Don Wood Captures Second Career DARE Stock Track Championship at Stafford Motor Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — After kicking off the 2011 season with plans to step out of the car midway through the year, Don Wood flipped the script and captured his second career DARE Stock track championship at Stafford Motor Speedway. After winning the 2009 DARE Stock championship, Wood ran the first half of the 2010 season then handed his car over to David and Paul Arute. The plan was the same for 2011, as Wood was going to run the first half of the year and then hand the car over to Stephanie Berardi and Charlie Newman. But the plan changed midway through the season and the result was a second career championship for Wood and his John Berardi owned #15.
“It feels great, it’s nice to be the champion again,” said Wood. “All the pressure is off now and we can just take it easy now. Originally, John’s daughter Stephanie was going to drive the car. She hurt her back and so then the plan was for Charlie Newman to drive the car. But we were in contention for the championship and it was pretty hard for me to say no when John asked me if I would drive the car for the entire season and try to win the championship. My goal at the beginning of the year was to get to the top of the DARE Stock winners list, winning the championship was never in our thoughts. It was a huge bonus for us to win the championship this year.”
While Wood’s first championship was a wire to wire effort that saw him lead the standings all year long, the path to his second championship was a bit bumpier. Wood started the season strong and had the points lead after two races. But several bad finishes left him trailing in the standings after the May 27th feature and he didn’t retake the points lead until after the July 15th feature. But once Wood was back at the top of the standings, he remained there throughout the remainder of the 2011 season.
“The key for us this year was consistency,” said Wood. “We didn’t have the fastest car every week, but we had a fast car every week. We only had three DNF’s this year, the tranny broke one night, we had a flat tire that ended our night early, and then we had some body damage that ended our night. But I had a great crew, we never took things too seriously. We showed up to the track and had fun. We got what we could get, and we left the track with a smile on our faces every Friday night. I can’t thank everyone enough, John Berardi, Stephanie Berardi, Dave Belcher, Raymond Kocum, Jim Devanny, Donna Berardi, and our sponsors R.A.D. Automachine and Berardi Transmissions.”
Following his second DARE Stock championship, Wood will step back from the driver’s seat and put his crew hat on as he will help his son Josh move up to the Limited Late Model division for the 2012 season at Stafford.
“Josh is going to move up to the Limited Late Model division next year and I’m going to help him out, I have no plans to drive next season,” said Wood. “I was able to hit my goal of having the most wins in the DARE Stock division, and I’ll be able to hold onto that record at least until next April.”
Wood will officially be crowned the 2011 DARE Stock track champion at the 42nd Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony on Friday, November 18, 2011 at the La Renaissance Banquet Facility in East Windsor.
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