RPW Column: A Much-Needed Trip To Victory Lane For Kenny Tremont Saturday At Lebanon Valley
Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – There were very few DIRTcar Modified drivers in the pit area at Lebanon Valley Speedway on Saturday night that needed a trip to victory lane more than Kenny Tremont.
One an evening that one of his longtime sponsors honored the memory of a crew member of the #115, all of the stars finally aligned and the Sand Lake Slingshot added another notch to the tally as Tremont captured his first win of the 2021 season and 140th of his illustrious career.
“Thankfully we were able to finally get a win here,” Tremont said. “We started on the front row and I was really starting to doubt if we could even do that lately. Tonight, it all worked out well for us and the car ran perfect.”
Tremont fought with pole sitter Paul Gilardi for the first handful of laps before finally powering to the inside of the Pittsfield, MA driver to complete lap four. From there on, it was clean-and-green for the multi-time track champion as the feature event ran 30 laps without a caution. That was perfect for Tremont.
“I’ll definitely be able to have a good phone call with George Rifenburg tomorrow morning,” he said. “I talk to him pretty much every Sunday and tell him where I went wrong but he’s stuck with this team and his family’s been great.”
Tremont not only had luck on his side Saturday, he probably had a special person riding shotgun with him as well.
“My good buddy Steve Kahler passed away just a short while ago,” he said. “Brian Bedell (from Boomer’s Performance) has put together an event tonight for the Pure Stocks and Steve’s whole family is here to be a part of it. He was a part of our team for many years and I have to say thank you to him because I knew he was riding with me the whole way.”
The 2021 season has been a trying one, to say the least, for Tremont. After a well-publicized split with long-time sponsor S&S Asphalt Paving, the Tremont family has taken back control of their racing program. With two wins at Albany-Saratoga under their belt, trying to figure out a new racecar with the latest in rear suspension technology has seemed to be the team’s Achilles heel this season.
With that elusive win evading him at the Valley, Tremont was wondering if it’d ever come, but he never doubted the support he has behind him.
“I really have to thank my family, my dad, all the crew guys and every single sponsor on this racecar,” he said. “All of their support has meant everything to me and thanks to all of the fans for sticking with us. I see all the messages on social media and, for the most part, 99% of them are positive so that’s great and I thank you.”
Second on the night was a part of Kenny’s family as well, his brother-in-law Brian Berger, who took his #60 to a solid second place run. Wayne Jelley brought his Teo Pro Car home third with Brett Haas placing fourth and Kyle Sheldon completing the top five.
In the 358-Modifeid feature, from the drop of the green, Brian Sandstedt looked like he was finally going to get the monkey off his back and race his way to victory lane. However, Ryan Larkin had other ideas.
The second-generation driver made the move passed Sandstedt on lap 10 and never faced another challenge the rest of the way to record his second career Small Block Modified win and second of the ’21 season.
“I honestly didn’t realize how good of a car we had tonight,” Larkin stated. “We had brake problems all night and still had them during the feature event. This is just an amazing feeling and I’m so happy to do this for my sponsors, my crew and especially my family. Everyone has been so supportive.”
Was there a moment during the feature event that Larkin realized he had the car that could win?
“I honestly had no idea,” he said. “Truly, my main focus was the just finish all 24 laps.”
Last week, and early-race incident severely damaged the yellow #39 and left Ryan with a 16th place finish. Saturday night, he wanted to turn things around and did so in a monster way.
“This is such a weight off our shoulders right now,” he stated. “It’s been a tough season for us, for sure but my team never gives up and I can’t thank them enough for that. Their dedication is what keeps us going.”
Last week’s winner, Olden Dwyer, backed it up with another strong showing, bringing his #88 HigFab home in second with point leader Andy Bachetti in third.
Jason Herrington returned after a few weeks away to come home fourth after starting deep on the field in 12th. Ryan Charland continued his solid, consistent season on the high banks with another top five. He brought his Wicked Motorsports #10c home in fifth.
Whitey Slavin unveiled a new Bicknell Chassis a few weeks ago after several years behind the wheel of a PMC, which included several wins and championships.
On Saturday night, Slavin used the new car and a pole position to his advantage to lead every single lap and bring home his first victory in Sportsman competition in a few years at the track.
“Boy, it’s been a while since we’ve gotten to victory lane,” Slavin said. “It’s been a rough year and a half with everyone, because of COVID, with losing some loved ones but we’re all thinking about them.”
The new car carries the #5 on it, made famous by Dave & Gina Goodermote, who owned cars through the years. The Goodermotes have been a part of Slavin’s program for years and stepped up recently. That support paid off Saturday.
“We got Dave back in the game and he said he wanted to see some results,” he said. “Tonight, we finally got it for him. Thanks to my team, my dad and all of our sponsors. This is just awesome right now.”
With the struggles Slavin’s had this season, he was starting to question if it was him, the equipment, or just the racing Gods with luck. However, a lot of those questions were squashed with his tripped to victory lane.
“Having all the problems we’ve had, you get down as a driver,” he said. “When you haven’t won in a while, you tend to have your guard up and race as hard as you can. However, even starting up front here at Lebanon, it’s no easy task to win. This class has a tough field of drivers and you’ve got to run scared. Tonight, I guess I did.”
Rob Maxon came home with a solid second place run on Saturday just ahead of Peter Carlotto who finished third. Multi-time winner on the season, Chris Lynch, came home fourth with Walter Hammond Jr. completing the top five.
At one point in the Pro Stock feature, Steve LaRochelle had a piece of Dave Stickles’ rear bumper cover stuck in the left side door of his #178 machine. That didn’t slow him down, however.
In fact, nothing did as the second-generation driver parked his car in victory lane for the second time during the 2021 season in a strong performance.
“Tonight was definitely a blast,” LaRochelle said. “Starting eighth and with caution after caution, I just played my cards right, kept my tires hot and the car did its job.”
Last week in the Old Buzzard 30, LaRochelle came home in eighth but the team felt like they missed something. This week, they did their homework to come back strong.
“We put in some good hours on this thing this week,” he said. “Last week, we had every possible mechanical issue you could and it was just horrible. The winner’s circle is exactly where I wanted to be tonight and we got it done.”
Tommy Dean had another strong showing on Saturday night. Last week he took his #413 to a third place finish in the Jimmy Langenback Memorial. This time around, he bested that by one as he came home second.
Jason Meltz and Chad Jeseo both hounded Dean for a number of laps towards the finish of the race and Meltz just nipped Jeseo at the line for third with Johnny Rivers putting in another solid run to place fifth when the 20-lapper was complete.
As stated earlier, Boomer’s Performance, the Kahler family and a host of other sponsors and supporters put together the 18th annual Pure Stock Classic in memory of Steve Sr. who was a close friend to Brian Bedell.
Early on it was Jeff Meltz Jr. taking the lead. However, he unfortunately had problems after making contact with the turn two wall.
Then, when all finally started to shake out, it was Chris Stalker with the lead, but when the 20-lap special was complete, Jeff Meltz Sr. was the man at the top of the mountain.
Meltz passed Stalker on lap 12 and held him and the rest of the field off over the final eight laps. He even withstood a two-lap dash to the finish but scored the victory and the big payday.
“Boy, what a feeling to win this race,” Meltz said. “I didn’t know if I could do it especially when Jeff Jr. got out in front. I thought I was all done with him out in the lead, but it sure was a fun race.”
The $1,170 winner share of the $3,300+ purse went home with the Meltz family and Jeff Sr. was very appreciative of everyone who supported the event on Saturday.
“I’d like to thank the Kahler’s and Brian & Margaret Bedell from Boomer’s for putting this race on,” he said. “This is just a special race to win, and tonight in Steve’s memory, it’s even sweeter.”
The event paid $3,335 in a total purse with lap money totaling $1,250. It was surely a wonderful event for the Pure Stocks.
In the regularly-scheduled Pure Stock events, Dylan Fachini along with Streibels’s, Dave Sr. & Dave Jr., captured checkers.
MODIFIED FEATURE RESULTS ( 30 LAPS) 1) Kenny Tremont Jr* 115 2) Brian Berger, 60 3) Wayne Jelley, 45J 4) Brett Haas, 55H 5) Kyle Sheldon, 42S 6) Bobby Hackel IV 97 7) Andy Bachetti**** 4 8) J.R. Heffner* 74 9) L.J Lombardo*** 35 10) Kyle Armstrong, 11A 11) Paul Gilardi, 87X 12) Marc Johnson** 3J 13) Eddie Marshall, 98 14) Kolby Schroder* 99 15) John Virgilio 9V 16) Mike King, 55K 17) Chris Curtis 35B 18) Brandon Lane 33 19) Josh Marcus, 91M 20) Brent Cross 47 21) Kenny Aanonsen Jr 42A 22) Olden Dwyer, 88JR 23) John Ruchel 7 24) Ryan Darcy* 21
SMALL BLOCK MODIFIED FEATURE RESULTS (24 LAPS) 1) Ryan Larkin** 39 2) Olden Dwyer** 88JR 3) Andy Bachetti*** 4 4) Jason Herrington* 1 5) Ryan Charland, 10C 6) Brian Sandstedt, 12S 7) Ray Hall Jr, 72 8) Chris Curtis 35C 9) Brian Petrerson 82 10) Alan Houghtaling, 250 11) Kevin Petrucci 24 12) Montgomery Tremont 115 13) John Lutes JR. 21L 14) Frank Harper, 25 15) Kim Lavoy* 3 16) Joey Coppola 94 17) Mike Sabia 7S 18) Brandon Daley 44T 19) Sean Mandel 66P
SPORTSMAN FEATURE RESULTS (20 LAPS) 1) Whitey Slavin* 5 2) Rob Maxon* 96 3) Pete Carlotto, 12C 4) Chris Lynch*** 74 5) Walter Hammond JR., 88 6) Robbie Colburn, 18 7) Walter J. Hammond 98H 8) John Virgilio*** 29 9) Gary O Brein 57B 10) Kevin Ward, 98 11) Matt Burke, 12 11) Jeff Watson, 22 12) Karl Barnes, 307 13) Jared Powell 18P 14) Pete Lorenzo 3G 15) Kevin Ames 43 16) Jimmy VanZandt 313 17) Dylan Gibbson 22G 18) John Santolin 6 19) Bill August 50 20) Hunter Ordway 28 21) Micheal Sabia 7S 22) Jacob Perry, 21 23) Jeff Reis 21J 24) Dylan Grogan 34 25) John Stowell, 8JS 26) Gary Plass 11
PRO STOCKS FEATURE RESULTS (20 LAPS) 1) Steven LaRochelle** 178 2) Tom Dean, 413 3) Jason Meltz** 51 4) Chad Jeseo,*** 25 5) Johnny Rivers* 14J 6) Zach Seyerlein* 33 7) Rich Colesanti 41 8) Nick Hilt** 17 9) Zach Sorrentino, 54S 10) Jay Fitzgerald* 56 11) Brian Keough 311 11) Tom O’Connor 52 12) Shawn Perez, O9 13) Doug Olds 73 14) Dominique Hilt 17H 15) Dave Stickles* 55 16) J.J Courcy 14X
BOOMER’S PURE STOCK CLASSIC FEATURE RESULTS (20 LAPS) 1) Jeff Meltz SR.**** 5X 2) Chris Stalker***** 177 3) Dylan Fachini* 35 4) Dave Striebel JR.* 73 5) Dave Striebel 273 6) Colby Kokosa** OOK 7) Janai St. Pierre** 18 8) Jim Dellea, 77 9) Rob Partridge**** 22 10) Keri Vandenburg* 89 11) Craig Coons, 133C 11) Brian Walsh*** 43 12) Chris Calabro 3C 13) Katarina Foster 10 14) Chris Brown, OO9 15) Mike Dianda 315 16) Jeff Meltz JR.* 15X 17) Rocco Procopio**** 62
PURE STOCK # 1 FEATURE RESULTS (8 LAPS) 1) Dylan Fachini** 35 2) Jeff Meltz SR.**** 5X 3) Jeff Meltz JR.* 15X 4) Brian Walsh*** 43 5) Craig Coons, 133C 6) Scott Morris, 84 7) Mike Dianda 315 8) Shawn Perez JR. O9 9) Jethro Rossman, 48
PURE STOCK # 2 FEATURE RESULTS (8 LAPS) 1) Dave Striebel* 273 2) Rob Partridge**** 22 3) Jim Dellea, 77 4) Franklin Smith, 76 5) Peter Huntoon, 3 6) Chris Calabro 3C 7) Colby Kakosa** OOK 8) Janai St. Pierre** 18 9) John Devine*** 24
PURE STOCK # 3 FEATURE RESULTS (8 LAPS) 1) Dave Striebel JR.** 73 2) Clifford Booth, 17 3) Chris Stalker***** 177 4) Scott Kilmer** OO7 5) Chris Brown, OO9 6) Katarina Foster 10 7) Rocco Procopio**** 62 8) Keri Vandenburg* 89
