RPW Column: Matt Sheppard Takes Orange County Big Block Win Saturday Over Perrego & McLaughlin
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – For 21 laps on Saturday night, it appeared that Max McLaughlin was on his way to his first ever feature win at the Orange County Fair Speedway.
He took off from his pole position starting spot in the United Rentals DIRTcar Big Block Modified feature and led the first non-stop 21 laps, maneuvering through lapped traffic well enough to keep a safe lead over Matt Sheppard.
When the caution waved for the only time in the race, it gave Super Matt the opportunity to restart side by side with McLaughlin.
That’s when Sheppard took advantage and made the pass to take win in the Joey Falanga/Big Block Derby 30 lap feature over Anthony Perrego and McLaughlin. Late additions to the purse made it a $4,800 win for Sheppard.
After the redraw, it was McLaughlin and Tyler Boniface on the front row of the feature with McLaughlin jumping out to the lead. Boniface stayed fairly close to Max while Sheppard started to move up from his 6th starting spot. Sheppard was 3rd by lap 5 and started to close in on Boniface, and by lap 11, had taken the runner up spot. At halfway, it was McLaughlin, Sheppard, Boniface, Perrego and Peter Britten in the top 5 running order.
Opening night winner Tommy Meier had been making steady progress from his 15th starting spot, moving up to 6th by halfway. As the leaders got into lapped traffic, Sheppard would make up some ground on McLaughlin, but Max would again stretch his lead a bit. With 10 laps remaining, he still had a safe lead.
When the caution finally waved with 9 to go, it set up the restart with Max inside and Matt outside. Sheppard got a good run on the backstretch and took the lead. Perrego got by McLaughlin a lap later. Meier had moved past both Boniface and Britten to move into 4th. With Sheppard having a secure lead over Perrego, attention turned to the good racing for 3rd between McLaughlin and Meier as the laps wound down. At the finish, it was Sheppard by 2 seconds over Perrego and McLaughlin held on to 3rd with Meier 4th and Britten 5th. Billy VanInwegen, Boniface, Billy Decker, Matt Hitchcock and Tyler Dippel finished in spots 6-10 respectively.
“We drew a pretty good number tonight and got a good start,” said Sheppard in Victory Lane. “We ran down Max a little in lapped traffic, it got a little wild there. But the restart was really key. The top worked pretty good in clean air and I got a really good restart on the top. That was the difference maker right there. I had a pretty good car all night tonight. I thought if we got in clean air that we would be okay. I’m just happy to be here in Victory Lane tonight, thinking of Joey and his family.”
Earlier in the night, heat wins went to Perrego, Tyler Jashembowski and Decker.
Joey Bruning became the first repeat feature winner at OCFS this season as he drove to the win in the Arkel Motors Sportsman division over Brian Krummel and Jeff Hulseapple.
Everett Haubrich and Troy Arnold led the feature to the green flag and a caution with one lap down saw Sportsman point leader Joe Bonetti stopped in turn 4. Arnold led when caution waved again on lap 2. Bruning had already raced his way from 11th to 4th. Bruning moved into 2rd on lap 4, and passed Arnold for the lead on lap 6. Caution again bunched up the field with 7 down.
Hulseapple from 13th and Krummel from 14th had been moving up into the top 5. Krummel took second on lap 9 and Hulseapple into 3rd a lap later before a caution waved for a crash involving Aidan Elliott and Bobby Waters. Elliott’s car was quite heavily damaged, but there were no injuries.
As the 2nd half of the race progressed, Krummel kept it interesting as in the later laps he closed in on Bruning while Hulseapple was holding off Jared LaBagh for 3rd. As the laps clicked off, it was Bruning taking the win by 4/10ths of a second over Krummel. Hulseapple made his stat line for 2021 read 5 races, 5 top 5’s and 4 podium finishes, most impressive. LaBagh was 4th and Jake Bedell 5th. Tanner VanDoren gained quite a few spots in the 2nd half of the feature to finish 6th with Jamie Yannone 7th Gary Edwards Jr 8th, Charles Loiodice 9th and Tighe Sherlock 10th.
“It was a great car tonight. We tore the front clip off of it last week and we had (Jerry) Higbie help us out. And we got help from Bicknell’s and Beherent’s,” Bruning said. “My guys put 5 or 6 hours in Thursday and we weren’t sure we were going to make it here this week. The Bicknell car is awesome.”
Heat race wins went to Sherlock, Bruning, Arnold and Bobby Flood with consi wins going to Tyler Peet and Kevin Stevens.
Two time Street Stock Champion Bob Sleight was in good form as he took Saturday’s NAPA North East parts Group feature event over Mike Vigiletti and Walt Henry.
Charlie Donald and Ryan Modiano led the field at the start with Donald taking the lead. Sleight was on the move early, moving from 9th to 3rd by lap 2. He passed Modiano for 2nd on lap 3. Sleight closed in on Donald and moved past the 2 time champion on lap 6. Fourth place Vigiletti got real loose on lap 5 in turn 4, losing a spot but saving the car from hitting the wall. Henry was moving up and took 2nd on lap 8.
As Sleight cruised out front, Vigiletti got back into contention, passing Donald for 3rd on lap 10 and Henry for 2nd on lap 12. But Sleight was too far out front for Mike to seriously challenge. At the finish, it was Sleight by nearly a second over Vigiletti with Henry 3rd. Modiano just nipped Donald for 4th at the finish with Charlie 5th. Ron Constable was 6th with Jim Hajkowski, Danny Hedges, Dillon Gannon and Wayne Taylor rounding out the to 10.
“It’s a great feeling to be back in Victory Lane. To win here, we have to bring our best every week. The track had a lot of bite, you could race wherever you wanted to on it. It gave me a lot of opportunities to make the moves,” Sleight said. “They have done a great job with this track. I want to thank Dave Werber for giving me a hand getting this car ready. We made a lot of changes from last time.”
It was pretty awesome to see how many people added on to the purses of the races Saturday, many of them in memory of Joey Falanga. I hope that I don’t leave anybody out, but thanks go out to:
- Frank Stevens and Sons Roofing
- Rock Fantasy – Stephen Keeler
- Behrent Performance Warehouse
- Sherlock Ventures LLC
- Ricon, Friends of ‘Astro Pete’
- The VanInwegen Family and Escape Powersports
- The NorthEast Happy Hour with Predmore and Murns
And a real heartwarming one. Ric Ryder, in memory of his wife Patty, a huge Joey Falanga fan $88 to the 15th place finisher in all 3 divisions . Patty passed away on 8/8/2015.
Very well done by all mentioned above.
Racing returns to OCFS on May 8th with the H.O. Penn Small Blocks, Arkel Sportsman and Precision Hydraulic and Oil Rookies.
