RPW Exclusive: Paul Gilardi “FINALLY” Shakes The Bad Luck Bug To Win First Of ’19 At Lebanon Valley

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – If there was a person who needed a victory Saturday at the Lebanon Valley Speedway, it was Paul Gilardi.

Gilardi has almost every type of bad luck you could think of come his way in 2019. From broken engines to flat tires and almost everything in between, the driver from Pittsfield, MA experienced it. However, finally, his luck changed on Saturday night as he was able to put his #87x in the winner’s circle for the seventh time in his career.

“Man, we’ve been struggling so much this season,” Gilardi said. “This is the first time we’ve been able to finish all 30 laps this year and what a way to do it.”

Gilardi was able to hold off Eddie Marshall and LJ Lombardo for the win. He was able to withstand Marshall’s challenges on two key late-race restarts, including a one-lap shootout after Wayne Jelley crashed hard on the final circuit. Gilardi was two corners away from the victory when the caution lights came back on, but he held off the veteran to record his first victory in a HigFab Chassis on the high banks.

“I really have to thank Jerry (Higbie) for all he’s done for our team,” he said. “A few years ago, we totaled one of his cars up here in turn one and Jerry stepped up big time to give us a great deal on a new one to get us back in the game. Man, we’ve been struggling all year but we hit on something tonight.”

Even though he was the one holding the steering wheel, Paul was very quick to give all the credit to the guys on his team.

“I’ve got an unbelievable group of people working on this team,” he said. “We’ve had failures almost every week and these guys stick by me. I had tears in my eyes at the scales after the race…not for me but for these guys who stick it out and work their butts off every week.”

Gilardi looked to be on his way to the win, but the caution lights flew as the 87x headed into turn three on the final circuit after Jelley’s crash. That only helped to further along the anxiety of Gilardi inside the car, as he knew the heavy hitters had to be close.

“Absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “Just my luck…Ken’s (Tremont) gotta be there. Somebody’s gotta be there, but all you can do is just put your foot down, run your line and hope you come out in front.”

That is exactly what Paul was able to do, bringing home the checkers. After starting the season with an engine failure in pre-season testing, and a myriad of other bad luck bugs, Gilardi shook them all off to get the win. In fact, the engine that was in the car was that very piece he had problems with to start 2019, and he was quick to thank the person who helped him out.

“The engine ran awesome tonight,” he said. “I have to thank Chris Soltis for all he did to get our primary piece back together. With work, I didn’t have time to get it rebuilt and Chris took it on to help us and it ran flawlessly tonight.”

Someone else who didn’t want to see the final caution was Marshall himself. Eddie was starting to reel in the leader and felt that he needed to keep the heat in his tires if he wanted to have a shot at Gilardi.

“I was disappointed to see that last caution come out,” Marshall said. “I had some rhythm going and had the tires warmed up the way I liked and some speed catching Paul, but I think we might have been better off without the yellow. Catching him is one thing. Getting by him would have been another story, but congratulations to Paul. He ran a great race and congratulations to those guys.”

LJ Lombardo had another strong run to come home in third with Kenny Tremont and Brian Berger completing the top five.

There has only been three 358-Modified feature winners this season at the Valley, and that number didn’t change on Saturday as Brett Haas got his second victory of 2019 in dominant fashion.

Haas was able to get through traffic very well and took the lead from Alan Houghtaling just pass halfway and outdistanced Andy Bachetti for the hard-fought victory.

“Man it feels damn good to get our second victory this season,” Haas said. “It feels good to get one but to get a second now this early in the season is a great way to start off the year.”

Both Haas and Bachetti had to start deep it the field, 11th and 14th respectively, and both sliced and diced their way through the traffic to get to the front. It was just that Haas got to the front first and he was able to stretch out his lead on Bachetti at the end.

“Andy’s been the class of the field this year, and I knew we were fast tonight but he always seems to have a trick up his sleeve,” he said. “I just thought if I hit my marks and didn’t let him get by me we’d be good, and here we are.”

Bachetti crossed the line in second in the feature and knew it was getting through the traffic as fast as he could if he wanted any chance at the victory.

“Our car was good tonight, for sure,” Bachetti said. “Brett had a great race car and hats off to him. They came through the field quick which is what you had to do and the track was real good so that played into it was well.”

JR Heffner came through from his ninth starting spot to finish in third with Houghtaling fourth and Brian Sandstedt finishing fifth.

It was almost a career type night for Rob Maxon in the Sportsman division. Maxon won the heldover feature from two weeks ago, getting by Nikki Ouellette with seven laps remaining and went on to score his first victory of the 2019 season on the high banks.

“Man, this track was good in the feature,” Maxon said. “We were working good on the bottom and you had to work in under someone and hope you could get off the corner. However, this car was fast tonight.”

He then drove his #96 from a 15th starting position in the regularly-scheduled feature and just came up one spot short to the #10 of Jeff Watson who parked his special “Danny Watson” paint scheme in victory lane for the first time in 2019.

“You have no idea how hard we’ve worked on this thing to get here tonight,” Watson said. “We were at PMC with this thing all day on Friday trying to figure things out. Rebuilt the rear end after finding our problem with it. I have to thank Pete (Chuckta) for building one heck of a race car. The Casey’s loaned me a carburetor this week and Andy Bachetti helped me with a fuel pump tonight which fixed our issue from earlier in the night. I can’t thank all those who helped to get us here.”

Even with all his help, Watson was fast to thank his father, Danny, for his tireless effort on the car to get back to victory lane.

“I have to thank my dad for all he does and it’s cool to win, again, on Father’s day,” he said. “That means I probably don’t have to get him a present, but he’s been working so hard in the shop, some nights until 2:30 in the morning. He’s 67 years old and he’s out at the shop working late to try and get this thing going. I can’t thank him enough.”

John Virgilio, Pete Carlotto and Whitey Slavin completed the top five in the second feature with Nikki Ouellette, John Stowell, Karl Barnes and Robbie Knipe finishing second through fifth in the heldover main event.

Nick Hilt has won the Bubba Tanner Pro Stock Classic before, and on Saturday night, he was able to grab his second victory in the event. Hilt started in the sixth spot and held off a late race challenge from Jason Casey to score the victory and take home the $1,323 top prize.

It has also been almost five years since Hilt has gotten a win on the high banks, but what a night to do it.

“Man, this was definitely worth the wait,” Hilt said. “I was excited because I’ve won this race before and I almost got one a few weeks ago but Jason got me at the end. With all the time and money we put into this thing, I’m so happy to get the win tonight.”

For Casey, his car came on late, but he needed one more lap to see if he could get around your eventual winner.

“Man, I wish Bubba had been #24 instead of 23 because I would have liked to have one more lap to run up beside Nick and really run him,” Casey said. I was in third running side-by-side with Nick Arnold and I could see Hilt loosening up and knew I had to get there, but we just ran out of time.”

Casey got to the backside of Hilt’s 17 and took his chance in turns one and two, but it was to no avail as Hilt went on to the win.

“I was actually better in turns one and two,” he said. “I thought I might have two shots at him on the final lap, but it wasn’t to be.”

Third place finisher was young Nick Arnold who also finished on the podium in last year’s Bubba Tanner Pro Stock event. Arnold was extremely happy to get in the top three once again and knows his first win is coming.

“It feels really good to be up here again but man, that was a hell of a race,” Arnold said. “It was awesome to race with Casey and know he’d give me enough room so we could run hard and both be able to finish strong. The track was great a lot of bite and this was just a lot of fun.”

Rob Yetman and Chad Jeseo completed the top five in the Bubba. Scott Morris and Ray Hall Sr. took home the two Pure Stock wins.

Saturday June 15, 2019 – West Lebanon, NY – Upstate GM & DMC Racing Products Present- Modified Results (30 Laps) -1) Paul Gilardi, 2) Eddie Marshall, 3) L.J Lombardo, 4) Kenny Tremont Jr, 5) Brian Berger, 6) Kyle Armstrong, 7) Peter Britten, 8) Keith Flach, 9) Demetrius Drellos, 10) Andy Bachetti, 11) J.R. Heffner, 12) Kyle Sheldon, 13) Kolby Schroder, 14) Rob Pitcher, 15) Mike King, 16) Steve Hough, 17) Olden Dwyer, 18) Ronnie Johnson, 19) Ricky Davis, 20) John Ruchel, 21) Marc Johnson, 22) Matt Pupello, 23) Chad Jeseo, 24) Wayne Jelley, 25) Kenny Aanonson,

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

Sportsman Results (20 Laps) -1) Jeff Watson, 2) Rob Maxon, 3) John Virgilio, 4) Pete Carlotto, 5) Whitey Slavin, 6) Kevin Arnold, 7) Gary O’Brien, 8) Robbie Knipe, 9) Cody Ochs, 10) Walt Hammond, 11) Ted Teal, 12) Cody Hunt, 13) Chris Lynch, 14) Shane Henion, 15) Harold Robitaille, 16) Colin Clow, 17) John Santolin, 18) Matt Wescott, 19) Karl Barnes, 20) Joseph Coppola, 21) Pat Jones, 22) John St. Germain, 23) Ryan McCartney, 24) Nikki Ouellette, 25) John Stowell, 26) Robbie Colburn, 27) Bobby Knipe, 28) Justin Gozzi, 29) Aaron Mulready,

Sportsman Results-Make Up From June 1ST,2019 (20 Laps)-1) Rob Maxon, 2) Nikki Ouellette, 3) John Stowell, 4) Karl Barnes, 5) Robbie Knipe, 6) Whitey Slavin, 7) Gary O’Brien, 8) Kevin Arnold, 9) John Virgilio, 10) Cody Ochs, 11) Pat Jones, 12) Ted Teal, 13) Joseph Coppola, 14) Ryan McCartney, 15) Chris Lynch, 16) Harold Robitaille, 17) Shane Henion, 18) Pete Carlotto, 19) Robbie Colburn, 20) John Santolin, 21) Jeff Watson,

Pro Stock Results -Bubba Tanner Classic (23 Laps) -1) Nick Hilt, 2) Jason Casey, 3) Nick Arnold, 4) Rob Yetman, 5) Chad Jeseo, 6) C.D. Bacauchamp, 7) Jay Casey, 8) Gary Silkey, 9) Tom Dean, 10) Rich Crane, 11) Don Collins, 12) Adam Schneider, 13) Brian Keough, 14) Paul LaRochelle, 15) Jon Routhier, 16) Rick Spencer, 17) Rick Duzlak, 18) Steven LaRochelle, 19) Rick Dempsey, 20) Jason Meltz, 21) Johnny Rivers, 22) Tony Markou, 23) Jay Casey,

Pure Stock #1 Results (10 Laps) -1) Scott Morris, 2) Shawn Perez, 3) Chris Murphy, 4) Janai St. Pierre, 5) Dave Stickles, 6) Ryan Brown, 7) Fred Hoffman,

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