RPW Exclusive: First Shot Fired At Albany-Saratoga; Britten Goes Wire-To-Wire Friday Night

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – MALTA, NY – It finally happened. Feature events were run at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway Friday evening, and when the 35-lap Modified feature was completed, “Batman” stood tall in victory lane.

Peter Britten started off 2019 at the ‘Great Race Place’ with a “Bang,” taking the win in front of a packed crowd.

After winning his heat race earlier in the night, Britten led the field to the green from the pole and got out front first. Uncharacteristically, the race went caution-free, so that meant the former track champion had to be picture perfect on every circuit if he wanted to take home the win.

He was.

“This is just an awesome way to start the year at Malta,” Britten said. “On a day when I didn’t think we’d be racing with rain in the forecast, to be holding the checkered flag right now is simply amazing.”

With the heads-up start, several of Albany-Saratoga’s heavy hitters were at the front of the field with Britten. Keith Flach, Brett Hearn, Marc Johnson and invader Anthony Perrego were all in the first two rows when the green flag dropped. That meant starting position was extremely important and Britten was able to take full advantage of it.

“When it’s heads-up like it was tonight, your starting spot is critical,” he said. “Because all the fast cars were up front, having the pole meant so much. The Troyer car was great all night and winning our heat proved to be very crucial.”

As was stated earlier, the feature went green-to-checkers on Friday night. That hasn’t happened in recent memory, meaning the fans were in for an amazing race. Each driver had to be up on the wheel from start to finish.

“It was a really good race I’d say,” Britten said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a race at Malta go caution-free. I was told there were times that all of us leaders were right together, but being that I was out front, I couldn’t really see that.”

Another problem when the race goes without the aid of a caution flag is that there’s no time to bunch up the field. That means lap traffic will assuredly come into play several times during the course of a race, and it did so Friday for Britten.

“I got squeezed into the frontstretch wall at one point while lapping cars,” he said. “It wasn’t anything that guy did wrong. It was just tight racing. There’s always something when you have that many lapped cars to deal with.”

Also, with all the rain that has hit the area the last couple of weeks, the race track was extremely heavy and had a lot of bite in it. That is something that several drivers enjoy because it means horsepower is key. These days, Britten isn’t one of those drivers.

“I don’t really like the fast tracks anymore,” he said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t say track conditions tonight were totally in my wheelhouse, but I was able to adjust and make the most of it.”

Keith Flach stayed with Britten for most of the event and really put the pressure on him as the laps clicked off.

“It was a really good battle with Keith,” he said. “He was very fast tonight.”

Flach echoed the same sentiments.

“It was a good night overall for us,” Flach said. “We ended up third after a fun battle with Peter. It was nice to finally hit the track at Malta.”

In the end, Britten took the win fired the first shot in the chase for the Albany-Saratoga Speedway championship, taking the win over Anthony Perrego. Perrego was able to drive to second and get by the 43 of Flach by the finish but needed more laps to have a chance to get by the 21a.

Brett Hearn and Marc Johnson rounded out the top five.