NWMT: Szegedy Returning to RFM
2003 Champion Back Part-Time
Former champion Todd Szegedy of Ridgefield, CT will return to the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Szegedy said his ideal schedule would be a full-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour ride.
“I’ve talked to Rob once,” Szegedy said. “The plan is just to run a few races with the car still. He just can’t dedicate the time to running a full schedule, so as of right now we’re just going to run a partial schedule. … That’s all I have. I don’t really anything else lined up.”
Szegedy is open to additional rides in the SK Modifieds or the Valenti Modified Racing Series, but is fine with his current plans.
“If you talked to me ten years ago and I’m sitting here not on a full-time ride, I would be stressing about it and I’m really not. I think if it’s meant to be, I’ll be racing. If not, then there’s a lot to life other than racing too. There’s a lot of other things I like to do.”
“I certainly don’t want to race as much as I did last year. I enjoy the racing, but I also want to enjoy some of my weekends and have some of my weekends off.”
“The SKs are a lot of fun to run. The competition’s tough, but… if something else does come up, and I have that weekend free, I definitely will. I’d probably think about running as long as I feel comfortable in the car and stuff like that that. Nowadays it’s tough to jump from one car to another. … Maybe the young guys they don’t mind it, but I like to be comfortable in a car and I want to know that I can go out there and have a chance to win.”
Understandably, Szegedy wants to see the Modifieds return to road courses. When the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour raced at Lime Rock Park, Szegedy won both poles and finished second and first.
“I think the Modifieds are still a blast to race on the road courses and I hope in the future we’re going to see them on there more.”
Szegedy drove for Mike Smeriglio III on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour from 2006 to 2013. Doug Coby drove for the team last year and won his second championship.
“I was really happy for them ’cause I still consider them great friends along with Mike. … I still keep in touch with ’em. … It was a great thing to see. Do I wish that I could have done it for ’em? Certainly, but we just had over the years we had a lot of bad luck and a lot of things happen. And we take out some of the bad runs we had and some of the bad luck blown tires and broken suspension parts, take out some of them and we could have had multiple championships, and they know it and I know it.
“They just had a stellar year without having any issues and that’s what it takes to win a championship. If you can get through the year and finish top ten every race, your chances in not having not getting caught up in wrecks or not breaking parts, you’re probably you have a really high chance of winning a championship and we could never achieve that with them. We certainly were fast enough every week to win a championship. The luck just didn’t go our way, and for those guys the luck went their way and Doug’s a great driver. They won one race, and that’s they had all top tens and that’s what it took to win a championship. … I always knew I was driving for a championship caliber team, just the luck didn’t go our way unfortunately.”
Szegedy made five starts in the 15-40 Connection Chevrolet for Rob Fuller Motorsports last season. Despite a limited schedule, Szegedy had one top five, two top tens, and a pair of top five starts.
Szegedy was particularly strong at New Hampshire, where he paced practice in July. He almost won the race until a fuel pump broke while leading with 11 laps to go. Szegedy contended again in September, except for a late caution, when he came home second.
“Right away that car was fast and I was comfortable and every time I drove it I was in contention to win, but we had a couple of things,” Szegedy said. “… We had a couple of things break and couple of things that they had to tweak out with the suspension and kind of like trial and error stuff and unfortunately it prevented us from having some of the good finishes that we should have got. .. The car’s certainly capable of winning and … It’s definitely going to be a force to (be) reckon(ed) with and I think that where Rob’s heading as far as the development and the design of the car I think the car’s got a really good future.”
Fuller planned to the spend the first year building and developing his car before producing it. Fuller said the maiden voyage at Thompson went so well, “my cheeks were sore because I was smiling in my helmet. I was like oh my god this thing is amazing and I knew right away that I couldn’t race it because the car could win races right away and I needed to be outside of the car learning more about the car and letting somebody else drive it.”
Fuller offered the ride to Szegedy, who replicated Fuller’s feedback in a similar Thompson test, applauding the car’s handling.
“It’s got very good adjustability, responds well to adjustments,” Szegedy said. “So when we’d test and we’d go out and try it and come back in and make a change, it responded very well to the change and it did everything that it said Rob said it should do. Another thing that I really enjoyed about the car was it rotated very well on the throttle off the corner, so even if you had a tight condition you were still able to get the car to cut and turn on the throttle and for me that a great thing to have in a car, and most of the cars I’ve driven haven’t been able to do that.”
Szegedy was a regular on the Valenti Modified Racing Series last season until team owner Kevin Stuart parked the No. 85 car following a disagreement with series officials at the tenth race at Waterford. He finished tenth in the point standings with a win at Stafford, four top fives, and seven top tens.
“”It’s tough because Kevin Stuart is an awesome guy, awesome car owner, treated me very well,” Szegedy said. “He’s got a lot of passion for racing and he spent a lot of money to go racing and I support my team, any team I drive for 100 percent.
“And I feel that the call that the Valenti series made by kicking me off that track at that moment was wrong, and I will always think it’s wrong. They should have allowed me at least to finish the race because that call basically destroyed the rest of our season, and that’s basically why Kevin decided we’re not going to come back and race. Do I know that making tough calls like that in a short amount of time is a tough decision on their part, but I feel that it was the wrong decision, and it put a bad taste in my mouth. Does that mean I’m not going to run the Valenti? No, I mean, I think I’ll go run a few races. I still enjoyed the officials and they treated me well because in the end the officials really didn’t have a problem with me. It was with my car owner, and I also enjoyed racing with the Valenti competitors. I just felt that the call was not the right call. I think it should have been dealt with after the race, but it is at that that point, they made the decision and then Kevin made the decision not to come back and race with them anymore. But like I said, I did enjoy it and we were a championship caliber team there. I was fortunate to drive for that car. We won a race and we were right up there in the top of the points. So what are you doing to do? That’s just the way it goes. Unfortunately luck hasn’t gone my way in racing in a little while, so on the bright side of things eventually my luck will turn around and when it does I can go out there and I’ll win races and win more championships if I continue to race.”
Fuller dismissed the option of running his RFM No. 15 car full-time next season on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. “We’ve been asked a bunch of times by quite a few different drivers, especially recently,” Fuller said in November. “It would be a serious championship threat.”
“My sponsor wouldn’t mind doing it,” Fuller said. “They’d actually like to do it. We have the financial support to do it, but right now it’s just not the right time to do it.”
Fuller philosophically does not want to field a car against his own customers. “I think that’s extremely bad business,” Fuller said. “I don’t agree with that at all.” Fuller believes the purpose for his car is for research and development.
Fuller estimates that half of the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour and seven to 10 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour teams will be using LFR Chassis in 2015.
“I really don’t want to thank them for their business by going to the racetrack and trying to compete against them, so it’s just right now what I’m doing it for is basically for the customers.”
Sources: Nicholas Teto/YankeeRacer.com