NOTEBOOK: Fast Friends Lead Tour Standings

Silk, Szegedy Battling To Wire For Whelen Modified Title

Loudon, NH — As it turns out, this is going to be a friendly battle for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship.

For the second time in as many races, Ron Silk and Todd Szegedy swapped the series points lead – this time with Silk emerging with an eight-point advantage after the pair finished 1-2 in the New Hampshire 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon.

Silk had held the lead through six consecutive races before Szegedy grabbed the top spot a week ago with a win at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn. By winning and leading a race-high 66 laps on Saturday at New Hampshire, though, Silk is back out front by a slim 8-point margin.

Just two races remain – next weekend at Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway and in October with the World Series of Speedway Racing at Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway.

“It’s a lot of fun, especially racing a guy like Todd Szegedy, who’s a good friend of mine,” Silk said. “I kind of kept tabs a little bit on where he was today. At times, it seemed like he was struggling – I looked in the mirror going over the start-finish line and I saw he was second, and I was like, ‘Damn, I’m not going to gain too much on him today.’

“But me and him have been pretty strong at every track, and I think it’s going to come right down to the World Series at Thompson.”

Silk and Szegedy first became friends while racing go-karts as kids. Separated by a few years in age, though, Szegedy graduated to full-size road racing cars while Silk stayed in the go-kart ranks. Before long, they were back competing against one another in weekly Modified races.

“Ronnie was always this smaller kid. I went on to racing big cars, road racing cars, and I came back doing the SK (Modified) stuff, and Ronnie was bigger than me,” Szegedy said. “It’s pretty cool to see that happen, and it’s pretty special to battle for a championship. I know both of us are going to respect each other.

“Whoever wins this championship, it’s great for (World Karting Association) and (International Karting Federation) – we’re go-karters – and we’re head of the field right now. It’s pretty awesome.”

Szegedy said he was fortunate to finish second at New Hampshire and keep himself so close to Silk in the standings.

“I basically struggled and got pretty lucky on the green-white-checkered (restart),” Szegedy said. “Restarting fourth, I pushed Ronnie. I knew that I’d push him to the lead, and if I got up to him, great, but I had nothing for him.

“That’s how you win championships. You’ve got to use your head. There were times when I had guys body-slam me, and it was real hard not to try and turn them straight into the fence. I’m being a nice guy to a lot of the guys out here, because I want to win this championship. Second-place is definitely a phenomenal finish.”

PENNINK SPUTTERS: Rowan Pennink had set himself up for a one-on-one battle with Silk over the final laps, as the two built some separation between themselves and the rest of the field.

But a late caution flag flew for Ryan Preece’s spin to set up a final two-lap charge to the checkered flag. As the field came up to speed under the green flag, Pennink’s car slowed.

“I’m not really sure what happened,” Pennink said. “I got a good restart there, and it just lost power midway down the straightaway. I thought I didn’t get it in gear all the way, and I tried that, and that’s not what happened. I don’t know if I broke the carburetor or something, pushing the gas pedal too hard. I’d say something with the carburetor or fuel, but who knows?

“Ron Hutter builds a great motor. That thing was singing all day. I don’t think it was anything with the motor.”

Pennink felt he would have won the race had he not run into the misfortune.

“I just wanted to push (Silk) until the last lap and then battle it out for ourselves. There’s no doubt in my mind I could drive it so much further down into (Turn 3), there’s now way he could hold me off,” Pennink said. “We would have been on our way to the win there. I hate it for this 93 team. We’ve had a lot of good cars this year, but we just can’t seem to wrap up that win.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

NEWMAN SIDELINED: Ryan Newman’s run of strong performances at New Hampshire – he won three straight New Hampshire races before being disqualified in post-race technical inspection in July – came to an end.

The Sprint Cup Series driver completed just 40 laps before his engine expired and forced him out of the event. Television monitors showed fluid splashed across Newman’s windshield not long before he retired.

“I couldn’t tell if it was guys in front of me or my own water,” Newman said. “We were spitting a little bit of water, and it melted the motor down.”

Naturally, none of the Whelen Modified Tour regulars showed much sympathy.

“It’s a lot of fun being part of competition like that, and the other good thing is that Ryan Newman was going to have his hands full if he didn’t lose the engine,” Szegedy said. “It wasn’t going to be a runaway race for anybody today.”

Sources: Travis Barrett, Special To NASCARHomeTracks.com