Emerling Set for Allentown Debut
Allentown, Penn. — Patrick Emerling of Orchard Park, NY has been strong in past indoor races. He has 6 top fives, 7 top tens in 13 TQ Midget starts entering the inaugural indoor race at PPL Center tonight. Emerling is unsure if an outside groove will develop due to trouble with the surface in turns one and two.
“The track seems good,” Emerling said. “The show is moving along pretty well. They’ve revamped the rules a little bit and it’s all good. We seem pretty fast right off the bat, got it better in practice and ended up timing in the top five, which was our goal and we just have to do well in the heat race, hopefully, win, and get a good spot.”
This is the second race for the car after debuting at Wall (NJ) Stadium Speedway in November. Their old car was sold to Justin Bonsignore. Emerling is considering additional outdoor races with the car if his schedule allows. “It’s pretty full, but we’ll see.”
[Photo Gallery] by Nicholas Teto
“My family, they’re the biggest sponsorship there, the Buffalo Auto Auction. Mark Lafler does a great job building these cars to make ’em go fast.”
“Mark (Lafler of Lafler Chassis) is just a really smart guy. The cars are really thought out, and between all the cars he’s always tweaking. He’s always making little tweaks here and there on the cars and he seems to come up with the best overall package. … He knows what he’s doing and I think he’s probably the best car builder around as far as the TQs go.”
Emerling will focus on the Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Tour this season. He cited the conflicting dates with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. “It’s just a lot easier for us. It’s less costly. We have more fun doing it.”
Emerling finished fourth in series points last season, despite missing a race due to a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race at Stafford. He had a series high 3 wins, 7 top fives, and 8 top tens. He led 115 laps along with his first three series wins.
“When it comes to funding and the amount of work involved in doing that it … was a little bit too much. So I have the business and when it comes to that I’d rather spend more time at that than running the Whelen tour. We’re going to run the ROC series and were going to run the first 2 southern tour races (Caraway and Concord). That’s in our plans. We’re probably going to run some of the Tri-Tracks. So we’re just going to pick and choose and run the races that work best financially.”
For the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Emerling plans on running both New Hampshire Motor Speedway races, Bristol, and maybe 2 races at Thompson. He prefers to race closer to home than the 2 day round trips that many races involved. The 5.5-hour commute to Mahoning Valley Speedway is an hour improvement over the closest NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race.
The Race of Champions Modified Tours have a new owner this season in Joe Skotnicki. Emerling said the series will run some venues in Pennsylvania this season. Mahoning Valley Speedway last hosted the series in 2008. Lake Erie Speedway will host its first race since the inaugural in 2005. Motordrome Speedway in Smithton will also have its inaugural race.
“I think he’ll do a good job running the series and seem to have more of a schedule, so I’m pretty optimistic. I think it will be a good season.”
“… They had a good car count last year but I think it might even it might be a little bit better, we’ll see. … Some of them races that are farther away probably not, but venturing out isn’t a bad thing as well. … Well now since there’s Oswego we’re excited for that.”
Emerling is coming off the best season in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour with a fifth place finish. He set new marks for his career with 9 top tens, 19 laps led, 10.5 average start, and 9.9 average finish. He also won his first two poles consecutively at Stafford (CT) Motor Speedway and Thompson(CT) Speedway Motorsports Park.
“We definitely got a lot better. We got a couple of poles there which was cool. We didn’t quite win races cause that’s pretty much our goal everywhere we go is to win races, at least, be as competitive as we can be and that’s the ultimate goal for us. But finally, we got it going pretty good towards the end of the season and ‘cause I’ve been struggling on that series for years, so finally we got it going last season.”
Sources: Nicholas Teto/YankeeRacer.com