RPW Column: Andy Bachetti Takes Out The Broom & Sweeps Lebanon Valley’s Opener Saturday

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – WEST LEBANON, NY – Game, set and match for Andy Bachetti Saturday evening in the 2021 lid-lifter at the Lebanon Valley Speedway.

Bachetti was able to win not only the 69th Grand Opening Big Block feature for $5,000, but he also took home the 358-Modified feature event win as well. All told, of a possible 54 total laps in main events on Saturday, Bachetti led all but three.

“We just had a pretty fast race car here tonight,” Bachetti said after the Big Block win. “I definitely couldn’t lay back because of Kenny (Tremont), the 9 (Mat Williamson) and some fast race cars behind me.”

Taking full advantage of his pole starting position he obtained during last Saturday’s Front Row Challenge at practice, Bachetti took off from the drop of the green and never relinquished the top spot.

“We had a good starting spot tonight for sure,” he said. “We earned it. This team works a lot of hours for me but it’s great to be able to come here and beat the King of the Valley.”

Bachetti understands that the win wasn’t a cake walk with the quality of competition that was in the field on any given night, especially in the opener on Saturday.

“Everybody can go out, get good race cars and good motors and run well,” he said. “It’s getting tougher and tougher to compete but we were able to thanks to people like Mike Garrity of Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, all our sponsors, my Mom and Dad for giving us everything we need and this crew.”

Second-place finisher was invader Mat Williamson who started in the fifth spot after winning his heat race. However, it wasn’t a walk to the front for the St. Catherines, ONT driver.

Williamson dropped back a bit at the start and worked his way to the fourth position and hung around there until a caution on lap 19 for Timothy Davis who had a flat right rear tire.

That’s when Williamson made a daring three-wide move off of turn two to drag race both second place Kenny Tremont and third-place Marc Johnson. The former Super DIRTcar Series champion then put an amazing power move on both to grab the runner-up spot through three and four.

However, it was for naught as the caution came back out, reverting the field back to lap 19 and putting Williamson back in fourth.

The driver of the S&S Asphalt #9 was able to get back by Johnson and Tremont when the race restarted. Unfortunately, by the time he got to second, there wasn’t enough laps left for him to compete with Bachetti.

Kenny Tremont came home in third in the feature but was hindered a bit for his final few laps. The multi-time track champion got a piece of mud in his eye with just a handful of laps remaining and it began to burn.

He was able to salvage a great podium finish but was visually in discomfort after the race, as his son and crew tried to help him flush the dirt from his eye with saline.

Marc Johnson brought the Scott Hamlin-owned #3J home in the fourth spot with Brett Haas putting together a solid night to finish fifth.

Bachetti’s night was good in the 358-Modified feature as well. He was able to take the top spot from leader Frank Harper on lap three and cruised to the win in the green-to-checkers feature by nearly half a track.

“Man, it’s just great to get back here to victory lane and see all these fans back in the stands here,” Bachetti said. “It’s nice to get back to some sort of normalcy and I can’t be any more thankful to be back here and back racing.”

During the off-season, the Bachetti team went to work to improve their Small Block program and it proved to be the winning combination on Saturday.

“Everyone on this team went to work this winter and put together a new car,” he said. “It seems like it’s going to be a good one for us. The upfront starting spot didn’t hurt, but I’ll take a win any way I can at this point.”

The man in the runner-up position when the 24-lap feature was complete was Connecticut racer Ryan Charland. Charland started in third but worked hard to catch Frank Harper for the second spot and made the pass near lap 16. However, with no cautions to speak of, there as no catching Bachetti.

Harper brought the Paul Wehnau Snap-On #25 home in third with Kim LaVoy and Ray Hall Jr. completing the top five.

Probably the most excited winner on the night had to be Chris Lynch who took home checkers in the Sportsman feature. While he’s won in the past, it’s been a few years since his last visit to victory lane and Lynch missed the final two events of last year with health issues.

Even with all of that, he was awestruck by who was interviewing him in victory lane.

“I’ve been coming up here my whole life, and I’ve been waiting my whole life to be interviewed by John Stanley,” Lynch said. “I’ve won before but never by John.”

As for the race, due to winning his heat, Lynch had the pole in 20-lap feature and led every lap. While that may sound like it was an easy win, it wasn’t as he had to find off several challenges from Michael Sabia.

He was, however, able to do so and collected the victory.

“I really have to thank my entire crew,” he said. “I’ve taken a step back from this team when it comes to the day-to-day operation and the maintenance. I live about 12 miles from the track now and if it wasn’t for my Dad, my Step Dad, my Mother, my Step Mom, all the guys and everyone that helps out, we wouldn’t be here.”

Lynch was extremely quick to dedicate this win to someone very special to his team.

“This is for Dick Humphrey,” he said. “He’s been a legend up here for a long time and he’s having a tough go right now, but he’s probably going to be ecstatic and smile a huge smile when he hears we won the opener.”

Defending Sportsman champion John Virgilio came from the 11th starting spot to pick off second when the checkers flew. Virgilio probably needed one more caution to try and put a challenge on the Lynch machine but it never came so he had to settle for second.

Sabia held on for the third position at the finish with Kevin Ward and Peter Carlotto rounding out the top five.

“Big Bad Chad,” Chad Jeseo took the lead from Scott Towslee near the halfway point of the Pro Stock feature and never relinquished the top spot, cruising to the win the 20-lap main event win.

“This track was fast tonight,” Jeseo said. “It has a lot of bite in it and I actually overdrove the car a bit early on and almost put it in the fence. We recovered and Scott (Towslee) ran a great race and so did (Steven) Larochelle but it looks like we were a little better tonight.”

Jeseo, a former track champion in the division, is happy with the win but even though it’s the first race of the season, has his sights set on the big prize.

“We had a great starting spot tonight (second),” he said. “To start the year off with the point lead from this win, we’ll take it. That’s the big picture and hopefully we’re there at the end.”

Towslee came up one spot shy of the win, finishing second with Steven Larochelle in third, Jason Meltz in fourth and Johnny Rivers completing the top five.

Chris Stalker, Jeff Meltz Sr. and John Devine took home wins in the three Pure Stock feature events.

Modified: 1) Andy Bachetti* 2) Matt Williamson 3) Kenny Tremont Jr, 4) Marc Johnson, 5) Brett Haas, 6) Kyle Sheldon, 7) Bobby Hackel IV 8) Eddie Marshall, 9) J.R. Heffner, 10) Wayne Jelley, 11) Jackie Brown JR. 12) Kyle Armstrong, 13) L.J Lombardo, 14) Denny Soltis 15) Kolby Schroder, 16) Rob Pitcher, 17) Mike King, 18) Brian Berger, 19) Mark Flach, 20) Timothy Davis 21) Josh Marcus, 22) John Ruchel 23) Dan Humes 24) Jeff Sukup, 25) Kenny Aanonson, 26) Paul Gilardi, 27) Ricky Davis 28) Ken McGuire, 29) Olden Dwyer,

358-Modified: 1) Andy Bachetti* 2) Ryan Charland, 3) Frank Harper, 4) Kim Lavoy 5) Ray Hall Jr, 6) Ryan Larkin 7) Brandon Lane, 8) Joey Coppola 9) Mike Sabia 10) Alan Houghtaling, 11) Brian Sandstedt, 12) Bryan McGuire 13) Alissa Cody, 14) John Lutes JR. 15) Jason Herrington, 16) Olden Dwyer, 17) Montgomery Tremont

Sportsman: 1) Chris Lynch* 2) John Virgilio, 3) Micheal Sabia 4) Kevin Ward, 5) Pete Carlotto, 6) Jeff Watson, 7) Walter J. Hammond 8) John Stowell, 9) Whitey Slavin, 10) Jacob Perry, 11) Robbie Knipe, 12) Karl Barnes, 13) Matt Burke, 14) Angelo Dicarlo, 15) Nick Plumstead, 16) John Santolin 17) Robbie Colburn, 18) Shane Powell, 19) Keith Patnode, 20) Jim Boardman 21) Kevin Ames 22) Alan Houghtaling 23) Walter Hammond JR., 24) Rob Maxon, 25) Nikki Ouellette, 26) Jake Granacker 27) Joseph Coppola, 28) Rob Hallaback, 29) Keith Johannessen 30) Frank Twing JR.

Pro Stock: 1) Chad Jeseo, 2) Scott Towslee, 3) Steven LaRochelle, 4) Jason Meltz, 5) Johnny Rivers, 6) Zach Seyerlein, 7) Jay Fitgerald 8) Shawn Perez, 9) Tom O’Connor 10) Ed Bishop, 11) Dave Stickles, 12) Tom Dean, 13) Nick Hilt, 14) Mike Slauson

Pure Stock #1: 1) Chris Stalker* 2) Rocco Procopio, 3) Dave Striebel JR. 4) Don Kennedy, 5) Rob Partridge, 6) Jim Dellea, 7) Shawn Perez, 8) Craig Coons, 9) Jay Casey,

Pure Stock #2: 1) Jeff Meltz SR.* 2) Scott Kilmer, 3) Colby Kakosa 4) Zach Sorrentino, 5) Franklin Smith, 6) Chris Brown, 7) Keri Vandenburg, 8) Peter Huntoon,

Pure Stock #3: 1) John Devine* 2) Brian Walsh, 3) Clifford Booth, 4) Janai St. Pierre, 5) Scott Morris, 6) Chris Murphy, 7) Jethro Rossman, 8) Ryan Brown,