RPW Exclusive: Jason Casey Nips Nick Hilt At The Line To Grab Pro Stock Win At LVS; Other News & Notes

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – In one of the best races of the evening Saturday at Lebanon Valley, Jason Casey and Nick Hilt split leader Tommy Dean as the Pro Stock field went down the backstretch near the halfway point of the 20-lap event.

Hilt came away with the lead with Casey grabbing second. From there it was a battle between the two yellow cars as Hilt led the way, until the white flag was shown.

That’s when Casey pulled dead even with the Averill Park, NY driver as they went down the backstretch and into the third and fourth turns.

Coming off the corner, Casey had enough bite to outdrag the 17 of Hilt to the finish line and grabbed his first win of the 2019 season.

“I knew Nick was fast on the top and I kept following him lap after lap but was getting looser and looser,” Casey said. “On the caution with four laps to go, I went looking for something and found it on the bottom and it worked.”

Casey’s win moved him within two markers of the point lead after three races. Yea, it’s early for sure, but the leader is good ole’ dad, Jay Casey. This is going to be a great season for the father / son racing team.

Hilt looked to have the race one but got out of the groove slightly when Casey made his move in three and four and gave the 324 just enough to beat him to the line. He had to settle for second with Nick Arnold coming home in third. Johnny Rivers, making a return to racing this season, had a great night at the Valley to come home in fourth and Jason Meltz came from deep on the grid to finish in the fifth position.

A massive pile-up on the eighth lap hindered the performance of several competitors. It all started when the 29 of Rick Duzlak got turned around in the second turn and collected the 322 of Jay Casey, Chad Jeseo and Rob Yetman, among others.

Yetman made one more lap and then pulled in with overheating issues. His crew went to work and the #7 did return, albeit one lap down. He made several more laps, gaining points before spinning again in turn two, bringing out the caution Casey needed with four to go. Yetman finished 14th when the race was done.

Chad Jeseo also returned to the race, minus a few body panels, and brought the #25 home in 17th, but the 29 of Duzlak was done for the night after the initial accident and finished right behind Jeseo in 18th.

Just after Hilt took the lead, another high-speed crash took place when the 35 of Rick Dempsey went around on the backstretch and the 711 of Richie Crane spun to avoid him, hitting the pit opening teams use to enter the scale area very hard. Crane’s machine receiving extensive damage but the driver reported that he is okay. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the car.

Big Ed Hatch and Zach Seyerlein were the winners in the two Pure Stock races with Jon Sheppard and Jim Williams taking home victories in 4-Cylinder Single and Dual Cam, respectively.

News & Notes

By the luck of the draw Saturday, before the Modified feature event took the green, a drawing was held for the Bedell Racing Engines $1,000 bonus and the first winner of the season was Mike King. This promotion will be held again on other nights during the 2019 season.

Two laps into the Modified feature, an accident in turn three involving Kenny McGuire, Kolby Schroder, JR Heffner and Josh Marcus with McGuire flipping multiple times. Everyone was okay with all but Marcus’ #91M being done for the evening.

The life of a traveling full-time race car driver can be a glamorous one. Just ask Peter Britten.

One night after winning the season-opener at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway, Britten went and grabbed a bite to eat and proceeded to drive his rig do the Valley to camp for the night.

What he wasn’t expecting was that the place he parked would be right next to the sign-in booth for the Valley’s drag race competitors who began to arrive before 7am.

Britten, who entered the night as the co-point leader with Andy Bachetti, struggled to find the right set-up in his 21a for the track conditions and brought the Troyer race car home just outside the top 10 in 11th.

Saturday night started off extremely rough for opening night winner Kenny Tremont. After starting eighth in his heat, he and Bachetti tried to pass the 91m of Josh Marcus three wide going into turn three. It didn’t work.

Bachetti showed Marcus the nose of his #4 as they entered. Marcus moved up half a groove right into the side of the 115 who was committed on the outside. The contact sent Tremont into the third turn wall hard.

The crew quickly went to work surveying the damage on the battered Bicknell machine. However, there was too much to repair so they pulled out the back-up, which has a decent record on the high banks. The car has two wins, including last year’s Mr. DIRT Track USA event which netted the team $25,500.

Did I forget to mention, in his first laps on the track with the car, he turned the fifth fastest lap in mid-night hot laps. Even with that, Tremont struggled in the feature and finished in 15th.

Paul Gilardi has had quite the struggle so far in 2019, and they continued Saturday night. After two sub-par performances to start the season, Gilardi decided to bring his Spec Head Big Block-powered car to the track on Saturday. He was able to run very well in his heat race and nearly took the lead from Steve Hough on the final lap of the eight lap race.

In the feature, Gilardi had a great run going after starting in the fourth spot but the car suddenly quit in turn two just three laps in and Brian Berger ran into the back of the 87x. The Pittsfield, MA driver said it appears there’s no spark getting to the motor so he believes the ignition coil may have quit.

They’ll diagnose it this week, but on a positive note, Gilardi was extremely happy with engine and car on Saturday and looks like he’ll try and run the same combination next race.

Kyle Armstrong looked like he had the Modified feature well in hand last Saturday night, only to have the rear end let go inside his #11A with just two circuits remaining.

After the problems, the team felt that the engine in the car may have over-revved just a bit, so they pulled it out during the week and took it to their engine builder to have it checked over.

Everything was fine and Armstrong had a great night, bringing the Newtown Pools Bicknell machine home in the fifth spot.

Kim LaVoy was suppose to start on the pole for the 358-Modified feature but elected to start in the rear of the field. She only went one circuit before pulling in and calling it a night.

Jason Herrington arrived just before the Small Block feature was to take the green. He tacked on to the rear of the field. Why wasn’t he here for the entire night? Well, he’s a farmer, and right now his farm is short-handed. Herrington was planting corn all day and wasn’t sure he would even make it.

Unfortunately, Herrington was a retiree from the event after a vicious crash in the third turn wall on lap 16. A broken brake fitting sent the “Big Red 1” hard into the outside wall and unfortunately, according to the team, the chassis is a write off.

The ambulance was dispatched to the scene to check on the Troy, NY driver but he was okay. He was credited with a 15th place finish in the final rundown.

Pro Stock racer Nick Reilly fought carburetor issues through early night warm-ups. The team worked on correcting the issue before the heat race, making several adjustments and were ready to go when the green flag dropped.

Unfortunately, that’s how things ended though. An accident in front of Reilly in the heat left him with no place to go. He went directly into it and bent several pieces in the front end of his car, including the front horns on the clip. From that point on, he was done for the night.

Johnny Rivers had an eventful early part of the evening. In his heat race, the radiator overflow tank in his #14 began to leak and was spraying water all over his front tire. The team changed the tank and were able to get their best finish of the season, fourth, in the main event.

The carnage wasn’t just reserved for the race track on Saturday night. As the Pro Stock heat races were lining up, Phil Arnold pulled his #2 into line and was waiting for his race. Rick Dempsey also was pulling into line, and while trying to maneuver into position, misjudged how close he was to the #2. Dempsey made contact with Arnold’s left front fender with his right rear and ripped the nose off the Arnold machine.

Several fans and other crew members went to work to get the nose secured back on the Arnold machine so that he could still go out and run his heat which he did. After that, the crew made the necessary repairs back at their pit area and Arnold finished the night with a solid eighth place run.

Young Scott Towslee made his first start of the season at the Valley and was very impressive. The second-generation driver from Vermont kept his nose out of trouble all race, and was battling with Rivers for a top five run late in the race when he was involved in the final caution.

Towslee went to the rear of the field and rallied to get a solid seventh place finish when the checkers flew. It was a great run for the youngster in just his second year of competition after graduating from the karting ranks.

Pro Stock Results (20 Laps) -1) Jason Casey, 2) Nick Hilt, 3) Nick Arnold, 4) John Rivers, 5) Jason Meltz, 6) Jay Casey, 7) Scott Towslee, 8) Phil Arnold, 9) Steven LaRochelle, 10) Adam Schneider, 11) Gary Silkey, 12) Tom Dean, 13) Brian Keough, 14) Rob Yetman, 15) Rick Dempsey, 16) Rich Crane, 17) Chad Jeseo, 18) Rick Duzlak, 19) Mike Baker, 20) Nick Reilly, 21) Gary Virgilio,

Pure Stock #1 Results (10 Laps) -1) Ed Hatch, 2) Jeff Meltz, 3) Jeff Kreutzinger, 4) Mike Eichstedt, 5) Clifford Booth, 6) Scott Morris, 7) Brian Walsh, 8) Keri Vandenburg, 9) Ryan Brown,

Pure Stock #2 Results (10 Laps) -1) Zach Seyerlein, 2) Evan Denue, 3) Ray Hall Sr., 4) Rob Partridge, 5) Don Kennedy, 6) Shawn Perez, 7) Rocco Procopio, 8) Craig Coons, 9) Karen Verhagen, 10) Jesse Murphy,

4 Cylinder Sngle Cam Results (15 Laps)-1) Jon Sheppard, 2) Luke Williams, 3) Tim Meltz, 4) Bradley Batho, 5) Joey Batho, 6) Nick McClendon, 7) Chris Bierce, 8) Victor Duncan, 9) Gary Malloy JR,

4 Cylinder Dual Cam Results (15 Laps)-1) Jim Williams, 2) P.J. Bleau, 3) Brandon Ely, 4) Steve Burbank, 5) Lauren Suriner, 6) John Wright, 7) Jim Guertin, 8) Marcus Hillard, 9) Mike Duncan, 10) Rob Miner, DQ) James Street,