Stafford’s SK Lights Locked in Tight Championship Race
Stafford Springs, CT — With the 2017 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season at Stafford Speedway heading into the final 2 months, there is an ultra tight race for the SK Light championship. Through the first 10 races of this season, 4 different drivers, Cory DiMatteo, Wesley Prucker, George Nocera, Jr., and Dan Wesson, have all taken turns being the points leader. Heading into this Friday night’s CBYD 811 Night, Dan Wesson leads the standings with DiMatteo, Nocera, and David Arute all tied for second, only 10 points behind Wesson.
DiMatteo led the standings for the first 2 weeks of the season with wins in each of the first 2 races. Prucker took over the point lead in week 3 with Nocera holding the lead from week 4 through week 8. Wesson scored his first win last week and he has been the point leader for the last 2 weeks. With Prucker currently sitting fifth in the standings, 30 points behind Wesson, Arute is the only driver in the top-5 of the standings that has not yet led the points this season. Despite that fact, Arute says he is comfortable with where he currently sits.
“We started out with a bad finish at the Sizzler, so it’s been moving on up ever since then and now we’re finally at the top,” said Arute. “I’m fine with staying tied for second and trying to chase those guys down and finish races consistently. Our car has been good and the challenge is to keep the car in one piece. We only have a few more points to make up to get to the top of the standings. I don’t like to points race, I always want to win and like last week when the car was really fast, I really tried to get up to Dan Wesson and challenge him for the win but I couldn’t get to him so we settled for third. Hopefully we can keep on getting podium finishes. I think it’s going to get tougher. This is the first time we’ve had a stretch of four or five races in a row this season so now it’s all about the preparation during the week and getting the cars ready to race. I’m sure we’re all going to be starting around each other mid-pack and we have to finish ahead of those guys to gain some points. I think it’s going to be a great finish to the season racing-wise.”
After winning the first two races of the season, DiMatteo has secured a third feature win this season and he is looking to get back to his winning ways during the second half of the year.
“The key is to not wreck the car,” said DiMatteo. “I honestly think it’s going to come down to who has the best luck since we’re all so evenly matched and I think it’s going to be a matter of a few points at the end of the season. All we can do is try to keep on winning races and have fun. If we can do that, I think we’ll be in good shape for the end of the year. I’d like to think we can get 3 more wins since we got 3 wins in the first half of the season.”
Wesson scored 5 SK Light feature wins last season but until last Friday night, he hadn’t won a race since Sept. 16 last season. Wesson says that he and his team have been searching for speed and after securing his first win of this year last Friday night, he feels like he is in good shape for the second half of the season.
“We’ve been searching for speed in the car and Brian and Jimmy Sullivan have been coming to the shop every week to try to make it faster,” said Wesson. “Brian and Jimmy tried something new on the car and I think we’ll be good for the remainder of this season. It was a big relief to get our first win of the season. It was a long drought between wins and I came into this year thinking it was going to be a breeze but it’s been the complete opposite of that. With the competition being so strong with guys like George, David, and Cory DiMatteo, it’s going to be hard to get more wins but that’s what we’ll be trying for. The key for us will be finishing races and if we can finish races, hopefully we can be up front with those guys and have a little luck on our side as well.”
The SK Light championship race resumes this Friday night, August 11th with a 20-lap feature event. The SK Lights will be joined by the SK Modifieds®, Late Models, Ltd. Late Models, and DARE Stocks in feature action with tickets priced at $17.50 for adult general admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages 6-14, and children ages 5 and under are admitted free of charge when accompanied by an adult. Reserved seat tickets are $20.00 for all ages. All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission Tax. Stafford Motor Speedway offers plenty of free parking along with overnight parking available for self contained Recreational Vehicles.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR