Spotter Bytes
SPOTTER BYTES
By Wayne “Muffy” Wildermuth
Wednesday was a double header of sorts for me. Wednesday morning at 3:00 am I was up and on the road to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway for a practice session with the American Canadian Tour (ACT). I was spotting for the Summit Ice #07 car that was being driven by Woody Pitkat. The car was decent during the first half of the test session, but needed minor tweaking. We aint got no time fur dat. Woody and I had to cut practice short and we missed the simulated race event that was planned
for after lunch because we had to leave after the lunch break in order to make it to Thompson Speedway for the racing event scheduled for that evening.
The car was decent (top 5 I think) and Woody seemed comfortable too, so when we come back to race it in late September during the Whelen Modified Tour event weekend, we can dial it in some more and hopefully come away with a solid finish.
Then it was off to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park for the last race of the regular season for the NASCAR Weekly All American Series. The Cam McDermott #5RI took the race off (for several reasons) so my only spotting duty was to the #96 Late Model of Art Moran III. This car has been a battle from day one this season. No matter what is tried, the car just will not handle. It has good motor, but once it gets to the corners, it turns evil and has been barely drivable. We have been starting at the rear because of the way it’s been behaving. We started tail again this time, but made some adjustments that seemed to help. We ended up 11th out of 15 cars that started. Only the World Series race is left to see if we can make it better. Racing only once in a while does not help when you’re trying to dial a car in.
Friday night was a decent night at Stafford Speedway. The LifeCare Family Chiropractic, Right Way Signs Kevin Gambacorta driven #32 Late Model was pretty good again, but it gets a little hairy in there when your spotter’s radio stops working and the driver is then forced to do it on his own. Kevin did just fine, with a little help from the crew spotting him in my absence. I finally got it fixed with a couple laps to go. In the feature, we again started on the outside row and fell back a ton of spots before getting to the bottom and marching our way back to the front. We finished 4tth, running about the same times as the winner, but we just lost so much track position on our slide backwards that we weren’t able to get much of it back. We are currently tied for 2nd in the points.
The Sunny Side Up Early Care Learning Center, Shore Haven Heating and Cooling #94 SK modified for driver Tyler 
Hines has been giving us fits for the better part of the season. Just could not get the thing to handle. This week the rear clip was replaced. As it turned out, it was bent a little. What a difference that made. We were 3rd fastest in practice and the car was pretty stable. The heat race was ugly. We took the green and went into turn one and the car did not turn. The brakes locked and the car appeared to take a right turn. I’m thinking lack of time to get heat in the tires didn’t help any either. In a rush to get the show going, they double you up right out of the gate and go green the next time by. Veterans might be able to handle this, but it is not so simple for the unseasoned racers. This was one time it didn’t work out and someone else got their car tore up as a result. It will happen again. What’s wrong with one lap to build heat and check your brakes? Two extra minutes is not too much to ask for, is it?
So anyway, we had a really good car for the feature and Tyler raced hard. There were 4 of us fighting for 4th spot with a few laps to go. The #50 Woody Pitkat and the #81 of Todd Owen were in front of us racing side-by-side for quite a few laps and we were just waiting to see which one would win the battle. We ended up getting stuck on the bottom (that seems weird to say for Stafford) and got passed on the outside by the #88 of Keith Rocco who had closed ground during the fight ahead of us. That put us finishing in the 7th spot. To us, that was a good showing considering how bad the car had been most of the season. Now we have something we can work with and we will see what next week brings.
Saturday was the Riverhead Raceway Whelen Modified Tour race and that meant a little boat ride in the morning across the sound to get to Long Island. I left early enough to grab breakfast first, before heading to the track. The first thing I get greeted with when I get to the sign in window was “What kind of cheesecake do you like?” Christine gave me a piece of Oreo cheesecake. It was yummy. I was going to give her the credit, but she said Michael made them, good job sir. The next thing that happened was I noticed we no longer had a red car #13, it was the familiar Bob Katon yellow, but it still was the #13.
Photo credit – Other Side Of The Track
Really good looking and most importantly for me, it was easy to see in a field of other race cars that are black, red or white. Then our driver showed up and got himself adjusted to the cockpit. We had to move the steering wheel some, but mostly it was a good fit for our new driver James Civali. We ran a few laps in practice and the car was so-so. We went out for time trials and the car was still so-so, but we managed 11th fastest. Then we had to take the hood off the car because of a skip in the motor or something. We didn’t know the problem, but we son learned it was a loose rocker issue. NASCAR allowed us to do this, but assessed us a 2 lap penalty for adjusting a rocker. This was not so much a performance enhancement as much as it was a preventative adjustment. This was done so that we did not blow the motor up on the track and maybe take out a few cars in the process. There needs to be some discretionary consideration for items of safety that you only go to the tail end of the field or something like that. If you had a cut tire or a radio that didn’t work or maybe an important suspension part that broke. These could be considered safety issues and you could correct them and start tail end of the field. Things like changing a carburetor due to a skip or a tire because you have a better one or fixing a plug wire that fell off, those could be performance enhancing adjustments that should get the 2 lap penalty. Seems ridiculous to be severely penalized someone for correcting a safety issue. Maybe that will deter others from fixing it and maybe they will just let it go and wreck the field or get someone hurt. Just my opinion.
So now comes race time and even though the race is 200 laps, it comes and goes quick. With our 11th place starting spot we would have been sitting pretty, but that gets thrown away and we would be starting tail end of the field and 2 laps down. We were told to pull off into the infield on the one to go lap and wait there until given the command to go. We did this and when we were released from being held for 2 laps, we were right in front of the leaders. We held our ground and after a couple of yellows, got back on the lead lap as the Free Pass car. We were passing cars and moving forward. James was wheeling it. Who would have thought it right??? I always heard he was a wheelman, but never really watched him much. Well let me tell you, he is a wheelman. He drove up to 8th place and then the caution came out. This meant he would be on the outside for the next restart. That didn’t work out so well as he spun out by himself going into turn one on the restart. The car just stepped out on him and he was as shocked as the rest of us. We then went to the back of the field again and while working our way forward again, he spun coming off turn 2 to avoid crashing into the outside car that was pinching him down. When we got going again, there were only a handful of laps remaining and he was only able to get back to the 15th spot before the checkered flags flew. All-in-all we ran strong, it was an acceptable finish and we were just glad the motor held together and we were able to run the entire race. Our next race will be at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sept. 26th.