RPW Exclusive: News & Notes; Walking The Aisles Of The Northeast Racing Products Trade Show

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – SYRACUSE, NY – If its the off-season, the best place to find plenty of racers learning about what’s new for the next season is in Syracuse, NY. It used to be the Parts Peddler Trade Show. Now its the Northeast Racing Products Auction and Trade Show and there was plenty of stories walking the aisles.

Eddie Marshall was among those taking the new parts, including the new products in the Art’s Radiator booth. The veteran from Ridgefield, CT stated that the car he ran in 2018 is at the Teo Pro Car shops in New Jersey to get a new body put on it. His plans for the future include a return to Lebanon Valley in 2019, a place where he won on multiple occasions last season.

Kyle Armstrong was also at the show with his entire family which included his mother, father, sister wife and little boy (a spitting image of his dad). Armstrong was able to grace victory lane again this past season at the Valley for his second career Modified victory. While he doesn’t know what his plans are yet for 2019, he is leaning at a return to the Valley.

The #11A team is also taking a hard look at a possible move to the Orange County Fair Speedway. Armstrong has enjoyed success there over the years and loves what they are doing at the speedway, including the possibility of a more lucrative weekly payoff. Only time will tell where this team ends up.

Justin Haers, affectionately known by many as T-Bone, stated that he is looking forward to the change of the calendar to 2019. In his own words, this past year was horrible for him. He didn’t get to victory lane at the Land of Legends Raceway but did eight top 5’s and 11 top 10’s in 15 starts.

Justin informs us that he as a brand new Bicknell on order for next year and is hoping that his season will be a complete 180 degree switch from 2018.

Cody Bleau is looking forward to the new years as well. 2019 ushers in several new pieces to his racing program including a chassis switch and a new teammate in the Laudy Hoyenga-owned team.

The East Greenbush, NY driver will now be running a DKM chassis at the Fonda Speedway instead of the Troyer he had the last two years. The DKM is the chassis Shaun Pangman ran in 2018. It is currently having a new front clip put on it at the DKM shops.

Pangman is not planning on racing full-time in 2019 for the team, so taking his place will be Dave Constantino, who moves to Modified after racing for the Ray Sefrin-owned Sportsman team. A new DKM chassis is under construction for him to run next season.

Ryan Susice will be a busy man in 2019. With Billy Dunn leaving the Slack Racing team to concentrate on his new Big Block program, Susice will run that car Saturday’s at Merrittville Speedway. He purchased the car he ran for the team in 2018 and will run that under his own team umbrella next season at Ransomville.

Susice states he would like to run more DIRTcar Series events but his schedule of Sprint Car races doesn’t allow him the time to follow the entire schedule.

Phil Vignari, owner of Wraptile Graphics, states he is planning on running at the Ransomville Speedway full-time in 2019. He is also trying to put together a Big Block program that would see him frequent other tracks including the Land Of Legends Raceway and possibly Freedom Motorsports Park along with following most, if not all, of the BRP Modified Tour in Pennsylvania. Only time will tell.

Business has really taken off this for this young driver, and promoter, who put together the “Gladiator” event at the Genesee Speedway in 2018. The race was a $2,000-to-win, 40-lap Big Block Modified race that Ryan Susice won. Plans are to bring the event back in 2019 and make it better than ever.

Fonda Speedway Modified racer Josh Hohenforst just missed out on his first career Modified track title in 2018. The driver from Gloversville, NY ran a brand new DKM at the Track of Champions this past season and loved the car and the customer service.

Plans are to have him back at the track in 2019 and he’s very excited for what’s to come now that Brett Deyo has taken over the reigns of the speedway. Only thing he’s not quite sure on is the engine rules. He’s not sure what will work, so he may try and put together a Small Block to run instead of his Big Block while he saves that engine for other speedways and DIRTcar events.

Hohenforst just got back from running the World Finals in Charlotte and outside of a few hiccups, he said he enjoyed his time in North Carolina. The facility was great and the racing was good as well.

Speaking of DKM, word around the show this weekend was that a Cyclone Chassis will be hitting the high banks of the Lebanon Valley in the Big Block class in 2019…stay tuned

Tim Hartman Jr. will be a busy man again in 2019. The Sportsman champion from the Albany-Saratoga Speedway this past season, Hartman only confirmed that he will be back at the Malta oval again next year driving for car owner Mike Parillo.

When I said Hartman will be busy, I meant that…mainly because his car owner won the brand-new 2019 Troyer TD4 chassis and body in the auction held during the day. That now makes, from last count, at least six machines in their arsenal.

The 2018 season isn’t over for Hartman and crew just yet, however. The mechanical engineer from Niskayuna, NY will be heading to Accord next Saturday to run in Brett Deyo’s annual Gobbler event, a race he’s won in the past.

Precision Hydraulic & Oil’s Joe Infante reports that interest is high for the products his company was showcasing at the show, including the Xtreme Lubricants Racing Oil. Teams in NY’s Capital Region may soon be able to purchase this product locally along with a host of other high-quality products so stay tuned for an announcement.

Speaking of Lebanon Valley, Sportsman racer Nikki Ouellette finished 10th in division points on the high banks in 2018, but isn’t quite sure what her plans will be for the new season.

While her team is interested in possibly running for the track title at the Valley again, Ouellette stated she would like to do some traveling so she can improve her driving abilities. Visiting many different tracks and seeing different track conditions, she feels, will help her to become a better driver.

According to the East Granby, CT racer, she may visit the Central NY tracks more in 2019 as well.

One of the coolest things to see at the show was the 1998 Troyer 4-Link that Kenny Tremont dominated with in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I was able to see the car race first hand and it was a thing of beauty to watch it come from the back to the front, seemingly every time it ran.