Ted Christopher Clinches 8th Career Stafford SK Modified® Track Championship
Stafford Springs, CT — For Ted Christopher, the 2012 SK Modified® season at Stafford Motor Speedway marked a return to the top of the mountain for the winningest driver in Stafford history. After finishes of 4th and 8th in the points standings the last 2 seasons, Christopher secured his record 8th SK Modified® championship this past Sunday at Stafford. With how well his car ran this year, Christopher is looking forward to chasing track championship number nine next season.
“The way the car is running, we’re going to build on it for next year,” said Christopher. “This championship means a lot. It was a lot of fun this year to have a car that was so competitive week in and week out. It was always fast on the time sheets, we won 4 races, and I think we could have won at least three more.”
From the outset of the 2012 season, Christopher stamped his name on the race for the championship. He won the season opening CARQUEST Tech-Net Spring Sizzler feature, and he scored podium finishes in the first three races of the season. A 20th place finish on May 25th left Christopher playing catch-up for the month of June, but once Christopher retook the points following the June 29th feature event, Christopher led the standings the rest of the way.
Christopher entered the CARQUEST Fall Final Weekend with a near insurmountable 46-point advantage over Woody Pitkat, but his weekend was anything but smooth sailing to the finish line. Christopher experienced engine issues on both Saturday and Sunday, but managed to come home with a 12th place in the Sunday 40-lap SK Modified® feature, which was enough to give him the championship by a 34-point margin over Pitkat.
“The distributor broke and the thing was so advanced that the motor wouldn’t pull down the straightaway,” said Christopher. “People that I should’ve been able to pass like nothing I couldn’t pass. Saturday we lucked out. We could have lost the championship on Sunday, but on Saturday the harmonic balancer pulley broke. That could have been real devastating, but we lucked out and we had a fairly decent run. It wasn’t a great run by my standards, but sometimes it’s that way.”
For the year, Christopher posted 4 wins, 13 top-5 finishes, and 15 top-10 finishes for an average finish of 5.3 over the 18 race 2012 SK Modified® season. Christopher tied for the division lead in wins, while leading the division in both top-5 and top-10 finishes. This year’s championship is also the 12th NASCAR Whelen All-American Series track championship of Christopher’s career, which places him in a tie with Larry Phillips for the fifth most track championships under the NWAAS banner since it was formed in 1983.
Christopher will officially be crowned the 2012 SK Modified® track champion at the 43rd Annual Stafford Motor Speedway Champions Awards Ceremony on Friday, November 16, 2012 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