Kenny Tremont Passes Mike King On Final Lap For Lebanon Valley Victory
Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – For 29-1/2 of the 30-lap Modified feature Saturday night at Lebanon Valley, it looked like Mike King was going to park his Modified in victory lane. But, after a pass off of turn two on the final circuit, a ‘King’ did, in fact, take the win. However, it was the King of the Valley, Kenny Tremont.
The “Kingfish” had taken off from his pole starting spot and looked to have things well in hand as the entire race went green-to-checkers. However, at the Valley, you can never count out Brett Hearn and you can’t count out Kenny Tremont.
After starting in the third row, Tremont had a tough run to the front. Early on, he fought hard with Elmo Reckner for the fourth spot but was unable to complete the pass. He regrouped and started to drive to the front, passing Reckner, then Paul Gilardi, then Chad Jeseo before finally passing King on the final circuit.
“Believe it or not, I was pulling for Mike,” Tremont said. “I kept saying please Mike, just run away from me. I mean if anyone could root for a guy and try and beat him at the same time it was me.”
In the first third of the race, Tremont’s #115 Troyer was extremely loose, so he made some adjustments from inside the cockpit and it seemed to help tighten the car up.
“When we were racing with Elmo, he did everything he could to outrun me,” Tremont said. “They were running away from me so I had to do something to keep the tail from sliding out. We got that locked down a little bit and the car went better.”
With the race going 30-green flag laps, Tremont didn’t have much time to sit around. He knew he had to go if he had any shot of winning, and he just made it.
“I was hoping for a yellow flag, to be honest, because that tightens the field up quick,” he said. “That didn’t happen tonight so you just give it all you got, and tonight it worked.”
The win was the second of 2017 for Ken in the Big Blocks at Lebanon Valley and his 129th of his career.
For King, he was ‘oh so close’ to a much needed win, but the #55 came up just a tad short from completing the deal.
“I knew Ken was there, and I didn’t do anything different on the last lap that I didn’t do on the first 29,” he said. “He was just a little better tonight.”
Even though he didn’t hold the checkered flag at the end of the night, this was a big confidence booster for the entire King Racing team.
“After the last month that we’ve had this is just like a win for us,” King said. “This is awesome.”
Keith Flach finished third followed by Eddie Marshall and points leader Brett Hearn. Marshall has come on in recent weeks since putting together a new Teo Pro Car after destroying his primary car on May 20th.
John Virgilio is a former track champion in the Sportsman division. However, since that title season, he’s lost some of the consistency that he once had. Well, this season, he along with his team, led by his father Gary, decided to get back to basics, and on Saturday night, it paid off.
Virgilio worked his way past Cody Ochs and Alan Houghtaling as the cars neared the two-thirds mark of the event and went on to grab his first victory of the 2017 season.
“A couple of years ago we had a really good year,” Virgilio said. “We figured we’d try a lot of experimental stuff on the car. This year we took all that and threw it out the window and went back to basics and it is working.”
Track conditions definitely threw a curve ball to the competitors Saturday as it was a hard and click surface. This is something that the drivers haven’t seen much this season.
“You had to go real easy if you wanted to run the bottom tonight because if you missed it you sat in the black and just spun the tires,” he said. “If you could get your corner entry right on the top it worked out pretty good. I almost missed it a couple times but we managed to get the win.”
Virgilio was quick to thank his crew for the victory as his full-time job working as a Pittsfield (MA) police officer takes him away from the shop a lot more than in previous years.
“I can’t thank my family and crew enough for their effort in getting us here,” he said. “Because of what I do for a living, I can’t spend much time at the shop, but every time I get there, the car is pristine and it goes good every week. I couldn’t trust them any more.”
For second place finisher Cody Ochs, a second place Saturday night was amazing, but he still needs a bit more to get the checkered flag.
“Our car was good tonight but I need to find a little more speed,” he said. “The beginning of the year was tough, but the last few weeks we’ve had some good runs, so we’re getting better every week.”
Lem Atkins crossed the line third but was disqualified in post-race tech inspection. That moved Houghtaling to the number three spot followed by Frank Hoard Jr. and Milton Mann.
Chuck Towslee has been enjoying a very solid year in the Pro Stock division so far in 2017. Heading into Saturday’s action, the driver from Manchester, VT had one win and was coming off of two straight top two finishes. He’s been doing everything he can to stay consistent and contend for the track title.
Well, his chances for the championship were aided by his second win of the season after a spirited battle for the top spot with Rick Duzlak.
“That was fun race tonight,” Towslee said. “It was great to race with Rick. Tonight was a matter of throttle control and hitting my marks. You spin your tires just once you’re out to lunch, but man this was enjoyable.”
After getting by the 29 of Duzlak on lap 14 the Northern Equipment #23 took off after the checkered flag but had to hold off a late charge from Rob Yetman, who eventually finished second.
“It’s all about keeping your cool out there and concentrating on what you’re doing,” he said. “The track was a little slick tonight. Our car wasn’t 100% for the way the track was but we made it work.”
This season, so far, has been one the best to date for the Towslee team and it all goes back to an off-season plan they had.
“Our goal this year, realistically, was to be as good as we could, but hopefully get as many wins as we could and contend for the championship,” Towslee said. “I’ve been trying to keep my nose clean and get to the front as far up as I can each week, and the points will fall where they may.”
After Saturday’s win, Towslee sits in the runner up spot in Pro Stock points as the summer months roll on.
For third place finisher Rick Duzlak, he also enjoyed the battle up front with Towslee.
“That was a blast,” Duzlak said. “I think it was like twelve laps side-by-side with Chuck. I had him in the corners, but he had me down the straights.”
The Massachusetts driver couldn’t stop smiling about the run he had with the winner.
“It was good, clean racing and probably the most fun I’ve had in the car all year, for sure,” he said. “My hat’s off to him. He had more then me tonight.”
Jason Meltz and Jon Routhier rounded out the top five.
A massive accident in turn one with one lap complete put a lot of quality cars behind the eight ball for the rest of the feature. Routhier, Rich Crane, Jay Corbin, Joe LaFlamme, Henry Warner, Tommy Dean and Yetman were all involved. All but Warner were able to continue.
The Pure Stock feature events were won by Jeff Meltz Sr. and Jesse Murphy.
News & Notes…
While sitting in a qualifying position on the final lap of his Modified heat race, Rob Pitcher’s #17 machine went up in big plume of smoke on the back stretch.
“Not quite sure what’s wrong with the car,” he said. “We won’t know exactly until we get it back to the shop, get it unloaded and we start to pull it apart.”
He still nearly qualified but was passed coming to the checkers by Kyle Armstrong.
Almost instantly, things were in the works to get the back-up car ready for the feature. There was one problem, however. It was back in their shop in Chatham.
“My crew chief went back to the shop and got the backup car,” he said. “He pulled in with it just as the feature was lining up. I can’t thank everyone that helped us get the car off the truck and out on the track tonight as quickly as we were able to. It was cool to see everyone pull together.”
Brian Berger had a tough time in the early part of the night. The Phaze3 Racing #60 had to be pushed in during early night hot laps with a problem.
“We were fighting ignition issues early on tonight,” Berger said. “A plug wire came off my MSD (ignition system) and I knew something just wasn’t right.”
The team had hoped that things were corrected for the heat race, but unfortunately the driver from Castleton, NY pulled in before the eight laps were completed.
“We were continuing to have related ignition issues in the head and even hot laps,” he said. “We got it fixed and were okay for the feature, but we just started deep and everyone was similar speeds on the slow, slick track.”
Berger did manage to bring his car home in 17th on the night.
Still fighting problems with his racecar, Mike Keeler dropped out of his heat race as he brought his #55 Montanari Fuel Teo Pro Car pit side before the second lap.
“Something just didn’t seem right with the motor and I didn’t want to risk any damage,” Keeler said. “The motor is coming out along with the MSD and it’s getting put on the dyno.”
This season has been a struggle for the Keeler Motorsports team, but it hasn’t been for a lack of effort. The equipment the team has assembled is second-to-none, but unfortunately, the breaks aren’t going their way.
“I’ve never had so much bad luck before,” he said. “We’ve actually been trying to do things the right way. It’s making us look bad, but I can tell you that my team has been working their fingers to the bone to get this figured out.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that this team will get things turned around and shake the gremlins from their back.
LJ Lombardo is continuing to acclimate himself to the weekly grind of the Valley high banks. Two weeks removed from his first career win, Lombardo brought his family-owned #35 home in the 13th position.
“We’re getting it here,” Lombardo said. “We need some more torque but we’re getting the set up dialed in.”
LJ started in the 14th position but fell back early on before rallying to 13th at the finish.
“It feels damn good when we can go forward here,” he said. “Our starting spot didn’t hurt us too bad. It just took too long for our tires to come to life. We had one of the only right rear tires in the field that didn’t chunk away.”
Through Saturday night’s feature, LJ sits tenth in Modified points at the Speedway.
Paul Gilardi continued his solid run of finishes through the last six events run. Since the double feature night on May 20th, Gilardi and the Superior Seamless, Autopart International #87x has four top 10 finishes. It’s consistency like this that the team moving up the points ladder.
Saturday night saw the Pittsfield, MA driver bring his car home in the ninth position. He was able to make a big leap in the point standings, moving up three spots to fourteenth, just 28 markers outside the top 10.
“Our car wasn’t that great tonight,” Gilardi said. “We were fighting a little bit of a brake issue as the feature went on. Along with that, we’re still running our back-up motor and that’s hurting us.”
Gilardi, who has his own engine program in house, has plans to have his primary powerplant back in his HigFab Chassis for the Independence Weekend event at the Valley.
The season opening night for John Ruchel ended before it began as the #7 Bicknell machine had engine issues in early night warm-ups.
The veteran campaigner felt the motor tightening up and decided to shut it down before major damage was dun to the team’s Bedell powerplant.
David Schilling made his first appearance at the speedway in 2017 and it was an eventful one to say the least.
Only two laps into his heat race, the 1-800-GOT-JUNK #20 got too high going through turn one, made hard contact with the wall and seriously damaged the front end of the automobile.
The East Greenbush, NY pilot got things fixed for the feature, completed all the laps and finished in 16th.
Michael Sabia has been fighting a skipping problem for a few weeks with his Sportsman car, and it continued on Saturday night. The car continued to pop as it maneuvered around the speedway.
The former Mr. Excitement award winner changed modules in the distributor hoping it was ignition-related, but it wasn’t to be. He then thought it was carburetor issues, and was in search of someone who could help tune his.
He figured things out and was able to bring his #7 Teo Pro Car home in the eighth position.
We understand that Kevin Arnold has parted ways with the Catlin Racing Team owned by Alan Catlin to devote more time to his family.
The last time the Sportsman ran at the Valley, Chris Kokosa was behind the wheel of the team’s car and finished sixth in the feature. On Saturday evening, Catlin’s son, Zeb drive the team’s Bicknell entry and finished in 19th.
Rich Crane’s feature started off rough and it ended the same. After being involved with in the lap two wreck, Crane was coming through the field only to get in contact with Don Collins’ #149.
“My left front made contact with his right rear and I wheelie’d and was just along for the right,” Crane said.
The Crane’s Outdoor Power Equipment #711 was 14th in the final rundown.
