Earl Pelletier Looks to Race his Way Back into CARQUEST Victory Lane in 2011 at Stafford Motor Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — With the 2011 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season looming on the horizon, drivers are busy preparing their cars for competition while looking forward to the excitement of a new season. Such is the case for Stafford SK Light Modified driver Earl Pelletier and the #27 Earl Pelletier Concrete Services team. Pelletier has partnered with Steve Greer to share notes and most importantly, to receive some extra support in his pursuit of CARQUEST Victory Lane.
“I did some concrete work at Steve’s house and we got to talking about racing and we decided to be teammates for this season,” said Pelletier. “We’re going to have better resources this season, which will definitely be a big help,” said Pelletier. “We’re trying some different things on the car that we couldn’t afford to try in the past. We just got the car back from the chassis shop and R.A.D. Automachine has refreshed the engine, so we’re looking forward to the new season.”
After scoring three wins in 2008 and 2009, Pelletier went winless during the 2010 season. Pelletier was able to record 8 top-5 and 14 top-10 finishes with a best result of third, but several key factors kept him out of victory lane. Pelletier is looking to turn his fortunes around and get himself back into victory lane this year.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, I would have to rate last year as a 6 or 7,” said Pelletier. “There were nights last year when the car felt great and then we would come back and look at the speed chart and we would be down in 7th or 8th. There was one night in particular I remember, the car felt the best it had all year long and we were 14th or 15th on the speed chart. We had some good runs last year, but it seemed like there were always a couple of cars that looked like they were tied to a string on the infield going through the corners and I couldn’t keep up with them as hard as I tried. On top of that, we had a couple of wrecks that really hurt our tire inventory.”
While Pelletier will be teamed up with Steve Greer, he will also be teammates with Joey Cipriano, who won a race last year and finished third in the points standings behind Matt Galko and Tommy Barrett. With a three-car team effort, Pelletier is excited about the prospects that the 2011 season might hold in store. While most drivers have championship aspirations on their mind at the outset of a new year, Pelletier has a different set of goals for himself.
“I’m really excited about racing this year,” said Pelletier. “I’m looking forward to working with Steve and helping him get his car running up front and with Joey as part of the team, I think we have a pretty good range of drivers and I think we have a good shot at getting all three cars running up front this season. It killed us to not win a race last year, so we really want to get back into victory lane this year. We’re not really thinking about the championship at this point, we just want to win races, be consistent, and the rest will take care of itself. I’d like to say 10 wins would be nice, but we would be really happy if we could get a couple of wins this year and get all three cars running up front every week. Our goal for the year is to start strong and stay strong all year long.”
The 2011 SK Light Modified season kicks off with a 20-lap feature event as part of the 40th Annual CARQUEST Tech-Net Spring Sizzler Weekend on April 29-May 1. Tickets for the “Greatest Race in the History of Spring” are on sale now at the Speedway Box Office. Tickets are priced at $35.00 for adult general admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages 6-14, and children ages 5 and under are admitted free of charge when accompanied by an adult. Reserved seating is priced at $38.00 for all ages. As always, Stafford Motor Speedway offers free parking with overnight parking 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