RPW Exclusive: Mother Nature & Dillon Steuer Take Victories Saturday At Lebanon Valley; Duzlak Wins Pro Stock Tour Race

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – Most drivers, just as they are ready to take the green flag, will pull their seat belts tight one last time, clean their face shield, and just get amp’d up before they get ready for battle. Saturday night at Lebanon Valley, the Modifieds were set to do just that…and then, it happened.

Just as the field headed into turn three, set to take the green, Mother Nature let the skies open up. A torrential downpour engulfed the speedway, sending teams, fans, and those drivers on track scattering for cover.

The person in charge of the one-way radio to the drivers actually screamed on the radio “WE ARE NOT GOING GREEN! WE ARE NOT GOING GREEN!

Unfortunately, that put an end to the evening. This race was the final on the night, so officials made the decision to postpone the race until next week, setting up double features for the Modifieds.

The speedway did get in everything else on the schedule, however, including the 358-Modified feature and the DIRTcar Pro Stock Series event.

In the Small Block feature, young Dillon Steuer took the lead before the one-quarter mark of the 24-lap feature and never looked back, collecting his first career feature win on the high banks.

“It definitely feels good to win here tonight,” Steuer said. “We’ve come close a bunch of times but never able to seal the deal. This time we were able to get to the front quick and we stayed there.”

Steuer looked to have the race in the bag, holding off the likes of Guy Sheldon, Timothy Davis, Brett Haas and Andy Bachetti when the caution flew with two laps remaining. That yellow flag was due to Haas shredding a left rear tire after contact between himself and the 17 of Bachetti as the two were battling extremely hard down the backstretch, heading into turn three.

Haas tried his best to make it to the finish, limping around on the flat left rear for a few laps. Unfortunately the tire came apart with two laps remaining, which set up the green-white-checkered finish.

“I had a feeling the fast guys were coming through the field quick,” he said. “I just didn’t want to look back. There was a green-white-checkered and I just tried to keep my laps smooth and drive away.”

Sheldon was able to hold off the point leader Bachetti for second with JR Heffner coming through late to get fourth with Timothy Davis rounding out the top five.

Haas was able to return to the race, after his crew changed the left rear tire. He worked his way back up to a 12th place finish at the checkers, salvaging as many points as he could. However, he isn’t happy with what the final rundown shows. He knows he should have had a better finish.

“My flat left rear and the tire mark on the wall under the Berkshire Bank billboard explain exactly what happened tonight,” Haas said. “It shows how he (Andy) tried to wreck us twice, or at least bully his way by us, after I raced him clean for three laps, door-to-door. This is the second time this year we’ve passed someone clean and they go out and dump us.”

The DIRTcar Pro Stock feature was the first main event of the night, and 27 cars took the green flag from Rodney Rescott.

Rich Crane drew the pole for the feature and got out to an early lead, but Rick Duzlak worked his way to the runner-up spot from fourth on the outside on a restart and hounded the leader for several laps.

Duzlak made his move as the two headed into turn three on lap 13. As they maneuvered the corner, contact was made and the 29 of Duzlak went on by to grab the top spot. He was able to hold off all challengers the rest of the way to get the Pro Stock Series win.

“I got into Richie (Crane) a little bit and I apologize for that,” Duzlak said. “Man, this car’s been on rails. This is one of the best cars I’ve ever had…went anywhere I wanted to put it. This thing was on rails…anything I wanted to do.”

Duzlak, who was able to get a win early in the season, hasn’t had the year he’s wanted, but putting it in victory lane helps make the bad nights go away.

“This has been a tough year for us,” he said. “Either I crash or win it seems like. I’m very happy. Gary Virgilio came up this weekend and gave me a hand. Everybody knows I do this myself in the shop. Long hours, but days like this make it all worth it.”

A massive pile-up near the mid-race point on the frontstretch put a hurting on the chances of several competitors. Jason and Jay Casey were involved as well as tour regulars Dan Older and Jocelyn Roy. While the clean-up was underway, a dark cloud loomed over the speedway.

Then, with 10 laps remaining, after another caution, just as the drivers were set to go back green, lightning struck very close to the speedway. Officials made the decision to bring the cars to pit road to see where the weather was heading.

They went back racing and that was a breath of fresh air, so to speak, for second place finisher Jason Meltz who just never could get to Duzlak’s back bumper. He tried on several occasions, but just couldn’t get to him.

“Man that was bad with the heat,” Meltz said about the red flag. “I didn’t think this race was ever going to end, but we made our way up pretty good. It’s just tough being on the inside on these restarts. Guys get shuffled back and that’s where a lot of passes were made.”

Meltz was glad to see the checkers fly at the end of the race, because he knew his car wasn’t as good as it was early on.

“Luckily, we made are way to second and then the car started to go away,” he said. “It started to go in the last 10 laps but we were able to hang on.”

Jay Corbin, Crane and Jay Casey, who rebounded from the mid-race accident, rounded out the top five. Crane’s night will be a whole lot of “what-ifs” as he contemplates what could have been rather than what actually happened on the night.

“My shifter broke early on in the race and my car was stuck in high gear,” Crane said. “That meant I couldn’t shift on restarts. I wish that hadn’t happened because restarts killed me.”

Crane also discussed the contact between he and Duzlak.

“We’re all good now,” he said. “I talked to Rick and we hashed things out. I just wish we didn’t have the shifter issue. I think we could have had a winning car. It was a fun night all around having the car handle better than it has.”

Clifford Booth and Ray Hall Sr. took home the two Pure Stock victories

News & Notes…

All of us at Race Pro Weekly would like to pass along our heartfelt condolences to the family of Todd Sheldon, father of Guy and grandfather of Kyle, who passed away early Friday morning.

Todd raced at the Valley for years before turning the driving chores over to his second and third generations.

After his passing, both Guy and Kyle had their cars changed to reflect two of his car numbers. Kyle ran the #629 on Saturday while Guy ran the #628, in honor of Todd. It was a fitting tribute to the man who started it all for their racing careers.

Guy was able to finish second in the 358-Modified feature to honor him and Kyle won his heat race and was set to roll from the inside of the front row for the feature when the rains came.

Problems for LJ Lombardo took place in his heat race long before the initial green. As the cars were making their pace laps, the right front corner of Lombardo’s #35 collapsed.

As he made his way to pit road, the crew went to work to try and fix the problem so they could get LJ back on track. The shock broke came off the car, which made the front end collapse.

Unfortunately, they ran out of time and he didn’t get to run his heat race.

After last week’s motor failure while running second in the Big Block Modified feature, Olden Dwyer and his team had some things to figure out. Would they return? What engine would they use?

As of Monday, they had no idea, but by Thursday, the team had taken the Big Block out of their Albany-Saratoga car and put it in their Lebanon Valley piece. They, in turn, took their Lebanon Valley Small Block car and engine to Malta on Friday night to race, finishing 25th.

Brian Peterson has returned to racing over the last few weeks after motor troubles sidelined him. On Saturday night, he was fighting fuel pressure issues early on in the night, noticing he was almost ¾ of a second off the pace.

The team checked the float levels in the carburetor and everything seemed fine. They then checked fuel pressure and it was way down compared to what the engine builder wants. They began to chase it with the fuel pump and it looked like he got things together. Peterson started 16th in the main and finished 13th.

Pete Chuckta from PMC Race Cars was working with the Chris Curtis 358-Modified team during the night. After early night warm-ups, the group went to work in the front end area to add some ballast to their car.

Curtis started the year with a DKM Cyclone chassis but has switched back to his PMC in recent weeks.

With Saturday being a DIRTcar Pro Stock Series race, all Lebanon Valley regulars received 20 show-up points for the night.

Modified Results (30 Laps) – RAINED OUT

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

Pro Stock Results(DIRT CAR SERIES) (30 Laps) -1) Ricky Duzlak 2) Jason Meltz 3) Jay Corbin 4) Rich Crane 5) Jay Casey 6) Nick Arnold 7) Rob Yetmen 8) Johnny Rivers 9) Tony Marku 10) C.D. Beauchamp 11) Dave Sequin 12) Jay Fitzgerald 13) Marc Lalonde 14) Phil Arnold 15) Brian Keough 16) Pascal Payere 17) Mike Baker 18) Brian Carter 19) Jocelyn Roy 20) Tom Dean 21) Frank Twing 22) Gary Silkey 23) Steven LaRochelle 24) Jason Casey 25) Dan Older 26) Rick Dempsey 27) Doug Olds

Pure Stock #1 Results (10 Laps) -1) Clifford Booth, 2) Scott Morris, 3) Keri Vandenburg, 4) Janai St. Pierre, 5) Ryan Brown, 6) Craig Coons, 7) Shawn Perez, 8) Dave Stickles,

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