Peter Britten Clinches First Ever Track Championship With Malta Win
Story By: MANDEE PAUCH / PETER BRITTEN RACING – WEEDSPORT, NY – Friday evening in Malta, N.Y. Peter Britten not only picked up his second straight win at Albany-Saratoga but also scored his first ever track championship with the Romano team.
“I’m so happy for Andy Romano and the whole team for us to get that track championship,” Britten said. “I think that’s their first track championship they’ve had as a team since the early 2000’s.”
Britten’s busy weekend kicked off Thursday night at Lebanon Valley Speedway with the Super DIRTcar Series.
“The whole night we weren’t as quick as we needed to be,” he added. “In the heat we got a little lucky with a couple of incidents and was at the right place at the right time.”
Britten qualified fourth from his sixth-place starting spot.
“The track is so unique,” noted Britten. “We did what we could but our motor program isn’t designed to race at a place like that.”
Britten started on the inside of the eighth row for the main event.
“I felt pretty decent,” he said. “We used up too much tire the first half of the race though. We couldn’t do too much the last half of the race.”
Unfortunately Britten’s tire blew out with one lap to go but was able to limp his No.21a around to finish 11th.
“Overall I was happy with how the car ran for what we had,” he said. “It’s a place I need to get more experience at.”
Friday evening Britten was back at Albany-Saratoga Speedway to close out the season and give one last battle for the 2017 track championship.
Britten started eighth in his heat and maneuvered his way through to win it.
Britten lined up on the inside of the seventh row for the main event.
“The car was on a rail,” added Britten. “It’s kind of funny. Since we brought that car up there I don’t think it’s lost a race there at Albany. We’ve won both heats and features there.
It was a really good race Friday night. We had a couple cautions early but the rest of the race went straight green. I didn’t think I was going to have enough time at one point to get to the front.”
By the time Britten made his way up into second the leader had a straightaway lead on him.
“We didn’t get a caution and turns out we didn’t need it,” he said. “I could go high or low or even in the middle. Through lapped traffic it seemed like I could go through a lot easier than everyone else.”
Britten dominated the field and drove away to his second straight victory at Albany-Saratoga and clinched the 2017 track championship.
“Obviously it was cool to win the race and close out the year with a championship,” Britten said. “Everyone was real pumped to cap off the year the way we did. It’s my first track championship, which is awesome for me. The whole second half of the year has been really great for me. It’s good to keep that momentum and confidence going. Things are heading in a really good direction right now.”
Monday night saw Britten at Weedsport Speedway for the Labor Day Double Play with the Super DIRTcar Series.
Britten started third in his heat race and finished third.
“We were decent but not good enough,” he said. “We still had a pretty good car. We ran where we started. We made the redraw, which is what you kind of need to do on the series.”
Britten redrew seventh for the 100-lap main event.
“It was a little tough going at the beginning,” he added. “The track was quite challenging and slick so there wasn’t much grip to be able to find a line to get momentum going.”
The first quarter of the race Britten started to find his groove.
“I may have fallen back a spot or so around eighth or ninth,” he said. “We had a good battle with McCreadie, Rudolph and Varin. We were able to get the upper hand and move forward.
Britten maneuvered his way through into fourth where there was a very close knit battle going between the top four.
“It was shaping up to be a pretty good race considering we were getting into lapped traffic,” he said. “It was hard to pass the lapped traffic though. Eventually the long green flag stretch came to the end then from that point on we kind of maintained.”
Britten capped off the night with a fourth-place finish.
“A top five is what we aim for in a series race,” noted Britten. “If we can keep putting ourselves in that position we can walk away happy. I’m glad we can keep building this momentum and keep things going.”
Next up for Britten will be two full days of racing in Quebec, Canada with the Super DIRTcar Series. Friday evening will be at Autodrome Granby and Saturday will be at Le RPM Speedway.