RPW Exclusive: Ronnie Johnson Finally Visits Victory Lane; Andy Bachetti Scores Second Of 2019 At Lebanon Valley

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – Thanks to Mother Nature last Saturday night, fans at Lebanon Valley were set up with double features for the Big Block Modifieds this week at the Valley of Speed, and they were treated to two great races.

In the first feature event, Ronnie Johnson FINALLY got the monkey off his back and took home his first victory since returning as a full-time regular to start the 2018 racing season.

Marc Johnson was your early leader in the Scott Hamlin-owned #33 and looked like he was on his way to his first career Big Block win on the high banks, but the 2RJ of Johnson was nipping at his heels. In a battle of the Johnsons, RJ was hounding Marc and as the handling started to go away on the leader’s Troyer machine, Ronnie took advantage, making the move on the inside of turn two with nine laps remaining.

From there, nobody was touching RJ as he cruised to his first victory of 2019.

“This is a big honor to win here because we’ve got a lot of support down here at Lebanon Valley,” Johnson said. “It’s been a long time coming…a long season and a half. I’m real happy for our whole race team and it may take some time to set in because it’s been so long since we’ve won a race here.”

Last season, Ronnie finished third in points but never got to victory lane. That was something he wanted to change this year, and now he’s done that.

“I said early in the year, we wanted to try and win some races here rather than just be consistent,” he said. “There’s really no other feeling than winning, and this feels real good right now.”

The race looked like it was going to be Marc Johnson’s to win early in the night, but Ronnie could see his car was going away, and he knew he had to make his move when he had the opportunity.

“Me and Marc are good friends and I saw him getting loose off the top of turn two,” RJ said. “I just had to calm myself down and be patient and work the bottom to get by. I saw (Peter) Britten underneath me late in the race once and told myself to calm down again and hit my marks if I wanted to get this win.”

Runner-up in the first feature was Peter Britten and after starting in the 12th spot, the Northeast Custom Flatbeds 21a Troyer really came on late in the main event but he just couldn’t get back up to the leader to get by.

“I thought I had a chance to win that race but unfortunately I just didn’t take it,” Britten said. “I almost had him cleared but hey, congrats to Ronnie. He did a great job. That’s probably a popular win but who knows if that red flag hurt or helped us. It bunched everyone back up and cautions or reds always change the race. You never know.”

The red he’s referring to was a vicious crash for Kyle Armstrong, who’s throttle hung wide open as the #11A went into turn three and four. His car went hard into the wall, flipped violently and came to rest on his wheels, albeit a very damaged machine.

The accident happened on lap 10, while Armstrong was battling for position mid-pack. The car briefly caught fire but miraculously, the Connecticut driver was able to exit the vehicle under his own power, visibly shaken as crews attended to him and the machine.

As a precaution, Armstrong took himself to the hospital as he was complaining of chest pain but, according to his family when reached for an update later in the evening, all x-rays came back negative for any broken bones and he was being released Saturday night.

Marc Johnson came home third in the feature after leading two-thirds of the distance with Kenny Tremont fourth and Keith Flach fifth.

The second feature looked to be Kyle Sheldon’s race if not for a late caution with just seven laps remaining for Matt Pupello who had to be pushed in. That put Andy Bachetti right on his back bumper and the Wild Child took advantage on the ensuing restart.

Bachetti made the pass of the #629 Todd Sheldon-tribute car Kyle was running (in honor of his late grandfather who passed away last week) on the inside of turns one and two and went on to grab his second win of 2019 as he chases the track championship.

“Our tires cooled down and we had a shot at him (Sheldon) on that restart,” Bachetti said. “I think he was probably going to win that race if it weren’t for that caution, but that’s racing.”

The Garrity #4 started in the 11th position and got Sheldon’s back bumper for that crucial restart…just proving you have to put yourself in the right place at the right time, and Bachetti did that on Saturday night.

“I can’t say enough about this Bicknell and Billy the Kid engine,” he said. “They’re working real well this year and my crew worked their tales off for me. That’s what it’s all about and tonight went real good for us.”

For second place finisher Kyle Sheldon, he would have loved to have won for his grandfather, and you could hear the dejection in his voice, even though it was his best finish of the season.

“We know grandpa is definitely looking down and smiling at how both me and my dad ran tonight,” Sheldon said. “He’s probably just as disappointed as we are. I guess that’s where we got our competitiveness from. Disappointed is definitely the word of the night, but we’re proud of what we did here that’s for sure, but we’ll come back and get them next week.”

Compared to the first feature where Kyle started second and finished ninth, this was a big shot in the arm for the Alex Thomson-owned team.

“Well, if you look at the first feature compared to the second race, I’d say we were light-years ahead of where we were,” he said. “It was nice to make some changes and go in the right direction and pull off as second place finish.”

Flach, Tremont and Britten were third through fifth, respectively and each capped off the evening with their second top fives of the night.

Brett Haas simply killed the field in the 358-Modified feature event, taking the lead from Alan Houghtaling as lap 3 clicked off on the lap counter, and never looked back. Haas started in fifth spot and took home his third victory of 2019 by nearly a full straightaway.

“We made a big swing at it as earlier on in the night we were a bit off,” Haas said. “The car recovered as good as it could be for as rough as the track was but it’s good to be back in victory lane.”

Just before the feature was to roll off, the Haas team found a problem, but they were lucky to find it before the green flag dropped.

“We found a right rear that was leaking so it was a blessing in the skies that we found that,” he said. “We threw one of our older spares on and it screwed up our stagger a bit but obviously it worked.

Second place finisher was Guy Sheldon and he knew he had one fast car on his tale, and he did in the form of Andy Bachetti, who was trying lap after lap to get by but Sheldon was able to hold him off.

“I could hear something and I figured it was him behind me,” Sheldon said. “There are some real fast cars here but Andy raced me clean tonight and he did last week, but would have liked to have been one spot better tonight for Dad and done him proud, but we’ll take a second tonight.”

Bachetti finished third with Timothy Davis fourth and Jason Herrington fifth. Another grinding crash took place in this feature as Mark Pullen and Sean Mandel came together on the backstretch, sheering off a wheel on the #66 of Mandel and sending him into a violent series of flips down the backstretch.

He was okay, but a couple of people in the pit area were hit by debris flying. They were tended to on the scene by EMT personnel but seemed looked to be okay after a very scary situation.

One week after winning the DIRTcar Pro Stock tour event, Rick Duzlak used a fifth starting position and a jumbled original start to the feature to get to the runner-up position early, right behind leader Nick Arnold.

He was able to get passed the Lazzaro’s #1 with just a handful of laps remaining and went on to take the victory, his third of the season.

“I was just waiting until Nick got loose and showed him a nose,” Duzlak said. “I said well, 15 laps, no more waiting. Got to go if we’re going to get this and here we are.”

With all the bad luck he’s had, the third win of 2019 has Duzlak’s luck changing.

“With the amount of bad luck we’ve had, this has been a bad season in my book,” he said. “However, things are hopefully changing. This is making up for it.”

Arnold brought his #1 home in the second spot, and came within five laps of his first career win on the high banks.

“It was a good, tough race tonight,” Arnold said. “Track was real tricky and there’s just so many good cars in this class. I was just holding on for dear life up there, waiting for the cavalry to come, but I’m really happy with second tonight.”

Nick Hilt was third followed by Rob Yetman and Jason Meltz.

Scott Morris and Jeff Kreutzinger were the two Pure Stock feature event victors.

SSaturday July 27, 2019 – West Lebanon, NY – Shelden Oil & Bulldog Concrete Present – Modified Results (30 Laps) -1) Andy Bachetti, 2) Kyle Sheldon, 3) Keith Flach, 4) Kenny Tremont Jr, 5) Peter Britten, 6) Kolby Schroder, 7) Marc Johnson, 8) Ronnie Johnson, 9) Eddie Marshall, 10) J.R. Heffner, 11) Ricky Davis, 12) L.J Lombardo, 13) Mike King, 14) Josh Delea, 15) Brian Berger, 16) Josh Marcus, 17) Matt Pupello, 18) Paul Gilardi, 19) Denny Soltis, 20) Olden Dwyer, 21) Kyle Armstrong, 22) John Ruchel, 23) Steve Hough,

Modified Results (30 Laps) (Make Up From July 20, 2019)-1) Ronnie Johnson, 2) Peter Britten, 3) Marc Johnson, 4) Kenny Tremont Jr, 5) Keith Flach, 6) Andy Bachetti, 7) Brian Berger, 8) J.R. Heffner, 9) Kyle Sheldon, 10) Matt Pupello, 11) Mike King, 12) Josh Marcus, 13) L.J Lombardo, 14) Kolby Schroder, 14) Paul Gilardi, 15) Ricky Davis, 16) Eddie Marshall, 17) Steve Hough, 18) Kyle Armstrong, 19) Olden Dwyer, 20) Denny Soltis, 21) John Ruchel,

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

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

Pure Stock #1 Results (10 Laps) -1) Scott Morris, 2) Jim Dellea, 3) Janai St. Pierre, 4) Keri Vandenburg, 5) Jake Gomm, 6) Wayne Mahar, 7) Craig Coons, 8) Ray Royals, 9) Chris Calabro, 10) Fred Hoffman, 11) Tom Gomm,

Pure Stock #2 Results (10 Laps) -1) Jeff Kreutzinger, 2) Ray Hall Sr., 3) Ed Hatch, 4) Jeff Meltz SR., 5) Clifford Booth, 6) Brian Walsh, 7) Zach Seyerlein, 8) Ryan Brown, 9) Rob Partridge, 10) Chris Murphy, 11) Shawn Perez,