school junior Ty Dillon in a last-lap battle to win the prestigious East-West combination race at Iowa Speedway on May 23.

“I’d definitely call that the biggest win of my career,” Gresham said. “It was also probably also the most memorable because I had to earn it there in the last lap. It was one of those times that I will never forget.“

Although short on speedway experience, Gresham has been quite successful at the larger track. He participated in the K&N Pro Series West race at Iowa in 2009 and finished third.

“A lot of the bigger tracks really agree with me because I like to go fast and I like to have the control of all the variables,” Gresham said.

With the UNOH Performance 200 at Martinsville Speedway up next, Gresham will attempt to sweep the two K&N Pro Series East races in Virginia, but to do so he’ll have to go back to a short-track racing mentality.

“Going to Martinsville is kind of like going back home [to a short track],” Gresham said. “Its going to be a lot of fun because it’s a big-name track and it’s a place I’ve always fantasized about racing at.”

MODIFIED MADHOUSE: While Sunday’s Made In America Whelen 200 is not a NASCAR Southern Modified Tour event, it will have at least a little southern flavor.

Two of the prominent stars of The History Channel’s breakout hit, “Madhouse,” Burt and Jason Myers will be in the house at Martinsville this weekend for the NASCAR Modified Tour event. Both compete on the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour.

It’s going to be a busy weekend for Burt Myers. He’s racing at Ace Speedway near Burlington, NC on Friday, has to be at Martinsville all day Saturday for practice and 3:30 p.m. qualifying and then makes a mad dash for Bowman Gray Stadium for a race. He’s presently the points leader at Bowman Gray.

GOLDEN OLDIE: While most of the field for the UNOH Performance 200 East Series  race is ridiculously young, there will be at least one oldster in the field.

Forty-three-year-old Steve Park will be making his first start of the season in the East Series after competing full time the past two years.

To say Park is a NASCAR veteran would be an understatement. He’s won races in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camping World Truck Series, Whelen Modified Tour and the East Series.

This weekend will mark the fourth different series he’s competed in at Martinsville.

SCHEDULE AND TICKETS: Qualifying for the Made In America Whelen 200 NASCAR Modified Tour race is set for 3:30 p.m. on June 5 followed by qualifying for the UNOH Performance 200 K&N Pro Series East race.

Race day on Sunday, June 6 will kick off with an on-track autograph session at 11 a.m. with all drivers from each event in attendance. Fans will enter the track through the flag stand at the start-finish line and the drivers will be along the front stretch signing autographs.