RPW Exclusive: LJ Lombardo Outguns Peter Britten & The Field For First Victory Of ’19 At Lebanon Valley

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – Last five laps of Saturday night’s Big Block Modified feature at Lebanon Valley had the makings of a Wild West Shootout….Outlaw vs. Batman.

OK, I know Batman wasn’t a Wild West character, but Saturday night proved to be a true gun fight between LJ Lombardo and Peter Britten.

In the end, Lombardo was able to maneuver lap traffic to perfection and captured his first victory of the 2019 season.

Matt Pupello looked like he had the field covered early in the 30-lap Modified feature, but pulled pitside on lap 8 with engine problems. That handed the lead to Lombardo, who had almost a full straightaway over his nearest competition.

Lombardo held the top spot but 12th place starter Peter Britten was coming, and was coming in a hurry. Britten made quick work of the likes of Mike King, Kolby Schroder, and Ronnie Johnson and set his sights on Lombardo.

With no other cautions to speak of, it was driver vs. driver as Britten began to reel in the 35 of Lombardo, but thanks to some great moves in lap traffic, Lombardo was able to hold him off for the win.

“Man, that was a thriller right there,” Lombardo said. “When Peter gave me the nose I knew it was time to get going. The cushion was pushed all the way up high I didn’t want to run all the way up there but he ran me clean. Hat’s off to Peter Britten he could have slide-jobbed me, but man, that was cool.”

The race was one for the fans to enjoy as both drivers seem to be battling with each other week-in and week-out this season.

“It seems like me and him are always running together each week, running from the back and running as hard as we can,” he said. “We never give each other an inch but we also don’t hit door-to-door either.”

With the runs the Lombardo has been putting together, even with some up front starting positions this year, he hasn’t been able to get a win. That all changed on Saturday night.

“It was starting to get a little frustrating because we haven’t been able to pick off a win starting up towards the front,” he said. “This right here gives us back our mojo.”

For Britten, it was a great run to the finish with LJ, but it just seemed like he lacked the tiniest bit to get win number two of his career on the high banks.

“I don’t know what else we needed,” Britten said. “We just needed that little bit more I guess. Maybe have lap cars slow him up a little bit more so we could get a run, but hats off to LJ. Congrats, that’s awesome. He’s a great guy. I’m happy for him.”

Coming from 12th, Britten’s car was on rails, but just didn’t have everything he needed to get by the winner.

“We gave him everything we had,” he said. “He was just too good tonight. The momentum here on the top is just so hard to beat. I was working him on the bottom but just couldn’t quite get there.”

One scary situation for Britten took place on an early race restart when second place runner Marc Johnson got jacked-up coming off turn two by another competitor. took a long slide and spun in front of the whole field. Lombardo, Schroder and Britten were among the drivers who narrowly escaped getting collected.

“I just put my bumper to the 99 (Schroder) and pushed like hell,” Britten said. “I had my foot in it and did everything I could to get us out of there.”

With the second place finish, Britten was able to make up points on Andy Bachetti in the chase for the track title. He now sits 12 behind the ‘Wild Child.”

“You run well enough, you’re going to have a good points night,” he said. “You don’t want to focus on points all the time, but it’s always in the back of your mind. You just keep running well and that’s all you really can do.

Keith Flach, Kenny Tremont and Bachetti rounded out the top five.

Last week, I stated that nobody needed a win in 2019 more than Big Block winner Paul Gilardi. Well, a close second was the guy who sat in victory lane after winning the 358-Modified feature Saturday, Jason Herrington.

Herrington has had a tough season to date, with troubles week in and week out, including losing a car a few weeks back. However, he was able to use an upfront starting spot to his advantage and drove to his first win of 2019.

“We’ve had the worse season so far, well until tonight,” Herrington said. “Destroying that one car in the wall…brake issues with this car…my guys have worked their tails off and they deserve this win.”

Jason was fighting brake problems even up until his heat race on Saturday night…an event he was able to win, leading every lap. That gave him the pole position in the feature and he was able to keep all the gremlins at bay and capture the flag.

“We’ve just been struggling all year and everything felt really good tonight,” he said. “We were finally able to get it done.”

Second place in the feature was Frank Harper who drive his #25 PMC to the runner-up spot from 11th starting spot, but he wishes he was able to get one position better.

“We were so close, yet so far,” Harper said. “I had a shot at Jason when he slipped up in turns three and four. I did the same thing and that was it. That was my shot, but I’m glad to see him win. He’s a good guy and his team works hard just like we do. It was just good to run up front again.”

The car to beat through the race looked like it would be last Saturday night’s winner, Brett Haas. Brett got to second with about 10 laps remaining and looked like he was poised to get his third win of 2019, only to have it go away.

Haas and the 34 of Steve Hough made contact entering turn one and the 55 hit the wall. The incident is one that both drivers see differently.

“Our car was really good tonight,” Haas said. “We got to second and were driven through intentionally. We’re just lucky it didn’t end our night.”

As stated earlier, Hough saw the contact differently.

“He came down and chopped me going into turn one,” Hough said. “It was just a racing incident, honestly. I went into the corner hard and he chopped down. Just racing.”

With as many laps left as there was, Haas was able to come from the rear of the field and get back to fifth when the race was over.

“Our car was phenomenal once again tonight,” Haas said. “I had a little bit of fire in me when this all went down because I knew we had a good car. I just wish it didn’t happen like it did, but we were still able to get a good finish.”

JR Heffner and Frank Hoard finished third and fourth, respectively.

For the 16th time in his career, Jason Casey is a feature event winner in Pro Stock competition at Lebanon Valley, but Saturday night was yet another exciting finish, right down to the wire.

Up until the final lap, veteran Gary Silkey had the field covered, but his #75 machine began to get loose in the corners, and Jason, his father Jay, and Jason Meltz all pounced on him. The 324 of Casey was the first to get by coming off of turn two and beat everyone back to the flag.

“I didn’t know who had a better car, me or my father when we were battling for second,” Casey said. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to get Gary.”

For 19 laps, the veteran looked like he was headed to his first victory since a Sportsman win in 1989 (Thanks to Brian Bedell for that statistic). However, just wasn’t meant to be.

“He was holding a good line up on the top and had the momentum,” Casey said of Silkey. “But, on the final couple of laps, he kept getting looser and looser. I told myself I had to pressure him hard and harder if I wanted to get by. In then end, it worked out for us.”

Jason Meltz was able to get by Silkey and the elder Casey for second at the finish, with a hair-raising last lap which saw the 51 crossed up off as the cars headed down the backstretch. Jay Casey got to third with Rick Dempsey working his way to fourth and Silkey holding on for fifth.

Jesse Murphy and “Big Ed” Hatch took home the Pure Stock victories with Jon Sheppard and Brandon Ely victorious in the 4-Cylinder Single and Dual Cam classes, respectively.

News & Notes…

Andy Bachetti’s night started off in the worst possible way. The points leader in both the Big Block and Small Block Modifieds going into the night, ended up nearly flipping his Jim Winchell-owned 358-Mod in his heat.

The car just wouldn’t turn heading into turn one and went into the wall. He side-slapped the boiler plate, pirouetted violently in mid-air and came to rest on his wheels.

Bachetti was awake and alert when EMT’s arrived on the scene, but he was complaining of dizziness before exiting the mangle racer

In a sign of sportsmanship, Chris Curtis offered Bachetti his #35 PMC Race Car for the rest of the night so that he could gain as many points as he could.

It was the best of a bad situation for the “Wild Child” as Bachetti was able to rebound and come away with a sixth place finish, only losing two points to Haas in the chase for the Small Block championship.

Curtis brought out his PMC chassis to race last Saturday night and was an early retiree, finishing 16th. Two races ago, he severely hurt his team’s DKM Cyclone and has since brought out his PMC.

This week, he showed his true sportsmanship by letting Bachetti take the keys to his ride.

A new entrant into the 358-Modified class this week was Angelo DiCarlo. DiCarlo has been a Sportsman racer for the past several seasons on and off and has been working to put this deal together for the last two years.

The engine was assembled by DiCarlo and crew member Ed Simonik in their own shop.

“I bought most of the parts to this engine from Buddy Hencke,” DiCarlo said. “I needed to get a set of heads and the intake for here, and some other odds and ends. I just want to have fun.”

DiCarlo did state that he still has his crate engine and plans to have it in his car for the Sportsman event on Mr. DIRT Track USA night at the Valley at the end of the season.

In early night hot laps, a fuel line issue at the fuel pump caused the #81D to skip. The team made the necessary fix and he was ready for his heat race.

One of the two Sportsman feature winners from a week ago, Rob Maxon, was at the Valley on Saturday to do some testing with his primary car.

Maxon is the current point leader in the Sportsman class by 12 markers over John Virgilio and is looking to improve the performance of his car as he chases his first career Valley track championship.

An interesting spectator on Saturday was Rich Scagliotta. Scagliotta, who is a “teammate” to Peter Britten, was working in the 21a pit area all evening.

A light rain shower early in the afternoon before the pit gates opened gave the track some added moisture for the night’s action.

Due to that brief shower, the action at Lebanon Valley Dragway was pushed back a bit and forced hot laps at the speedway to start 15 minutes later than normal.

Saturday June 22, 2019 – West Lebanon, NY – Gilespie Automotive & Gendron Inc. Presents- Modified Results (30 Laps) -1) LJ Lombardo, 2) Peter Britten, 3) Keith Flach, 4) Kenny Tremont Jr, 5) Andy Bachetti, 6) Ronnie Johnson, 7) Kolby Schroder, 8) Eddie Marshall, 9) Kyle Sheldon, 10) Brian Berger, 11) J.R. Heffner, 12) Kyle Armstrong, 13) Marc Johnson, 14) Mike King, 15) Paul Gilardi, 16) Denny Soltis, 17) John Ruchel, 18) Steve Hough, 19) Ricky Davis, 20) Chad Jeseo, 21) Matt Pupello, 22) Olden Dwyer, 23) Wayne Jelley, 24) Kenny Aanonson,

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

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

Pure Stock #1 Results (10 Laps) -1) Jesse Murphy, 2) Chris Murphy, 3) Brian Walsh, 4) Jim Dellea, 5) John Denue, 6) Dave Stickles, 7) Fred Hoffman, 8) Ryan Brown, 9) John Devine, 10) Janai St. Pierre, 11) Jim Fachini, 12) Craig Coons,

Pure Stock #2 Results (10 Laps) -1) Ed Hatch, 2) Don Kennedy, 3) Rob Partridge, 4) Ray Hall Sr., 5) Zach Seyerlein, 6) Jeff Meltz SR., 7) Jeff Kreutzinger, 8) Rocco Procopio, 9) Shawn Perez, 10) Keri Vandenburg,

4 Cylinder Single Cam Feature- (15 Laps)-1) Jon Sheppard, 2) Tim Meltz, 3) Victor Duncan JR., 4) Luke Williams, 5) Bradley Batho, 6) Nick McClendon, 7) Chris Bierce, 8) Gary Malloy SR., 9) Brian Brennen, 10) Joey Batho,

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