Mark Bakaj Wins Reliable Welding & Speed SK Modified® Rookie of the Year Honors at Stafford Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — -One year after challenging for the championship in the SK Light Modified division, Mark Bakaj made the move up the ladder to the SK Modified® division and came away as the 2009 Reliable Welding and Speed SK Modified® Rookie of the Year. Bakaj drove to 3 top-5 and 8 top-10 finishes this season to finish in 9th place in the 2009 SK Modified® standings and he outpointed Matt Gallo and Joe Allegro, Jr. for the top rookie honors.
“As hard as it is for me to say, we had a good year,” said Bakaj. “As a racer you always want to be running up front every week and we weren’t quite there every week. But looking back, we had some motor problems this year and we had a horrible July and August, so overall we’re pretty happy with how things went for us this season. We definitely had a blast racing all year long.”
Bakaj and the #5 Bakaj Construction team came out of the gate with their guns blazing, taking three top-10 finishes as well as a 5th place finish in the first four events of the year, which had him in fourth place in the points standings. The team struggled through the next 7 races with only a single top-10 finish, but Bakaj was able to finish strong with a season best effort of second place on Sept. 4th to go along with another top-10 on September 25th. Bakaj’s finish to the 2009 season separated him from his Rookie of the Year competition of Gallo and Allegro.
“I was real happy to have a lot of rookies racing this year,” said Bakaj. “There’s been years where you see only one or two rookies in the division and there’s no competition for the rookie award. We had something to shoot for every week we came to the track this year, it wasn’t a shoe-in for us by any means. It was a challenge every week to be the top rookie, and we really enjoyed that.”
While rookie drivers normally go through a learning curve with car setups, Bakaj says that he actually was more comfortable in his SK Modified® car than the SK Light car.
“I was more comfortable in the SK than the SK Light,” said Bakaj. “Coming from Legends where you have a lot of motor with no tires, the SK suited my driving style more than the SK Light did. The more power a car has, the more comfortable I get in the car. We feel like we had the setup of the car down pat, but we struggled to find out a tire pattern this year. The tires were more important on the SK car than the SK Light car with the car setup and with the tire rule, we had to figure out how to manage our inventory while still trying to keep some life in the tires that were on the car. Right now, we have a ’91 Troyer, so we’re looking to get a newer car, which will be a little more adjustable than the car we have now, and we’re planning on coming back next year.”
Bakaj will officially be crowned the 2009 Reliable Welding and Speed SK Modified® Rookie of the Year at the 40th Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony on Friday, November 20, 2009 at the La Renaissance Banquet Facility in East Windsor.
For more information about the Champions Awards Ceremony, or to order tickets, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Souces: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR