It’s Championship Night At The Woodhull Raceway On Saturday Evening

Story By: STEVEN OVENS / WOODHULL RACEWAY – WOODHULL, NY – As sports announcers love to say- this is what it’s all about. An entire season’s efforts, albeit coming during a pandemic, all come down to one race, one feature, with it all on the line.

Local transportation company High Up Trucking will present Championship Night at Woodhull Raceway, where eight divisions will crown champions for the 2020 season. Four of those eight divisions see the first and second place drivers separated by less than 10 points. This leaves little room for error for these race teams come Saturday night.

The Mini Stocks and Warriors will be pulling double duty as they will compete in double features to make up for the rained out features from last Saturday night.

Woodhull no longer offers heat points, so qualifying heat races will only determine who makes the redraw for the features. The gap between first and second in feature points is 5 points, with every position after only seeing a 1 point gap.

Cory Costa, searching for his first Woodhull Modified title, picked the perfect and the worst time to win a Modified feature in thrilling fashion last weekend. It was the perfect time as it was his familiar foe Billy Van Pelt who he was able to beat at the line by inches and gain five crucial points.

But now turn around to championship night and it was the worst time to win as now, by Woodhull rules, Costa can start no better than 12th in Saturday night’s starting field. The difference going into Saturday night will be six points. Van Pelt out of Westfield, Pennsylvania is looking for his earth-shattering 22nd career Woodhull Modified track title. Third place or better clinches the title for Van Pelt, who would win the season victory tiebreaker at five trips to Victory Lane.

The NAPA Crate Sportsman title is coming right down to the wire as well. Horseheads, NY pilot Ajay Potrzebowski Sr. is holding on to a slim margin of 9 points over Montour Falls, NY veteran Dale Welty. Both of these veterans know what it takes to win a championship and with Welty showing speed while battling for the win last weekend- 9 points isn’t exactly safe for Potrzebowski.

Potrzebowski needs to finish sixth or better to lock up the title which includes Welty winning. A Welty win and a Potrzebowski 6th place effort would leave them tied, with Potrzebowski winning the tiebreaker (wins) with 3 victories. If things get really crazy, Blake Lawson isn’t mathematically out of it either trailing the leaders by 16 markers.

Jason Knowles has clinched the Cummings Trucking RUSH-sanctioned Crate Late Models with well over a 40-point margin over brother Brian Knowles. Glenn Whritenour has all but clinched the Street Stock track championship at this point with a 23-point margin over Brett Marlatt. Taking the green flag will seal it up for Whritenour.

Former Mini Stock track champion Chris Woodard is primed to lock up the Woodhull Auto Supply Hobby Stock track championship Saturday night. He has ensured that he would win a tiebreaker over Scott Brown if need be- meaning a top five effort wraps it up for Woodard. Scott Brown’s mission is simple, go out and get that checkered flag! Eight points isn’t a lot to make up with a win, but his dancing partner for the title has only finished outside the top five once all season.

Jeredd Dennis isn’t mathematically out of the running but 18 points is a lot of ground to make up in one night.

Barring 24 cars showing up for the Johnson Auto Supply Front Wheel Drives and Big Jim’s Wicked Tees Warriors feature events, Codie Baker (FWD) and Jacob Tubbs (Warriors) will be crowned track champions for 2020.

But the best title fight of the night will be the Big Jim’s Wicked Tees Mini Stocks. Championship Night is a lot of pressure- but Championship Night with double features? That’s a tea kettle ready to pop off!

Jason Ketrow comes into Championship Night with just a five-point margin over Corning, NY’s Brody Amidon. Amidon has been red hot in the last six races starting July 4th, with two wins, a second, two thirds and a fourth place finish. Ketrow’s same six races also include two victories that are paired up with a fourth, a fifth and two sixth place finishes.

Ketrow has experience on his side though as he’s been at this game a long time and he has veteran knowledge from the Don Lawson camp helping him navigate the waters. Amidon is the new kid on the block- a former feature winner and championship contender from the Woodhull Warriors whose father and grandfather have built a flawless piece in 2020. They’ve tuned it to perfection and will let the scholar-athlete do his thing Saturday night with the championship in the balance.

If you miss this race you will for sure miss a dandy.

This week’s program will feature all weekly divisions including the Insinger Performance Modifieds, NAPA Crate Sportsman, Cummings Trucking Crate Late Models, Joe Willcox Performance Automatics Street Stocks, Woodhull Auto Supply Hobby Stocks, Wicked Tees Mini Stocks, Johnson Auto Front Wheel Drives and the Wicked Tees Warriors.

The Pits will open at 3:30PM with the driver’s meeting scheduled for 5:45PM at the pit shack. Hot Laps will fire off at 6PM and the first green flag from Tony Van Pelt will fly at 6:30PM. Pit passes are set at $35 with Pit Passes for ages under 12 being a reduced price of $20. All divisions will be draw/redraw, transponders will be used.

In lieu of fans being able to attend the race program in the grandstands, there will be a live video feed provided on the Woodhull Raceway Twitch & YouTube pages. Race fans are encouraged to make a small donation for the live video coverage, which goes directly toward the driver’s point fund for 2020.