A Cinderella Story For Hinckley At Monadnock
Les Hinckley out of Windsor Locks, CT scored an emotional victory on Saturday night in the Victor Johnson Memorial 100 Valenti Modified Racing Series event at the Monadnock Speedway. It was Hinckley’s 5th win at the quarter mile oval. Hinckley would start on the pole. Point leader Woody Pitkat would started 6th and take the lead from Hinckley on lap 10. There was only one caution on lap 45. Hinckley would retake the lead from Pitkat with 48 laps remaining and not look back. With less than 10 laps remaining Todd Patnode would move into second and Russ Hersey would follow into third. At line it would be Les Hinckley followed by Todd Patnode, Russ Hersey, Woody Pitkat, and Todd Szegedy rounding out the top 5. Sixth through tenth was Chris Pasteryak, Dave Schneider, Matt Mead, Rowan Pennink, and Carl Mederios, JR.
For Hinckey this was a very special win. ” It was a good race there early. When he (Pitkat) went by me. He looked pretty good. I could see him getting a little free and we put the pressure on him and I thought we were going to get by him. We kind of got messed up with a lap car and he drove away there for a while. I was able to keep the pressure on him after the restart and get back by him and he got back to the outside of me. I had to pick up the pace a little bit. He kind of got the outside of me. I really didn’t expect that. Then we were able to pull back away. Get a couple car length lead and just maintain it. It was a good race. I couldn’t shake him. I couldn’t just drive away from him. I was a little concern about that.” Hinckley Said
For Hinckley this is probably the biggest win emotionally. There was a lot of stuff for Hinckley that set the race team back. Hinckley’s car owner Chuck Montville passed away 2 years ago and Les’s son Allen was battling health issues. Les just had neck surgery to take a disc out. “We’ve had some pretty emotional wins. My first one came one of my birthdays at Riverside Park. We won the Ricky Miller race at Canaan a couple years back. The Miller family is a great family. Known them for a long time. Ricky’s dad Donnie just great people. Always in touch with him. Reaches out to me all the time about my son and my family so that was an emotional one. And then you got this one. I don’t know how you can put anything underneath this with the passing of Chuck. My son’s health. My health is really secondary. It wasn’t anything life threatening. I just had to have a disc taken out of my neck. We’re back to good now. That’s really secondary. Like I said the loss of Chuck. My son’s health which is good now. Things have been going well. We’re happy with that.”
Les’s son Allen will be turning 10 in just a couple weeks and his son Garrett will be turning 8. Allen these days is a very active young man. He has been very busy with baseball. Allen and Garrett were there in victory lane on Saturday night to celebrate the win with their father.
The next event for the Valenti Modified Series is this Saturday night August 29th at the Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, ME as part of AIM Recycling USA Oxford 250 presented by Kenny U-Pull
Story And Photos By: Matthew Wiernasz/Yankeeracer.com