LJ Lombardo Claims Second Career Lebanon Valley Win

Story By: PHIL ALLAWAY / LEBANON VALLEY SPEEDWAY – WEST LEBANON, NY – Teams were greeted by temperate weather and no precipitation Saturday night at Lebanon Valley. Those in attendance were treated to some excellent racing.

Denny Soltis started from the pole in his No. 1x, but quickly lost the advantage to L.J. Lombardo. From there, Lombardo opened up a decent gap over Keith Flach. Further back, drivers such as Brett Hearn and Kenny Tremont Jr. were having a fair amount of issues moving up through the pack.

A caution due to Kyle Sheldon spinning and nosing into the wall on the frontstretch brought the field back together. Shortly after the restart, New Milford, Conn.’s Kyle Armstrong was able to get past Flach for second and began to put the pressure on Lombardo. Armstrong was only able to keep up the pressure for so long before Lombardo took advantage of the house motor from Billy the Kid and pulled away.

As the race continued, Tremont and Hearn continued to encroach on the leaders. Tremont eventually got himself up to fourth, while Hearn was knocking on the door of fifth. Meanwhile, Rob Pitcher quietly kept himself in the top five and made a run on Armstrong. With two laps to go, Pitcher was able to snatch second away from Armstrong.

All the battling occurred behind Lombardo, who held on to take his second career win at Lebanon Valley. Afterwards, Lombardo was overjoyed.

“You gotta bring some serious horsepower to [Lebanon Valley] and we’re not lacking it anymore,” Lombardo said in the pits. “That was the name of the game tonight. We had horsepower and the car was absolutely spot on. I couldn’t [think of] anything we could have done to make it better.”

Pitcher finished second, while a big scramble on the final lap saw Flach move up from fifth to third. Armstrong held on for fourth, while Tremont just edged out Hearn for fifth.

The Small Block Modified class saw Andy Bachetti start from the pole in his new No. 17. Once the green flag dropped, Bachetti ran away and hid from fellow front row starter Brian Peterson.

Behind Bachetti, there was a good amount of action for position. Frank Harper stalked Peterson early on before taking second away on lap 7. Behind them was Brett Haas in his new Bicknell chassis, a car that Haas is very pleased with so far.

Haas, who was fastest in hot laps, ran down Harper and took away second on lap 11. He seemed to have equal pace to Bachetti, but had spotted him a significant amount of time.

The race’s lone yellow flew when J.R. Heffner had engine issues in turn 2, setting up a six-lap run to the finish. Haas was able to hang with Bachetti for the first few laps, but dropped back with a glazed-over tire. From there, Bachetti pulled away to win his first race back in the Small Block Modified division.

Haas finished second, followed by Jason Herrington and Tremont. Harper was fifth.

The Pro Stock feature saw 25 cars duking it out, along with the requisite bumping and banging. Jason Casey started from pole and pulled out a gap when Rich Crane had issues coming up to speed.

Then, the trouble started. Steven LaRochelle spun on lap 2, collecting Scott Kilmer and Jay Casey in the process to bring out the first yellow. A few laps later, Don Collins, Joe LaFlamme and Victor Hopkins were wrapped up in an incident in turn 4.

Opening night winner Rob Yetman struggled mightily. He was caught up in a crash in turn 1 along with Rick Dempsey and Tom O’Connor and could not advance up the order.

In between the incidents, Nick Arnold started to flex some muscle. Arnold was able to move his No. 1 up to second in one of his best runs at Lebanon Valley.

In the closing laps, Jason Meltz was able to snag second from Arnold, but could do nothing with Jason Casey, who claimed his 13th career Pro Stock win at the Valley. Meltz was second, followed by Arnold, Crane and Jon Routhier.

The Sportsman feature saw Chris Lynch start from the pole and lead early. However, Rob Maxon had the best car on Saturday night. He moved up from the eighth starting spot to snag the lead away on lap 6.

Opening night winner Chris Curtis had a tough night, spinning out at halfway to draw the race’s only yellow and getting hit by John Virgilio. Curtis would recover to finish fifth.

After the restart, Maxon pulled away from the pack to take a well-deserved victory. Peter Carlotto finished second, followed by Lynch, Cody Ochs and Curtis.

In Pure Stock, John Devine, Chad Arsenault and Ed Hatch each won regular features. Al Relyea won the Boomer’s Performance Purestock Clash.

Contractor Sales/Boomer’s Performance Modified Feature Results (30 laps): 1) L.J. Lombardo, 2) Rob Pitcher, 3) Keith Flach, 4) Kyle Armstrong, 5) Kenny Tremont Jr., 6) Brett Hearn, 7) Ronnie Johnson, 8) Andy Bachetti, 9) Elmo Reckner, 10) J.R. Heffner, 11) Brian Berger, 12) Eddie Marshall, 13) Wayne Jelley, 14) Kolby Schroder, 15) Mike King, 16) Chad Jeseo, 17) Steve Hough, 18) Paul Gilardi, 19) Mike Keeler, 20) Kyle Sheldon, 21) Denny Soltis, 22) Dave McFeeters, 23) Olden Dwyer, 24) Josh Marcus

Small Block Modified Feature Results (24 laps): 1) Andy Bachetti, 2) Brett Haas, 3) Jason Herrington, 4) Kenny Tremont Jr., 5) Frank Harper, 6) Ray Hall Jr., 7) Brian Peterson, 8) Dillon Steuer, 9) Olden Dwyer, 10) Steve Hough, 11) Timothy Davis, 12) Brian Sandstedt, 13) Chad Pierce, 14) Kim LaVoy, 15) Chris Stevens, 16) Ricky Davis, 17) J.R. Heffner, 18) Frank Hoard, III, 19) Alan Houghtaling, 20) Brandon Pitcher

Sportsman Feature Results (20 laps): 1) Rob Maxon, 2) Peter Carlotto, 3) Chris Lynch, 4) Cody Ochs, 5) Chris Curtis, 6) Whitey Slavin, 7) Alan Houghtaling, 8) Nikki Ouellette, 9) Ted Teal, 10) Vinnie Visconti, 11) Zach Lauster, 12) Karl Barnes, 13) John Virgilio, 14) Harold Robitaille, 15) Scott McCoy

Pro Stock Feature Results (20 laps): 1) Jason Casey, 2) Jason Meltz, 3) Nick Arnold, 4) Rich Crane, 5) Jon Routhier, 6) Jay Casey, 7) Rick Duzlak, 8) Rick Dempsey, 9) Dave Stickles, 10) Nick Hilt, 11) Ed Bishop, 12) Steven LaRochelle, 13) Scott Govertsen, 14) Tom O’Connor, 15) Tom Dean, 16) Brian Keough, 17) Victor Hopkins, 18) Doug Olds, 19) Rob Yetman, 20) Joe LaFlamme, 21) Jay Casey, 22) Rick Spencer, 23) Don Collins, 24) Frank Twing, 25) Scott Kilmer

Pure Stock Feature No. 1 Results (8 laps): 1) John Devine, 2) Zach Seyerlein, 3) Zach Sorrentino, 4) Jeff Meltz Sr., 5) Jordan Miller, 6) Shawn Perez, 7) Brian Walsh, 8) Tim Meltz, 9) Jake Gomm, 10) Tom Murphy Sr.

Pure Stock Feature No. 2 Results (8 laps): 1) Chad Arsenault, 2) Al Relyea, 3) Clifford Booth, 4) Jesse Murphy, 5) Chris Murphy, 6) Keri VanDenburg, 7) Adam Schneider, 8) Dave Stickles, 9) Rocco Procopio, 10) Mark Dwyer

Pure Stock Feature No. 3 Results (8 laps): 1) Ed Hatch, 2) Jeff Meltz Jr., 3) Jeff Kreutziger, 4) Ray Hall Sr., 5) Kevin Paul, 6) Dom Denue, 7) Mike Arnold, 8) Paul Harding, 9) Gary O’Brien, 10) Karen Verhagen

Boomer’s Performance Purestock Clash (20 laps): 1) Al Relyea, 2) Jeff Meltz Jr., 3) Zach Seyerlein, 4) Kevin Paul, 5) Zach Sorrentino, 6) Jordan Miller, 7) Ed Hatch, 8) Dom Denue, 9) Jesse Murphy, 10) Ray Hall Sr., 11) Jeff Meltz Sr., 12) Mike Arnold, 13) Clifford Booth, 14) Chris Murphy. DNS: Chad Arsenault, John Devine, Adam Schneider, Shawn Perez, Keri VanDenburg, Tom Murphy Sr., Brian Walsh