JR Heffner Finally Shakes Monkey Loose At Lebanon Valley With Win

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – If there was someone that needed to get a monkey off his back at Lebanon Valley, it was JR Heffner.

The driver from Valatie, NY has been fast on the High Banks this season, but hasn’t been able to crack victory lane. That all changed on Saturday night as he grabbed the 2017 edition of the Maynard Forrette Memorial Modified feature.

The fastest car early on was the 42 of Matt Pupello. Pupello took the lead from Kyle Hoffman on a lap four restart and looked to be setting sail. That was, until a caution around lap 14 tightened things up.

That was when the A. Colarusso & Son Bicknell made the move past Pupello and into the top spot. Contact was made, but Heffner wasn’t touched the rest of the way and went on to score his first victory of 2017.

“This was a total team effort tonight,” Heffner said. “The guys really worked hard and this was a great way to give back to them, so I’m happy for that.”

The battle with Pupello is one that everyone will be talking about all week.

“He (Pupello) held back on those restarts,” Heffner said. “On the last one, he swerved at me down the straightaway and we touched in turn two.”

Pupello saw it differently, and voiced his displeasure over the situation after the race was completed.

“The officials said there was a wreck on the first restart and that was the reason for the yellow, not that he jumped the it,” Pupello said. After two more attempts, and we finally did go green, he (Heffner) hit me going through the corner.”

After pleading his case to the Valley officials, Pupello emerged from the pit shack, but didn’t seem satisfied. It appears as though this matter will be looked at further during this week.

With engine problems that set in last Saturday night at the track, Heffner was able to utilize an up-front starting position to his advantage.

“Let’s hope this has us going in the right direction,” he said. “We’ll keep digging. This was our backup motor and it was hanging in there. Tonight was Bedell horsepower. He’s working hard to get us back on track.”

The former Valley track champion was able to use the top side of the speedway to his liking to get from the back half of the top five to the lead.

“This car loved the top side tonight,” he said. “We have some things we are trying that seem to make it go pretty well. But yes, it was top side only tonight.”

Eddie Marshall had his best run of the season Saturday night in his #98 machine coming home in second place. It was another nice rebound for the veteran who’s had an up-and-down season to date.

“We’ve been struggling a little bit, but tonight the car wasn’t quite where we wanted it, but it was a whole lot better,” he said. “We had something we could race with tonight. JR really ran well and congrats to him, but hopefully this means we’ve turned a corner a little bit.”

Third on the evening was Pupello, who had one of the fastest cars all night long. He felt like he could have held on for second if the lap cars had moved out of the way.

“I wish they were shown the blue (move over) flag to know we were coming,” he said. “If that happened, I think I would have had a shot to keep second.”

Kyle Hoffman and Brett Hearn rounded out the top 5. Hearn was going for win #900 of his career but could only muster a fifth on the night.

The Pro Stocks were also on hand Saturday and it was Chuck Towslee picking up his third feature win of the season.

The battle for the top spot was a good one for most of the feature as five different drivers were battling for the lead.

“It was a great battle up front between Nicky (Hilt) and Jason (Meltz),” Towslee said. “They were side by side for more of the race and it was hard to decide what to do.”

What Towslee did was wait until things shook out between Hilt and Meltz and then he made his move. He was able to get by the 17 and then set his sights on Meltz, taking the lead with six laps remaining.

“I knew if I stayed consistent I would have a shot and it worked out,” he said. “One of the newest things we have going for us that seems to be helping our car a lot is PFC Brakes. This thing is working really well right now.

Meltz came home a close second followed by Hilt, Steven Larochelle and Rick Duzlak.

Pure Stock feature events went to Larry Perez, John Denue and Bill Deak Jr. Four-Cylinder winners were Chris White and Chris Vandeputte.

News & Notes…
One of the scariest events of the night happened in the second Modified feature when Paul Gilardi had a brake failure going into turn one at a high rate of speed. He was unable to slow down and hit the wall at close to 100 MPH and nearly flipped.

The car virtually destroyed but Gilardi walked away with only some bruises and complained about pain in his left shoulder. It was a true testament to the safety of his Hig Fab Chassis.

LJ Lombardo had a rough ride in the Modified feature. The accident that sent the Snap-On #35 into the turn three wall actually started off of turn two.

“Wayne Jelley seemed to be having handling problems with his car and it changed lanes,” he said. “I was searching for a way but, so I went to the top. As soon as I did, he went to the top and locked the brakes up and I had nowhere to go.”

The car had to be towed back to the pits with front and rear end damage. The team, led by LJ’s dad, Lew, and team crew chief Robbie Albreada, will be back but this was definitely a set back in their chase after a top 10 points position. They are now currently 12th in the standings.

Denny Solits debuted a new-to-his-team Bicknell Chassis on Saturday night. This is the same car that Keith Flach ran so well with at Oswego during Super DIRT Week last October before rear suspension and chassis damage took him out.

Soltis ended up with the chassis and worked all winter to repair it. He put the car completely together, outfitted it with a new body, and put it into commission Saturday for its maiden voyage.

Several 358-Modifieds ran Saturday night in preparation for Sunday’s King of Dirt Small Block event at the Valley. Peter Carlotto, Ricky Davis and Brandon Pitcher all took laps on the speedway to get ready for Sunday’s race…a race co-sponsored by Herrington Farms and DMC Racing Products.

The Pro Stocks were given show-up points for the night as there was a Series race in Canada that Jay Corbin and Rob Yetman attended.

Saturday July 29 , 2017 – West Lebanon, NY – Shelden Oil & Bulldog Concrete Presents – Modified Results (30 Laps) -1) J.R. Heffner, 2) Eddie Marshall, 3) Matt Pupello, 4) Kyle Hoffman, 5) Brett Hearn, 6) Keith Flach, 7) Kenny Tremont Jr, 8) Rob Pitcher, 9) Andy Bachetti, 10) Brian Berger, 11) Kolby Schroder, 12) Kyle Armstrong, 13) Kyle Sheldon, 14) Elmo Reckner, 15) Mike King, 16) Chad Jeseo, 17) Mike Keeler, 18) Wayne Jelley, 19) L.J Lombardo, 20) Steve Hough, 21) Denny Soltis, 22) John Ruchel, 23) Paul Gilardi, 24) Olden Dwyer,

Pro Stock Results (20 Laps) -1) Towslee, Chuck** 2) Meltz, Jason 3) Hilt, Nick 4) LaRochelle, Steven 5) Duzlak, Rick* 6) Colesanti, Rich 7) Bishop, Ed 8) Routhier, Jon** 9) O’Connor Tom 10) Dean, Tom 11) Reilly, Sparky 12) Keough, Brian 13) Spencer, Rick 14) Arnold, Nick 15) Peck, Dave 16) Dempsey, Rick 17) LaFlamme, Joe 18) Page, Hugh 19) Cote, Dan

Pure Stock #1 Results (8 Laps) – 1) Larry Perez, 2) Chad Arsenault, 3) Dave Stickles, 4) Mark Dwyer, 5) Brian Walsh, 6) Tim Meltz, 7) Nick Reilly, 8) Karen Verhagen, 9) Brian Vandenburg,

Pure Stock #2 Results (8 Laps) – 1) John Denue, 2) Clifford Booth, 3) Scott Morris, 4) Kerri Vandenburg, 5) Joe Walcott, 6) Adam Schneider, 7) Wuggie Burdick, 8) Jordan Miller,

Pure Stock #3 Results (12 Laps) -1) Bill Deek Jr, 2) Ed Hatch, 3) John Devine, 4) Ray Hall Sr, 5) Jeff Meltz Jr, 6) Gary O’Brien, 7) Jeff Kreutzinger, 8) Jeff Meltz, 9) Tim Thompson, 10) Jesse Murphy, 11) Mike Arnold, 12) Lou Ganczar, 13) Shawn Perez, 14) Zach Seyerlein,

4 Cylinder Single Cam Results – 1) Chris White, 2) Jim Williams, 3) James Street, 4) Jethro Rossman , 5) Gary Malloy, 6) Victor Duncan Jr., 7) Bradlley Batho, 8) Brandon Ely,

4 Cylinder Dual Cam Results -1) Chris Vandeputte, 2) Kenny Stager, 3) P.J. Bleau, 4) Shawny Hazel, 5) Stephen Thompson, 6) Jake Gomm, 7) Jim Guertin, 8) Tomm Gomm,