Woody Pitkat Starts Labor Day Weekend off Right with Three Top-Five Finishes
Connecticut Racer Brings Home Solid Finishes in Four Races in Two Days
Concord, NC — Woody Pitkat had a full plate of racing action this weekend, as he competed in four events in only two days heading into Labor Day weekend. Pitkat traveled to Thompson International Speedway (CT) on Thursday to grab second place in the Sunoco Modified Series and a 21st-place finish in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour (NWMT) event. Then, Pitkat and his team migrated to Stafford Motor Speedway (CT) for the SK Modified race, where they were able to capture the win, and the late model stock feature, in which he brought home a solid top-five run by finishing 5th.
Pitkat’s first stop of the weekend was the Sunoco Modified race at Thompson, where his runner-up finish earned him enough points to tie for the points lead with Keith Rocco.
“The Sunoco Modified was pretty good,” commented Pitkat. “We struggled a little bit in practice in the afternoon and had to make a few adjustments. The car actually started out loose but the more we ran, the better it got. And we ended up just there at the end battling and just trying to beat the guys that we’re up against for points. That was a plus for me, beating the guy I needed to beat. Unfortunately we just weren’t where we needed to be at the end for the win, but it was a good night for us regardless.”
Following the Sunoco Modified event, Pitkat was entered in the NWMT Bud 150, where despite having handling issues and getting caught up in an accident, he was still able to salvage a 21st-place finish.
“We struggled with that pretty much all day,” explained Pitkat. “We were tight most of the day and never really got it freed up enough in the feature, so we were basically just trying to salvage a good finish. We probably had a top-10 car, but there was a big accident on the back straightaway. Somebody decided to get a little bit rambunctious and tried to go three wide, and it didn’t work, so that caused a big wreck. I had the car pretty much slowed down and I just got run over from behind… just one of those places where there was nowhere to go.”
Luckily for Pitkat, the next night would be kinder to him. He and his team headed to Stafford Motor Speedway on Friday, where they entered both the SK Modified event and the Late Model race. Pitkat picked up the win in the SK Modified event and a solid top-five finish in the late model race.
“The late model was pretty much good all day,” said Pitkat. “We tried to set it up to start loose and then tighten up towards the end of the race, but early on I got stuck on the outside and lost a bunch of positions and fell back to like 16th, so I had to use the right-rear tire more than I would have liked to try to get back into the top ten. But we got back up to like seventh and basically rode around there and picked off a couple cars there at the end, but we just didn’t really have anything for them. All in all it was a good race; it was fun. I love running those longer distance races because you can set your own pace. It was just too bad it didn’t work out to what I wanted to do that night.”
“With the SK Modified, for some reason, we were just off a little bit,” said Pitkat. “We were loose, and I didn’t even think we had a good enough car to finish in the top-5, but there were a couple cautions and we ended up just riding around and burning a bunch of fuel off, and I think that helped a lot to tighten up the car at the end of the race. So with somewhere around eight laps to go, it got really good and I just had to battle a rookie for the win. I wasn’t really sure what he was going to do because I hadn’t really raced with him before, but he did a good job. We had a couple restarts where I got in front of him, and then the caution came back out and I had to go back to second and try not to get frustrated and keep my composure, and on the last final restart we got him and held on for the win.”
For more on Woody Pitkat, please contact Matt Kentfield at 51 Sports at (704) 788-2134, or visit his website at www.woodypitkatracing.com.
Sources: Matt Kentfield/Woody Pitkat PR