By JR Kennerup,
RoC Asphalt Media

Lehighton, PA –October 21, 2006- Running on an unusually sticky asphalt surface Saturday afternoon Eric Beers was glad that he redrew the outside pole starting spot. Because when the green flag dropped to start the 100 lap Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour feature Beers using the sticky outside groove out dragged pole sitter and fast timer Tom Shupp to get the lead. Once in front Beers led all 100 laps for the $3,500 win at the track where he started his asphalt Modified racing career many years ago.

Teenager and 2006 Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour Co - Rookie of the Year Kory Rabenold continued his long distance race success at Mahoning Valley with a second place finish. First time track visitor Billy Putney made the five hour tow to the track worthwhile with an impressive third place finish. Meanwhile veteran Hillcrest, NY driver Lee Sherwood becoming more comfortable at the track finished a solid fourth place with Zane Zeiner coming on strong at the end to finish fifth.

The overall Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour point championship came down to the final laps. Both Earl Paules and Pete Brittain had miserable days while only being separated by three points going into the feature. In the end the tenth place finish of Paules was good enough to earn him the championship by just seven points over Brittain.

"The good draw definitely helped" said race winner Eric Beers of Northampton, Pa. "Also making the top 12 in time trials to get into the redraw helped and then the good draw it makes it easier as you don’t have to pass all of the fast cars."

Beers a many time feature winner at Mahoning Valley throughout his stellar driving career had a little handling trouble with his car after each of the 13 restarts in the race. "We were tight for two, three laps and once we got heat into the right front tire we could drive away pretty much from whoever was behind us. If you’re leading by a half a car length or ten car lengths, you’re leading and I wasn’t going to burn the car up to put on a show."

Eric used a veteran restart tactic on each of the restarts throughout the feature. "They (the officials) tell you that you can start anywhere within that line. So if you change it up by going at the line one time, before the line the next time. The one time I did go early before the line and that was because the car outside of me had a half a car length on me and I wasn’t going to lose the lead over something dumb like that. That’s the race directors job to police that and it’s my job to keep the lead."

Eric spoke about his race battle with Kory Rabenold. "I was a little worried seeing him come up through there, he’s pretty fast here and he gets to race here more than I do. So he is definitely a little better than we are here and I figured that if I could hold my line and keep it on the bottom, not give him anything cheap, and make him work a little on the top. He hung there for a while and then we pulled away and we showed we had a pretty good racecar there at the end."

Eric spoke about the track while looking at his worn out left rear tire in the pit area following the race. "The track really didn’t grease up like it does at night here as it was very, very tacky today. There was a lot of grip on the top, on the bottom, even when you went to pass lap cars you just stuck up top when you were going around them. This late in the season you don’t expect the track to be like that. Usually you burn the right front or right rear here, tonight I melted a left rear. There was so much grip and when you are picking up the throttle you’re just killing your left rear tire."

Another key to the win of Beers was two crew chiefs that help Eric out through the season and he credited them with their help in the win today. "Kevin Crowley who helps me out down at New Smyrna in February and in selected shows on the RoC Tour when he can make it. My crew chief Peter Caron on the three car I drive for BRE Racing came down today. We put our heads together and here we are."

This was a big win for Beers, his first on the RoC Tour in 2006. "We have a lot of seconds and thirds this year as we couldn’t crack that victory lane. One more caution here, one more caution there, needed another lap and so on. It feels good to get one here as I started running Modifieds here a couple of years back."

Eric spoke about the race. "It’s good coming out of here without a scratch on the car. Everyone ran a pretty decent race, there were no big pileups, nobody driving out of control, overall it was a pretty decent show."

"It was real good tonight as we started 13th and worked our way up front " said second place finisher Kory Rabenold. " After working our way up front quickly what hurt us the most was Eric Beers. He’s a veteran on the RoC Tour, he’s knows how to get around here too, and he was pulling me good on the restarts as I couldn’t get that extra momentum to pass him and I tried so hard that I wore out the tires before the end of the race."

Rabenold in his first full year of asphalt Modified racing on the road has quite a success rate in the last five long distance features at Mahoning Valley over the past two years. Kory has two wins, a second, a third, and a fifth, which is not that bad for a driver who is just 16 years old. "The main key in these long distance races here is to save the tires" said the Slatington, Pennsylvania driver when talking about his long distance race success. "A lot of the guys just go out there and want to get to the front the quickest way they can and honestly that is not the way to do it. Because here at the end of the race, it is who has the tires left will win the race. I don’t know what it is but in every long distance race here I’m up front at the end and that is what counts."

Kory entered the top five on lap 21 then moved into fourth on lap 26 and into third just three laps after that. Kory got shuffled back to fourth on lap 47 and moved into second after the third place car of Lou Strohl spun out the second place car of Rusty Smith on lap 51. Rabenold lost second to Kevin Graver, Jr. on the restart but re-passed Graver for second on lap 53 where he stayed for the remainder of the race. After getting into second Kory had six restarts to try and pass leader Eric Beers but couldn’t.

One problem that did hamper Rabenold was excessive left side tire wear, which is very unusual for Mahoning Valley. "The track was really different today and I think that was due to being cold. But at the same time I got so much heat in my left rear tire that it burned it right off."

Kory summed up his day by saying. "I’ll take a second over not finishing a race any day."

If you looked at driver smiles after the race and didn’t know who won, you had to figure that Billy Putney was the winner. The driver who hauled five hours from his Buffalo, NY suburb home to Mahoning Valley made the most of his first ever race at the track with a third place finish.

"We’re ecstatic with the end result" said Billy who started 22nd. "The car was good in practice and we didn’t time as well as we would have liked. In the heat we missed the setup a little bit but the more we kept tuning on it the more the car kept coming to us and it got just a little too tight at the end and I couldn’t hang with the tow front runners."

Putney raced cleanly at the start and pitted twice for tire changes on lap 46. Using the outside groove with success Putney rocketed into fifth on lap 59 and with 30 laps to go moved into fourth. Once again using the high line Putney impressive moved into third on lap 75 and was on the leaders back bumper when the car tightened up with 15 laps to go.

"To come out of here with the car in one piece, with a top three, I never expected it, and we’re tickled to death. We’ve had a tough combination series as we wrecked in the other two races on tracks where I would have thought they were our good tracks. Not knowing what to expect coming here and to get a third. I woke up this morning and didn’t even want to come down here, but we did because we had to. It’s a racy little track, it’s fun to drive here and I’m glad we came now."

Qualifying for the stout 40 car Modified field saw Tom Shupp set a new one lap track record in Modified time trials with a 9. 734 lap breaking the old one lap track record set by Rick Kirkendall of 9. 747. Heat races were captured by Rabenold, Tommy Flanagan III, Bill Teel, and John Markovic, while the B Mains were won by Scott Lesher and Rick Kluth.

MAHONING NOTES: RoC along with the racing teams would like to thank Doug and Gena Hoffman and the track staff for running off the show in a very timely manner on a very brisk late October afternoon. Don "Chowder "Bauder drove the backup John Markovic machine on this day. Amanda Sesley had the engine let go in her primary Troxell Modified ride and she then drove the backup for the remainder of the show. Terry Zacharias was slated to drive the Mr. Jim 71 car from the Zacharias Racing stables but elected not to as that car was used as a backup for Pete Brittain. Tony Hanbury was driving the Daryl Lewis, Jr. car on this day. Bill Teel came out of retirement to drive the second Lesher Racing entry on this day and looked liked he never lost a step with an impressive heat race win. Eric Kocher made a return to the RoC Tour but failed to transfer to the feature. Tom Shupp in his first race of the year drove the car that has seen Dave Wallace behind the wheel this year. Kevin Brown once again drove they second Wallace Racing entry. Bobby Holmes made his first Mahoning Valley start aboard the car that Mark Tychoniewicz usually drives. The points earned by Holmes made him Co - Rookie of the Year on the Tour. Sean Patterson was the first car at the track in the morning and the first car to leave after hot laps in the afternoon as he broke a flywheel on the motor. Rusty Smith ran as high as second before getting spun out rallied back to sixth at the end. Once again in a time trial RoC show the top four times (Shupp, Zeiner, Bennett, and Correll) all received the five bonus points. Since the RoC show at Wall Township couldn’t be made up the extra free drum of Sunoco Racing Fuel was awarded on this day. Time trials on this small oval were interesting as you needed to break into the nine-second barrier just to make the top 25 in times. Matt Hirschman who was only 13 points out of defending his RoC championship of a year ago saw his hopes deflate after the driveline broke following a lap 14 spin in the feature. Transponders were used for the very first time in a RoC show with many drivers liking this idea. The final act of the 2006 Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour will take place with the January 6, 2007 Banquet and Rule Meetings at the Binghamton Regency.

RACE REPORT - COMBINATION RACE # 3 - MAHONING VALLEY SPEEDWAY

FINISH: Eric Beers, Kory Rabenold, Billy Putney, Lee Sherwood, Zane Zeiner, Rusty Smith, Kevin Graver, Jr., Scott Lesher, Glenn Correll, Earl Paules, Daren Scherer, John Markovic, Pete Brittain, Tommy Flanagan, III, Don Wagner, Don Dreher, Tom Shupp, Bobby Jones, Bobby Holmes, John Bennett, Lou Strohl, CJ Jones, Matt Wentz, Rick Kluth, Kevin Brown, Mike Quinn, Matt Hirschman, Bill Teel.

DNQ: Phil Slater, Brian DeFebo, Amanda Sesley (48 car), Amanda Sesley (40 car), Chowder Bauder, Rod Synder, Jr., Tony Hanbury, Eric Kocher, Terry Zacharias, Jarred Nace, James Pritchard, Jr., Sean Patterson.

LAP LEADERS: Beers (1 - 100)

GATER RACING NEWS $500 DRIVER BONUS DRAW; Slater
SUNOCO RACE FUELS AWARD; Strohl, Wentz
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD CHARGER AWARD; Putney ( 22nd to 3rd )
HOOSIER RACING TIRE HARD LUCK AWARD; Brown ( 4th to 25th )
PROVISIONALS USED; Brittain, Holmes

NEXT RoC EVENT - Saturday January 6, 2007 - Rule Meetings and Banquet - Binghamton Regency







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