Spotter Bytes
SPOTTER BYTES
By Wayne “Muffy” Wildermuth
This is the busy part of the racing season so I have barely had time to work and race, so I haven’t had much time to do any writing. This still holds true today, but I feel the need to make time for at least an article covering the recent weeks racing in the Modified Racing Series (MRS) and the Whelen Modified Tour (WMT). So here it goes:
Lets see, the WMT race was at Stafford Motor Speedway a couple weeks back. It was a pretty decent race for the #13 Mr. Rooter/Cape Cod Aggregates Chevrolet piloted by Ted Christopher. We qualified a dismal 14th, but with all the laps Ted has had at that track, I wasn’t worried, I knew he could get the job done. Well, I got a little worried when the car was not cooperating during the first quarter of the race and we were forced to short pit (pit before we really wanted to) for adjustments. We changed our tires and made the adjustments at the same time to gain track position later and to stop us from needing to pit again later in the race. This meant we needed to save our car for many, many laps in order to have a car left at the end of the race. So we ran around the back of the pack for a while risking getting caught up in a mess and then it happened, a caution came out and all the cars ahead of us made the dive to pit road for their adjustments and tire changes. We didn’t need that to happen yet, it put us 2nd after pit stops cycled through and I thought that was too early to be up front. Now how were we going to save our tires? A strategy change was in order and the plan was now to try and stay up front, but at the same time save some car for the end. We led a couple laps and tried to stay up front. We did pretty well and wound up with a 4th place finish. It was nice to be in tech again. That usually means you had a good night. We did!
The MRS race at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl was equally as good. The #19 Dave Schneider driven modified was pretty good right out of the trailer. We ran some competitive laps in practice and finished up front in our heat. That put us up front for the Wing and Wheels 100 lap race. We followed race leader Ted Christopher for many laps just riding along logging laps and saving our tires. Late in the race we had to let the #5 of Chris Pasteryak and the #92 of Anthony Nocella pass us as they had better tires then us and we just needed to get a good finish. There have been about 5 occasions where we were in the top 5 with less then 10 laps to go, only to have something mess it up. We either got dumped, wrong call by the officials or driver error that had us falling back and not getting the finishes we deserved. It was really nice to be able to tell my driver to just hang close and not to fight to hard for position. Most times we are coming from the back and burning our tires up to get to the front. It was nice for this one to go all the way and end up with a 4th place finish. We later learned that we finished 3rd when the winner was disqualified. That is a career best finish for the #19 MRS team. We are making progress. We are taking baby steps to get it done right and in the process earning respect from other drivers. We will keep working and getting better, but it takes time. As the saying goes, Inch by Inch it’s a cinch. The next MRS race will be August 22nd at the Monadnock Speedway.
The WMT race at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park was not as easy and was a bit of a challenge for the driver
of the #13, Andy Seuss. Yes, Andy Seuss and not Ted Christopher. Ted Christopher was not driving this week as he had struck a deal to drive the Chris Our owned #22 for at least the next two races, to include Bristol Motor Speedway. So it was a logical choice to give the nod to Andy to drive the #13 for our team. Andy did a great job for us back on July 25th at the Monadnock Speedway, so it seemed like the logical choice for him to help us out again. The practice went pretty well, but time trials were another story. The best he could do was a n 18th place time trial effort. So that meant we needed to come from the back, again. Seems to be a theme for the #13 this season. So we set our plan to run as hard as we could to get to the front, but that was not to happen. The first half of the race was not going according to plan. Andy had all he could do to hang on to the lead lap. We did end up going a lap down two cautions later we were given the free pass and got our lap back. Now we were back on the lead lap and the car was not much better then it was when the race started. Andy drove it hard ad was able to muster up a 13th place finish. That doesn’t sound like a good finish, but for what we had and went through, it was a great comeback. The next WMT race will be August 19th at the Bristol Motor Speedway