SK Modified® Track Championship Coming Down to Ted Christopher and Woody Pitkat at Stafford Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — With just two races left in the 2012 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season, the chase for the SK Modified® track championship will come down to the winningest driver in Stafford history and 7-time SK Modified® champion, Ted Christopher, and a driver who is still in search of his first SK Modified® track title, Woody Pitkat.
Pitkat currently trails Christopher by 34 points in the chase for the championship, and he has twice finished as the SK Modified® runner up behind Christopher in 2007 and 2009. Pitkat was also the SK Modified® runner up in 2010 behind Keith Rocco, but he says his and his team’s focus has not changed at all and they will be gunning for victory in the final 2 races of the season.
“Right now all we can do is try to go out and win and get the maximum points we can get,” said Pitkat. “Hopefully we can take a good hack at it Friday night and if we could cut it in half that would make it interesting for the Fall Final. The only way we’re going to catch Teddy is if he has a mechanical problem or he has an accident. We don’t ever wish anything bad on anyone, but the only way we can make up the points is if we finish in the top-5 and Teddy finishes around 20th, but he hasn’t really had a bad week all season long.”
For Christopher, the 2012 season has been a return to form of sorts. After winning his 7th championship in 2009, Christopher finished 4th in the 2010 and 8th in the 2011 points standings. Christopher says it’s taken a lot of hard work by his crew to get his car where it needed to be and that he has a great strategy for the final two races of the season.
“Hopefully we can keep going the way we’ve been going,” said Christopher. “Last week we got stuck on the outside for about 7 laps, and we were on one tire last week, so that hurt us a little bit. But we planned our tires for the end of the season, so we’ll have four new tires for this Friday and four new tires for the Fall Final. The last couple years, I don’t think our car wasn’t as good as everybody else’s car and we’ve worked really hard to make it as good. You can see it in practice, heat races, and features with our lap times. We’ve worked hard to get it to this point and it’s taken us a while, but I think our car is a top-3 car at the track now. When you have a different tire sequence where you can’t bolt on four tires every week like we used to, it’s different. It’s not like you can always be right up there every week. There’s always going to be a week or two where you’re not going to be as good as someone else because they might have three or four new tires, and you may have one or none. We’ve had weeks where we’ve ran the same tires two weeks in a row. But we definitely have the car more consistent and we have a better idea of what we need to do to the car if we only put on one or two new tires, or if we run another week with the same set.”
In addition to an 8th SK Modified® championship, Christopher is also chasing after his 100th career SK Modified® feature victory. He currently sits at 98 SK Modified® wins, meaning he would have to win both remaining SK Modified® races to reach the century mark.
“It would be pretty cool to win 100 before the end of season,” said Christopher. “If I can get it this year, that would be nice, but if not, then there’s always next year. We’ve got the car going pretty good this year and it should be better next year. But we still have two more races to finish out this year, so it’s not over until it’s over and anything can happen.”
While Pitkat has a tall mountain to climb if he is to win his first SK Modified® track championship, he is proud of the effort that his crew has put in this season to keep him in championship contention.
“If we finish second this year, it will be 4 out of 6 years we’ve finished second,” said Pitakt. “I think I would say it’s frustrating more than anything. There were a couple of years where we feel like we should have won it and there were a couple of years where we probably shouldn’t have finished second. I think the only disappointment we’ve had this year was the night we drove down from Loudon and we finished 15th. We broke a yoke in the rear end in the 100-lapper and Jimmy Fuller fixed it and we went back out and we picked up a bunch of spots and we finished 14th. Most guys would just have parked the car. We also had the night when the tour was there when we got into some oil and we hit the fence. We had to replace the whole right front and we ended up going back out and we picked up a lot of points that night. This team has a never give up attitude and we’re not going to give up.”
With Christopher 34 points ahead of Pitkat heading into this Friday night’s Lincoln Tech Final Friday Night Shoot-Out, Christopher needs to finish 8 positions ahead of Pitkat in order to clinch the 2012 SK Modified® track title, or the championship chase will continue on to the 40th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend on Sept. 29th & 30th.
Tickets for the September 14th Lincoln Tech Final Friday Night Shoot-Out are priced at $27.50 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 $30.00 for all ages.
Tickets for the September 29th & Sept. 30th 40th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend are priced at $38.50 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 will be priced at $42.00 for all ages. All CARQUEST Fall Final tickets are good for admission on both Saturday and Sunday.
All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission Tax and Stafford Motor Speedway offers free parking with overnight parking available. For more information on the Lincoln Tech 80, the CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend, 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.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR