RPW Column: The 2020 Racing Season Can’t Start Fast Enough For Shane Pecore

RPW Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – CORNWALL, ONT – Shane Pecore is excited for his 2020 season to begin, whenever that happens. The reason? He’s set to make the jump to the 358-Modified at the Cornwall Motor Speedway.

Pecore, who announced last November that he was making the move to the premier class at the Speedway with the help from Steve Morris of TAS Racing, can’t wait to get behind the wheel to compete with the best Cornwall has to offer.

“I’m very eager to get this season going,” Pecore said. “We have plans to race Cornwall weekly as well as many big shows as we can. I’d love to race as much as possible this season, but if we don’t, it’ll give us time to try and put a second car together to run more shows.”

With the move to the 358-Modifieds, what type of challenges does Pecore feel he’ll face this season?

“I think just having a different mindset,” he said. “The last few years, I knew I was going to be contending for wins often and could always be a threat. Going to the 358’s, obviously I would like to be in the same position. However, I’d be satisfied with being a top 10 runner and having a chance to win occasionally.”

Were there any differences in his off-season preparation getting ready for 358 competition compared to the Sportsman?

“We built a new car (a 2020 Bicknell) and went for strength and durability,” he said. “We ditched all the lightweight parts we could use on the Sportsman. I know guys who get away with running those parts, but we wanted to be safe.”

There’s also a lot more Pecore can do with his car now that he’s in the premier class. Has that motivated him to work harder?

“Our shop has been busy,” he said. “We built a spring smasher this winter. We can adjust and do a lot of different spring combinations in the 358-Modified class so we thought that would be good to have. We also spent time trying to figure out the right engine package to go with. That part was a little different than we were used to.”

After spending several seasons running the GM Crate in the Sportsman class, having more power and different options was new to Pecore. Seven years ago, the Cornwall, ONT driver spent a full season in the class, but times have changed.

“We had a new spec engine built for this season,” he said. “The team we partnered up with for 2020, TAS Racing, has a couple of W16’s (built by Wegner Motorsports) available if something were to happen to our engine.”

Is the spec powerplant the best way to go for a track like Cornwall?

“I believe so,” he said. “The Modifieds are always sent out as the first feature of the night so there’s usually quite a bit of bite left in the track. The W16 works there when the track is slicker.”

When 2020 finally gets the green flag, Shane Pecore will almost assuredly be one of the cars to beat in DIRTcar 358-Modified competition.