RPW Column: Tanner VanDoren Rewards New Car Owner’s Faith With OCFS ESW Sportsman Win

Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – Twelve-year-old Tanner VanDoren raised a lot of eyebrows in 2020 with his skills at racing his Sportsman at the Orange County Fair Speedway.

His consistent finishes in the division, which led him to be the 2020 OCFS Sportsman championship, caught the attention of Pat Giuliano, owner of the #51. Pat decided to put Tanner into his car for the ESW Sportsman Championship.

After racing many laps behind Alan Fink, TVD made the move to the lead and went on to his biggest victory over Fink.

The win was worth $5,000.

After a big mess and crash on the original start, pole sitter Fink took the lead over Tommy Collins with VanDoren moving up from 5th into 3rd. With 10 laps down, the next of many cautions flew.

VanDoren moved into 2nd on lap 11 as Collins, Zach Zobotka and Matt Janczuk were racing hard behind the front running duo. Caution on lap 22 slowed the field as Tyler Peet had a spin.

Caution again flew after 24 were complete. This set up a series of many restart attempts. VanDoren was able to get by Fink on a couple of the 6 restarts that were needed to get the race back going, but he had to revert back to his previous spot on both occasions.

When the race finally got some green flag racing going, Fink was still in command. At halfway, it was Fink, VanDoren, Janczuk, Zobotka and Collins in the top 5 running order.

Fink maintained the lead on the restarts, but VanDoren was putting on the heat for the top spot. The running order remained unchanged until lap 35 when Tanner took the #51 into the lead with Zobotka moving past Janczuk for 3rd.

VanDoren held on for the final 10 laps for his first OCFS win over Fink, Zobotka, Janczuk and Collins.

Joe Toth and Kevin Root recovered from incidents during the race to place 6th and 7th respectively with Travis Green, Robert Bublack and LJ Lombardo completing the top 10 finishers.