RPW Exclusive: Batman Conquers The High Banks; Peter Britten Is Now A Winner At Lebanon Valley

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – In almost every instance through the years, the superhero Batman was been the good guy. Peter Britten, known to racing fans as Batman, is one of the nicest guys in the pit area of any race track.

However, on Saturday night at Lebanon Valley Speedway, he played the villain, destroying the Modified field to grab his first career win on the high banks.

Britten started in the eighth position and was into the top five by lap two. He then began to work over several competitors including Brian Berger, Ricky Davis, and John Ruchel before setting his sights on leader Eddie Marshall.

Marshall had built up a good-sized lead, almost half a straightaway, and the Troyer #21a of Britten began reeling him in. He was able to complete the pass for the top spot on lap 18 and never looked back, becoming the first ever Australian to take a victory at Lebanon Valley.

“The Troyer 21a was flying tonight,” Britten said. “You never really know what you got when you’re racing as hard as we were. You pick guys off in front of you and it helps make you think you’ve got something pretty good, and we did tonight.”

Britten was able to take the victory Saturday night in convincing fashion, as he had a full straightaway lead on Marshall when the checkers flew. This win is something Peter has been eyeing for some time, but knows it was a total team effort to get him to victory lane.

“This Troyer car with a Billy the Kid motor was just awesome tonight,” he said. “All the crew help that I’ve got here is amazing because I couldn’t be doing this without the guys that are supporting me. It’s great to have a lot of experience in my corner with crew help and I guess I’m starting to finally figure out this place.”

Eddie Marshall was one of the fastest cars early on in the Modified feature and was able to get the lead by the seventh lap. It was then that he began to set sail and looks like he was tough to beat. That was, until Britten got to second and started to hound the veteran campaigner.

“There was one point early on in the event that I was inside of Eddie and I could tell that he was coming to the bottom lane no matter what I did,” he said. “It’s okay. It was good, hard racing and I know that, and I knew I had a good car tonight. I just needed to keep in the thought in the back of my mind that you can’t win the race in the first five laps. As it turned out, he got a head of us so we had to chase him down and pass him.”

With the win Saturday night, Britten now has three top five finishes in four starts to begin his first full season as a Valley regular. Last week was an off race for him, but he still went from 22nd to 11th in the feature, but he was able to come back strong on Saturday night.

“That was a hiccup last week and it was all on me,” he said. “As long as we keep doing what we did tonight, we should be okay from here on out.”

With the victory, Peter has now taken a comfortable 10-point lead in the chase for the Lebanon Valley track championship. Marshall was able to bring his #98 home in the second position which was a huge boost for the veteran in the points as well, helping him to move solidly into the top 10 in eighth.

Third place on the night was LJ Lombardo who really had a car that came on strong as the 30-lap feature went on. He was able to use the track to his advantage and brought the #35 home solidly in second and moved up to second place in points in the process.

“I think we needed a caution late in the race and I think we could have mixed it up with Peter,” Lombardo said. “They told me he was good tonight but I’ve never had car that turned like this here and drive off the corner like this. These guys have this thing figured out and I’m looking forward to coming back next week.”

LJ started in the 11th position and really worked his way through the field, using the slippery track conditions to his advantage to make passes.

“We see that we can pass cars here,” he said. “We’re digging right now and all of my guys have been busting their butts here and at the shop. It’s seven days-a-week in our shop and we want that championship so we’re going to go back to the drawing board and see if we can’t come back faster next week.”

Fourth place on the night was another veteran racer, John Ruchel. John, who is set to get married very shortly, has had some solid runs at the Valley over the last few years, and this was another great one on Saturday, but it wasn’t without a little bit of excitement.

The throttle return spring bracket broke on his #7 Bicknell car and he had very little tension holding the throttle back as he entered the corners. Still, he brought it home in fourth which is just like a win for this smaller team.

Fifth was the #4 of Andy Bachetti who had another consistent run, quietly keeping him in the title hunt. He is now tied for second in points with Lombardo on the strength of his top five finish Saturday.

Unfortunately, that’s where his good luck stopped on Saturday, as rear end troubles sidelined the Jim Winchell-owned #17 Small Block in that main event and ended any shot he had of starting the season with four straight wins.

That was good news for Pittsfield, MA driver Brett Haas who, using the extreme outside lane to his liking, passed the 88 of Olden Dwyer with just four laps remaining and went on to capture his first victory of the 2019 season.

“I found the high side pretty early on and I knew we had a shot,” Haas said. “Olden had a little bit of a lead but I saw everyone bottled up on the bottom so I knew I had to go somewhere different. We made a change after our heat race and it sure as hell worked.”

A caution with two laps-to-go gave Dwyer and the rest of the field one last shot at the Haas #55 but it was to no avail. Haas held off all challengers for the victory.

“Any driver would say their heart’s in their stomach when they see a caution with a couple laps to go while leading,” he said. “I didn’t know just who was behind me but I knew Andy (Bachetti) broke early on so that took a little pressure off.”

Haas is extremely happy with his car this season and it showed on Saturday. Not only that, he was able to take the point lead from Bachetti as he searches for his first Lebanon Valley track title since 2011 when he won in the old Sportsman division.

“This is one fast piece we have right now,” he said. “My entire crew has spent a ton of ours in the shop to make this car so good. I have to thank all of my marketing partners who support us 100%. This is a total team effort to get the car to the track. I knew we had speed in it and it’s great to finally put it back in victory lane.”

Olden Dwyer was so close to taking his first victory of the 2019 season at Lebanon Valley but had to settle for second place on the night. Third was Dillon Steuer with JR Heffner coming on late in the feature to grab the fourth spot and Steve Hough rounded out the top five.

It was a great night for Joseph Cappoloa to grab his first victory of the 2019 season at the Valley in the Sportsman division as the young racer was able to take home the $2,000-to-win Andrew Sherman Memorial.

Cappoloa started on the inside of the front row but it wasn’t easy to stay there by any means. First he had to fend off defending track champion Whitey Slavin for several laps and then had to keep both John Virgilio and Cody Ochs at bay. He was able to do so and took home the high-paying win Saturday night.

“I can’t believe this right now,” Cappoloa said. “We got out front early and I just tried keeping the car straight. The track really started to get black out there and slick so I stuck to the bottom and just stayed there.”

The car, which ran without graphics on it, just a duct tape number, was quick all night. Not only was it a special night for the Sherman family, and Cappoloa honored to win in Andrew’s memory, but also for the driver who had a special dedication for the win.

“This win is for all of our supporters, both my dedicated crew and our sponsors, but I have to dedicate it to someone special to us,” he said. “This win is for Phil from Hudson Valley Interior and Exterior and he was in a pretty bad snowmobile accident and lost one of his legs. This one’s for him.”

Second place on the evening was the opening night winner, John Virgilio. Virgilio had to come from deep in the starting field (15th) but made quick work of several of the competitors but just couldn’t get by the #94 of Cappoloa.

“We did everything we could tonight,” Virgilio said. “Winning’s great but it also gives you a pretty bad handicap for the next race and that put us 15th tonight. When I got to second, basically the only shot I had was if he made a mistake and he didn’t make one so hat’s off to him. If he made one I would have been there to try and capitalize but he did very well.”

Cody Ochs, Whitey Slavin and Rob Maxon rounded out the top five in the Sportsman feature.

Tommy Dean and Rick Dempsey lead the Pro Stock field to the green with Dempsey getting the advantage and setting sail. Dempsey had to find off the 25 of Chad Jeseo for most of the race, and was able to do so to capture his first win since 2016 at the Valley.

“Man it feels good to be back in victory lane and feels good to lead a lot of laps tonight,” Dempsey said. “With the slippery race track, you just couldn’t really touch the throttle. You just had to ease into the corners and try to get out easy too and get down the straightaways as best you could.”

Dempsey worked on his #35 right until he had to put it on line for the feature and the hard work paid off as he was able to take the checkers on Saturday.

“We worked all night and made adjustments even to the last minute to keep up with the track conditions,” he said. “It was a real good decision and hats off to my crew.”

Jeseo finished second but was right there with Dempsey the entire race, and that was something the veteran knew.

“Chad was timing me on the restarts,” he said. “I knew he was right there, always, but I just tried to stay focused to get in easy and out the best I could and we just stayed ahead of them.”

Jeseo brought his #25 home in second, followed closely by Jason Meltz in third, Rob Yetman fourth and fifth to Jay Casey.

Jeff Kreutzinger and Rob Partridge took home the two Pure Stock feature event wins.

Modified Results (30 Laps) – 1) Peter Britten, 2) Eddie Marshall, 3) L.J Lombardo, 4) John Ruchel, 5) Andy Bachetti, 6) Brian Berger, 7) Marc Johnson, 8) Kenny Tremont Jr, 9) Ricky Davis, 10) Kyle Sheldon, 11) Keith Flach, 12) Ronnie Johnson, 13) J.R. Heffner, 14) Mike King, 15) Wayne Jelley, 16) Kolby Schroder, 17) Rob Pitcher, 18) Olden Dwyer, 19) Kyle Armstrong, 20) Paul Gilardi, 21) Steve Hough, 22) Matt Pupello, 23) Denny Soltis, 24) Chad Jeseo, 25) Josh Marcus,

Small Block Modified Results (24 Laps) -1) Brett Haas, 2) Olden Dwyer, 3) Dillon Steuer, 4) J.R. Heffner, 5) Steve Hough, 6) Ricky Davis, 7) Frank Harper, 8) Brandon Pitcher, 9) Chris Curtis, 10) Timothy Davis, 11) Ray Hall Jr, 12) Brandon Lane, 13) Brian Sandstedt, 14) Guy Sheldon, 15) Alan Houghtaling, 16) Kim LaVoy, 17) Andy Bachetti, 18) Brian Peterson, 19) Kenny Aanonson,

Sportsman Results (20 Laps) – 1) Joseph Cappoloa, 2) John Virgilio, 3) Cody Ochs, 4) Whitey Slavin, 5) Rob Maxon, 6) Jeff Watson, 7) Robbie Colburn, 8) Kevin Arnold, 9) Bobby Knipe, 10) John Aumick, 11) Robbie Knipe, 12) Karl Barnes, 13) Ted Teal, 14) Matt Burke, 15) Pat Jones, 16) Shane Henion, 17) Gary O’Brien, 18) Jimmy Devitt, 19) Scott Zehnacker, 20) Peter Schwartzott, 21) John Santolin, 22) John Stowell, 23) Nikki Ouellette, 24) Pete Carlotto, 25) Ryan McCartney 26) Cody Hunt, 27) Colin Clow, 28) Bobby Hackel IV, 29) Chris Lynch, 30) Lem Atkins, 31) Harold Robitaille, 32) John St. Germain,

Pro Stock Results (20 Laps) -1) Rick Dempsey, 2) Chad Jeseo, 3) Jason Meltz, 4) Rob Yetman, 5) Jay Casey, 6) Rich Crane, 7) Rick Duzlak, 8) Nick Hilt, 9) Jason Casey, 10) Nick Arnold, 11) Steven LaRochelle, 12) Tom Dean, 13) John Rivers, 14) Adam Schneider, 15) Mike Baker, 16) Phil Arnold, 17) Gary Silkey,

Pure Stock #1 Results (10 Laps) – 1) Jeff Kreutzinger, 2) Jeff Meltz, 3) Mike Eichstedt, 4) Ray Hall Sr., 5) Chris Murphy, 6) Shawn Perez, 7) Keri Vandenburg, 8) Jack Dekker, 9) Zach Seyerlein, 10) Craig Coons,

Pure Stock #2 Results (10 Laps) – 1) Rob Partridge, 2) John Devine, 3) Don Kennedy, 4) Ed Hatch, 5) Clifford Booth, 6) Rocco Procopio, 7) Brian Walsh, 8) Janai St. Pierre, 9) Tom Gomm,