Keith Rocco Can Clinch 2010 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Championship this Friday Night at Stafford
Stafford Springs, CT — With an SK Modified® doubleheader on the schedule for this Friday night at Stafford, Keith Rocco has an opportunity to lock up the 2010 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national championship. Under the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series points structure, a driver is ranked on his or her best 18 finishes of the season. A driver earns a maximum of 45 points for each win with a full field of 20 cars. Rocco currently has 18 wins between Stafford, Thompson, and Waterford, but only 16 of them are full field victories, leaving Rocco 2 full field wins short of clinching the championship. Should Rocco go out and win both 40-lap SK Modified® features this Friday night, he will clinch the 2010 Whelen All-American Series national championship.
“I can’t say that we’re going to go out and win both races,” said Rocco. “It’s not impossible, but the odds are certainly stacked against us. It would certainly be nice to win both races, but our goal all season long has been to go to the track to win races, and we’re going to keep on doing what we’ve done all year long and try to win both races.”
Although a difficult task, winning both legs of a modified doubleheader at Stafford has been done at Stafford in years prior. The 1970 season at Stafford saw two drivers, Fred DeSarro and Ernie Gahan, accomplish a double feature sweep with DeSarro doing the deed twice during the 1970 season. Bugsy Stevens has won two modified races in one night two different times in 1971 and 1975, while more recent times have seen Ted Christopher, Stafford’s winningest driver with 108 career victories, accomplish the feat.
Christopher has twice won two SK Modified® features in the same night during the 2000 and 2002 seasons. The 1996 season saw Christopher record a double of a different nature. On June 7 of that year, Christopher won both the SK Modified® and ProStock feature events that night.
“We’re going to do what we always do and show up to the track trying to win two races,” said Rocco. “Every week we come out to win, that’s always been my approach. There’s really no added pressure on me or the team to win, if anything it makes it easier on us knowing that we’ve won 7 times already this year at Stafford and our car is a good handling car. The only thing we might do different this Friday is run the same tires in both races.”
Rocco has come extremely close during the past three seasons to winning the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series championship. He placed fourth in the national point standings in 2007 and 2008 and he finished as the runner-up to Philip Morris in last year’s final points rundown.
“It would be very special for everyone involved if we could win the championship this year,” said Rocco. “It’s hard to win at all three tracks and each track means something a little different to us. The competition at Stafford is the fiercest so it’s always great to get a victory at Stafford. We’re in a real good spot right now and we’ll continue to come out to the track and try to win.”
Tickets for this Friday night’s SK Modified® Doubleheader event are $15.00 for adult general admission, $5.00 for children ages 6-14 general admission and FREE for Children 5 & Under. Reserved seating is priced at $18.00 for all ages. Tickets can be ordered by calling the Speedway Office at 860-684-2783 or they can be purchased at the spectator gates. As always, Stafford Motor Speedway offers free parking with overnight parking for RVs available.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR