Wall Next up for Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic ATQMRA June 4
May 15, 2016 — The Scheduled racing activities for Wall Stadium this past Saturday, May 14th were cancelled due to the heavy rains forecast for the area. This gives team’s additional time to prepare for the next ATQMRA show at Wall on Saturday, June 4th. Geoffrey Sutton sits atop the points standings with a slim 4 point margin over 2014 Champion Matt Janisch. Mark Yoder is ahead of Ronnie Mullen in the Rookie of the year standings. A handful of teams plan to make their season debut with the club at its next outing. Next up for the Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic is a trip back to Wall Stadium for another battle on its flat inner oval on June 4th.
Geoffrey Sutton, the 2014 ATQMRA Rookie of the year finds himself in an unfamiliar position in a TQ midget, sitting at the top of the points standings. The 2015 season saw Sutton finish third in the season long standings after winning numerous heat races during the season and leading a bunch of feature race laps. Sutton appeared to be poised to earn his first feature win in 2015 but was forced to wait until the 2016 season opener to earn his first win. Sutton backed up his first career ATQMRA feature race win with a second place finish to Matt Janisch at Mahoning Valley on April 30th. Ironically the 46 car that carried Sutton to his first win is the same car that Janisch used to earn his first career Club victory at Mountain Speedway circa 2008. This particular car also carried Blu Metz to his first win on the banks at Wall Stadium in 1998 and Josh Dalrymple to the 2010 Rookie of the Year title.
2014 ATQMRA Champion Matt Janisch finds himself sitting second in the standings only four markers behind Sutton with Flying Ryan Tidman sitting third twelve back of the leader. Janisch didn’t enter the season with plans to try to contend for another championship but with the strong start he has to the season that may change. He charged to a third place finish at the opener on Wall’s inner oval and won at Mahoning Valley in convincing fashion at a track where he has been a consistent winner.
Janisch was erroneously credited with seven feature wins at Mahoning when the total compiled by Mahoning Valley announcer and track historian Dino Oberto puts the total at six. This puts Janisch in a tie for second on the all-time Mahoning Valley TQ Midget Win list with Matt Roselli of Brodheadsville, Pa. They are the active wins leaders at Mahoning trailing only 11 times ATQMRA Champion Don Adams who amassed 20 career wins at the circular Mahoning Valley oval.
Flying Ryan Tidman sits fourth in career Mahoning Valley wins with five only a single victory behind Janisch and Roselli. Ryan’s car owner Lenny Boyd sits seventh on that list with a pair of wins coming in the Alan Mollot Lindblad Badger with the last coming in 1988. Tidman, who earned ATQMRA Championships first in 2008, then ran the table in 2011, 2012 and 2013 in the Boyd Racing 1B sits third in the standings twelve markers behind Sutton on the strength of a second at the Wall opener and a fourth place finish at Mahoning.
Jeff Kot finds himself sitting fourth in the season-long standings on the strength of a fifth and fourth place finishes through the first two rounds. Veteran TQ racer Kot has been consistently fast at each track where the club races but has yet to run all of the races on the schedule in a season. He has one career feature win at Mountain Speedway in one of the potent Roselli TQ midgets.
Six-time Mahoning Valley winner Matt Roselli sits fifth in the early standings. Roselli is a proven winner at Mahoning and rolled across the line third in the club’s first appearance there. He has been extremely fast on the Wall Short track and has been able to race at the front of the pack but has yet to find his way to Wall’s Victory lane. A win for Roselli at Wall seems inevitable with the speed he has shown there.
2015 ATQMRA Champion as well as 2011 Rookie of the Year Buddy Sload has been snake-bitten so far in the 2016 campaign with a pair of DNF’s to his credit at both Wall where he dominated in 2015 and Mahoning where he parked the Colin Martin Spitfire 16 in Victory lane to earn his second career win and earn his first driver’s title. He finds himself fourteenth in the standings with a deep hole to dig himself out of if he hopes to earn another driver’s Championship.
Mark Yoder raced a handful of races with the ATQMRA in 2015 as a tune-up to contending for Rookie of the year in 2016. He sits at the top of the Rookie standings with a 16 point margin over Ronnie the Rocket Mullen with a pair of Payne’s sitting third and fourth. While younger brother Anthony is third he isn’t planning to run all of the shows with the TQ club instead he will focus on defending his 2015 NEMA Light Championship. Joey Payne III, however, has designs on contending for top Rookie honors with the ATQMRA. With the season only two races old he has plenty of time to make up points on the current leader.
Track Management at Wall Stadium has requested that all TQ midget teams put a number panel on the upper right side of the cage to ease identifying the cars on track for both track officials and the race fans. This race marks the first race where the teams are required to pay a $25 per car registration fee.
ATQMRA News and Notes: The June 4th race at Wall will see a pair of veteran drivers make their season debut. Steve Craig was all loaded up and ready to head to Wall this Saturday but the rain spoiled that. Craig has his mount re-configured and ready for action and plans to run the remaining races on the ATQMRA Schedule. The affable Don Zrinski and the Zrinski team will have their always fast 75z ready for competition on the fourth as well. Teams are reminded that they have an opportunity to put their cars on display in front of the crowd at Pocono for the IndyCar weekend on August 20 and 21st. The Application for putting a race car in the show can be found at http://www.theclassicracingtimes.com by clicking on Applications and filling out the Pocono Sun and Show Application. Any teams new to the circuit will receive their Brice’s NAPA Auto Parts Clean Start Package.
2016 Race Schedule
Saturday, April 23rd
Wall Speedway Race Winner: Geoffrey Sutton
Saturday, April 30th
Mahoning Speedway W Race Winner Matt Janisch
Saturday, May 14th
Wall Speedway Cancelled due to Rain
Saturday, June 4th
Wall Speedway
Saturday, June 18th
Bethel Speedway W
Saturday, June 25th
Wall Speedway
Saturday, July 16th
Wall Speedway
Saturday, August 6th
Waterford Speedway W
Saturday, August 13th
Mahoning Speedway W
Saturday, August 27th
Wall Speedway
Saturday, September 10th
Mahoning Speedway W
Saturday, September 17th
Wall Speedway
Saturday, October 1st
Stafford Speedway Fall Finale*
Saturday, November 26th
Wall Speedway Turkey Derby*
(W) Denotes Winged Race
(*) Denotes Non Points Indoor Rules Package
DRIVER POINTS
Geoff Sutton 196
Matt Janisch 192
Ryan Tidman 184
Jeff Kot 172
Matt Roselli 160
Mark Yoder 140 (R)
Ronnie Mullen 124(R)
Joey Bailey 124
Anthony Payne 112(R)
Mike Glaser 108
Austin Fehr 108
Tim Proctor 100
Joey Payne III 100(R)
Buddy Sload 84
Pat VanVarick 84(R)
Mike Tidaback 80
Kristopher Graver 76(R)
Rick Kirkendall 56(R)
Kerry Irwin56
Brett Conklin 52
Jon Gambuti 36
OWNER POINTS
461 196
48 192
1B 184
95 172
98 160
75 140
39 124
02 124
51 116
46 112
F8 108
73 108
98t 100
67 100
16 84
17 84
48x 76
45 72
64 52
53 40
Rookie Point Standings
Mark Yoder 140 (R)
Ronnie Mullen 124(R)
Anthony Payne 112(R)
Joey Payne III 100(R)
Pat VanVarick 84(R)
Kristopher Graver 76(R)
Rick Kirkendall 56(R)
www.atqmra.com
ATQMRA is a traveling series with multiple events in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, Connecticut that produces some of the fastest laps fans will see. Races are action packed and when they run from green to checkers you can bet you’ll be on the edge of your seat every lap. It is a full out sprint to the finish with some of the biggest names in the Northeast competing for the trophy.
ATQMRA, PO Box 434, Brodheadsville, PA 18322
Sources: Blu Metz/ATQMRA PR