The Lights Were Bright Enough For Dwyer, Routhier At Lebanon Valley

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – To say Olden Dwyer needed to sit in victory lane with his 358-Modified Saturday was an understatement. The driver from Pownal, VT didn’t visit victory lane last season and had a front end issue while leading early in the season opener last weekend.

After some hard work from his #88jr team this week, he was able to dominate the feature on Saturday and it was well-deserved.

“We needed this win BIG TIME,” he said after the race. “It was long overdue and we all definitely needed this one.”

Dwyer used an up front starting spot to his advantage and went on to grab another checkered flag, but at the end, he had to contend with Tremont who had worked his way up from deep in the field.

“In the Small Blocks, you always know Kenny is coming,” he said. “I didn’t know he was all the way to second, but you always know in the back of your head that he’s coming. Starting towards the front really helped us try to run away and hide.”

The Hig Fab Chassis that Dwyer ran was hooked up, allowing him to get out to a full straightaway lead on more than one occasion. The second-generation driver loves this car and is so happy he was able to park it in victory lane.

“That’s the most comfortable and best handling car I have ever had,” he said. “I believe this car is capable of coming from the back, and now that we’ve won, we’ll see what we can do. It’s done it before and it can do it again. Just need to have it dialed in like it was tonight.”

Tremont, Frank Harper, last week’s winner Demetrios Drellos and JR Heffner rounded out the top 5.

Another driver in dire need of a win was Pro Stock feature winner Jon Routhier. While he finished third in points last season, he went winless for the first time in several seasons. That lit the fire for the Canaan, CT driver to get a win as early as possible this season.

Routhier was able to wrestle the lead away from Rick Dempsey around the midway point of the feature and held off a hard-charging Jay Corbin for his first checkered flag since 2015.

“It’s definitely good to get the monkey off our back,” Routhier said. “We worked very hard during the winter to make this car good so we could get as many wins as we can this year. This one was needed, not just for me, but for all of my guys.”

For the Pro Stock veteran, while it was a little different, he was okay with the lighting issue as day began to turn to night.

“This car was on a rail,” he said. “With the lights, it was definitely different. Seeing in turn four was different then it was in two. It was like we were racing at around 8pm with the darkness looming.”

Corbin’s second place finish was needed as well after last week’s first lap accident which did a lot of damage and made for a busy week.

“The car wasn’t bad at all tonight,” Corbin said. “We were too tight from the center of the corner off and I couldn’t get back to the throttle like I needed to. This is definitely a decent finish after the troubles last week though.”

Even with all the rain in the area, the racing surface was super fast all evening and that made for a lot of passing.

“The car was really fast, but we just need to work on our setup a little bit more,” he said. “The track was really good and had a fair amount of bite in it. That definitely helps when you have to come from the back. We’ll be better for next week.”

And The Lights Never Turned On…
The Modifieds at Lebanon Valley Speedway didn’t get to run a feature on Saturday night, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort. Believe me when I say this.

Early Saturday morning, the west end of the track’s pit area was completely submerged in water. That’s when General Manager Lyle Devore and his team of dedicated employees went to work and was able to get the speedway 90% ready to go when the pit area opened at 3pm.

Only a small section of the pit area was unusable, so the races were set to roll. Everything was going great…that was, until, they needed to turn on the track lights during the Pro Stock feature.

At that moment, Devore and Co. found out that only the front stretch lights turned on.

Apparently, the Speedway received a lightning strike on Friday afternoon during the huge rainstorm which passed though the area and knocked out power for more than 60 minutes. When it started to get dark, officials flipped the switch to turn on the lights. One problem; the poles in turn two and turn four wouldn’t fire up.

With daylight weaning, the Pro Stocks completed their feature which was won by Jon Routhier. It was then that officials took Kenny Tremont out with the pace car driver to survey the situation once and have him give his assessment.

“They had me take a few laps and tell them what I thought,” Tremont said. “They wanted to know about visibility in turn two and I said it was “OK” but I was more concerned about four as it’s even darker there.”

The decision was then made to postpone the remainder of the night with the Modifieds having double features next Saturday night.

“The track is doing the right thing,” Tremont said while gathered with fellow drivers Steve Hough and Kyle Hoffman. “We have a lot of money tied up in these cars and you can’t drive them to the best of your ability if you can’t see. The track absolutely did the right thing.”

The Pure Stock Clash, put on by Boomers Performance, will also be run next Saturday night while the Four-Cylinders will have double features on May 27th.

News & Notes…
With having troubles on opening night, both defending champion Brett Hearn and second place in points Kenny Tremont had up front starting spots in their heat races on Saturday.

Hearn made short work of the field in his qualifying heat while it took Tremont all eight laps to pass Paul Gilardi as the two waged a fierce battle in the third heat. Both were locked together for the entire race with Tremont getting the best of the 87x coming off of turn four on the final lap.

An interesting competitor in the pits was NASCAR Camping World Truck Series rookie and Five-time Super DIRT Week Champion Stewart Friesen, who brought his DKM Cyclone Chassis to the high banks.

Friesen had to start in the back of his heat race but made his way forward and felt very good about his chances for the feature.

“The car was pretty good in warm-ups and our heat,” he said. “We were second fast in hot laps and Kyle (Hoffman, another Cyclone driver) won his heat race. I think we may have something here.”

Hoffman is pleased with the way things are going for his upstart chassis company, which he developed with hood friends Dave Constantino and Erik Mack.

“Stewart has the best feel for what a car is doing,” Hoffman said. “It is super easy to dial the car in with his feedback, which overall makes us all faster.”

Having a driver of Friesen’s caliber driving a car out of the DKM shop has helped big time in the development of the chassis.

“After Stew drove the car we built last year, we had to make a bunch of changes to it, “he said. “That car just didn’t feel right to him. We spent the winter and developed a new car based off his feedback. Our new cars are a lot different geometrically and things seem to be clicking.”

Kyle Armstrong was looking to build on his seventh place finish from a week ago, but issues in his heat race through a wrench into that plan.

“I was three-wide under Matt Pupello and Keith Flach going down the frontstretch and thought it was too tight getting to the turn so I backed out of it,” he said. My right front touched Matt’s car and the front end collapsed.”

That ended the night for his primary car as the team went to their backup for the feature, which was then postponed. However, after contact last week in the main with Andy Bachetti, the Connecticut driver wonders if damage from that accident was missed.

“I am wondering if there was a hairline crack or something in the axle bracket from last week’s contact,” he said. We lost the radius rods, the bracket, a shock and did some rear damage to the car, so we decided it was easier to bring out the other car.”

After two straight top five finishes to start the 2017, Rob Pitcher has been feeling very confident with his 2014 Teo Pro Car. However, a small engine problem found during the week forced him to bring out his 2016 Troyer that he run at Albany-Saratoga.

Pitcher told me during the week that while he’s extremely happy with the way his Teo is running, and thinks he’s hit on something, it’s not worth just piecing the engine issue back together to run the car. He didn’t want to run the Troyer unless he had to. Well, apparently he couldn’t get the problem solved, but with the postponement, now he has more time.

Paul Gilardi looked good in his heat race, narrowly missing the win to Tremont. The team’s new Hig Fab Chassis is really working well but after last week at the track, they are working a little from behind the eight ball.

“We have our back-up engine in the car this week,” Gilardi said. “It’s a good piece, but we think we broke the crank in our primary motor after the contact on the backstretch last week. This one doesn’t quite have the same power that one does but the car handles like a dream, so that definitely helps.”

The team needed to do a plug change in their car after early night warm-ups to correct a skip and pop in the engine. Once that was complete, the car was 100% better.

Mike Keeler is another driver who is enjoying having a new car that handles well this season. Another driver from the state of Connecticut, Keeler ran well in his heat and was looking forward to seeing how he could have done in the main.

“The car definitely had attitude tonight,” he said. “I was very happy with our car tonight and was looking forward to the feature.”

After having a steering wheel issue early in the evening, Keeler borrowed Frank Harper’s for the evening.

LJ Lombardo continues to get stronger on the high banks each week he’s at the Valley. On Saturday, he again looked fast and was ready to see what he could do if the feature was run.

“From the start of the night, our car felt fast,” he said. “Robbie (Albreada, Lombardo’s crew chief) told me to follow Andy (Bachetti) in warm-ups and try and do what he did. Don’t let off until he did, and little did I know he still let off before me. Our car is fast and I think we’re on the right track here.”

Brett Haas looked like he was on his way to a good night aboard his #55 machine in the 358-Modified feature only to have a flat left front tire near the halfway point, which brought out a caution.

“People were driving like it was the last race of the year,” he said with a laugh. “A few people were completely sideways so I was checking up to avoid them and I think (Jessey) Mueller came in and jumped my left front.”

Haas made the tire change, restarted in the rear of the field and charged his way back up to an 11th place finish at the checkers. It was a good rebound for the Pittsfield, MA driver who now sits tied for fifth in points with Jason Herrington, just 26 markers behind leader Kenny Tremont.

Eddie Marshall returned to the track Saturday night after engine problems in the season opener. He didn’t rush to bring his car last week, opting to use a car from Kolby Schroder’s team as it was only show-up points.