Saunders, Berndt, Owen, Bren, & Christohper Take Home Call Before You Dig 811 Bonuses At Stafford Speedway
Stafford Springs, CT — When the green flag dropped on the 2013 season at the CARQUEST Tech-Net Spring Sizzler, it marked the start of the Call Before You Dig (CBYD) bonus challenge for drivers and teams in all divisions, entitled CBYD 811 Challenge.
The CBYD 811 Challenge awarded drivers from each division 100 points for a feature victory and then decreased in 5-point increments. The 811 Challenge culminated on Friday, August 16th, which was designated Call Before You Dig Event Night. The five drivers whose point totals came closest to 811 without exceeding after the completion of the August 16th event received an $811 bonus from CBYD. The total posted awards for the CBYD Challenge presented by CBYD was $4,055.
“Call Before You Dig was very happy to join together with Stafford Motor Speedway and sponsor the 811 Points Challenge,” said Derek Brown, Chairman of Damage Prevention and Education Committee for CBYD. “The points challenge was a great opportunity for Call Before You Dig to promote the Nationwide 811 phone number and use August 11th (8/11) as a date to remind homeowners and contractors to utilize the free service before their next excavation project. Call Before You Dig Night was also great opportunity to hand out free promotional materials and answer questions from the fans at Stafford Motor Speedway. We look forward to next year’s 811 Points Challenge.”
The five lucky winners of the CBYD 811 challenge were Cliff Saunders from the DARE Stock division, Justin Bren from the Limited Late Model division, and Eric Berndt, Ted Christopher, and Todd Owen from the SK Modified® division, each taking home $811 in CBYD bonus money.
“It really helps out, that’s a lot of money to win all in one night, it’s pretty cool,” said Saunders. “We just finished putting my Limited Late Model back together and Al wrecked his last week, so we have another car to fix and this bonus will help us out. It was pretty cool because it was another points system that we had to check every week to see if we were still a part of it. It was also awesome to be racing against not only the guys in our division but everyone else at the track, so thank you to Call Before You Dig for giving us this opportunity.”
“It was really big for me because I start school back up in September,” said Bren. “I’m one of the primary sources of funding for the car so if I’m not working and making money, it’s tough for us to be competitive. The start and the end of the year are always the hardest times because I’m in school. This $811 is really big because I’ll be able to use that for racing in September with tires. I remember last year I think we put four races on one set of tires in September. The $811 is more money than the Late Models get for winning a race and this is probably the biggest payout I’ll ever get in racing. Thanks to Call Before You Dig this was a great chance for a midpack running car to win something big. I always ask my sponsors to help me start and end the season and this bonus is perfect for us to be able to finish out the year competitively. I might have had enough money for one more set of tires to finish the year and now we can put at least two new sets of tires on the car.”
“We knew going in that we had a chance at it if we had a good finish,” said Owen. “Obviously we were real happy, it’s a real nice bonus to take home. Between our race check and the bonus, it was like winning a race for us. We had a couple of bad weeks before that and racing can get expensive. We’re going to put this money towards the car, we’re going to need tires and there’s always something on the car that you can put the money towards. It’s awesome that Call Before You Dig put this bonus up for us, they probably don’t get the thanks that they deserve. Sponsors like CBYD definitely help keep everyone going. Cliff Saunders was one of the winners and he drives a DARE Stock, that $811 for him is probably more money than he’s won in five races. I think what made this CBYD bonus so special is that is was available to all five divisions and not just one particular division.”
CBYD’s 811 number is a free service that provides homeowners and professional excavators an easy way to learn just what underground utilities lie within their proposed work area. A recent report by the Common Ground Alliance has determined that an underground utility line is damaged during digging projects every three minutes nationwide. Striking a single line can cause injury, repair costs, fines and inconvenient outages. Every digging project, no matter how large or small, warrants a call to 811. The depth of utility lines can vary for a number of reasons, such as erosion, previous digging projects, and uneven surfaces. Utility lines need to be properly marked because even when digging only a few inches, the risk of striking an underground utility line still exists. In addition to the 811 number, CBYD also provides an E-Ticket system on their CBYD website for contractors to use when beginning an excavation project. Call Before You Dig and their E-Ticket system can be found online at www.cbyd.com.
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
FINAL 2013 STAFFORD SPEEDWAY CBYD 811 CHALLENGE STANDINGS
FOLLOWING AUGUST 16, 2013 CBYD 811 CHALLENGE NIGHT
POS DRIVER DIVISION CBYD POINTS
1 CLIFF SAUNDERS DARE STOCK 810
2 ERIC BERNDT SK MODIFIED® 795
3 TODD OWEN SK MODIFIED® 790
4 JUSTIN BREN LTD. LATE MODEL 785
5 TED CHRISTOPHER SK MODIFIED® 780
6 KEITH ROCCO SK MODIFIED® 760
7 J.J. HILL LATE MODEL 755
8 DAN AVERY SK MODIFIED® 750
9 RICH HAMMAN SK LIGHT 735
10 DYLAN MENDITTO SK LIGHT 700
11 RYAN FEARN DARE STOCK 695
12 JOEY FERRIGNO SK LIGHT 690
13 SEAN FOSTER SK MODIFIED® 690
14 PAYTON HENRY SK LIGHT 675
15 JOE NOGIEC LTD. LATE MODEL 660
16 MICHAEL SCORZELLI LATE MODEL 605
17 DENNIS BOTTICELLO LATE MODEL 600
18 GUS COELHO DARE STOCK 590
19 ANDREW DURAND LTD. LATE MODEL 575
20 RICK CHARETTE LATE MODEL 540
21 STACEY BOTTICELLO DARE STOCK 535
22 JIM PETERSON LATE MODEL 515
23 TOM BOLLES SK MODIFIED® 515
24 CURT BRAINARD SK MODIFIED® 495
25 DOUG PHELPS DARE STOCK 485
26 MATT GALKO SK MODIFIED® 470
27 MICHAEL BENNETT SK MODIFIED® 435
28 ART CARUSO LATE MODEL 435
29 GEOFF BOISJOLIE LATE MODEL 415
30 PAUL VARRICCHIO, JR. LATE MODEL 370
31 ZACH ASZKLAR SK MODIFIED® 345
32 MICHAEL GERVAIS, JR. SK MODIFIED® 330
33 GEORGE NOCERA, JR. LATE MODEL 320
WHAT IS THE “CBYD 811 CHALLENGE” ?
The CBYD 811 Challenge is open to drivers from each of Stafford’s five NWAAS divisions, and the race is on to see who can come the closest to 811 points WITHOUT GOING OVER after the competion of the August 9th CBYD Night Feature events.
The 5 drivers who are the closest to 811 points without going over after August 9th will each receive an $811 bonus from CBYD.
Drivers cannot miss more than one feature event during the 2013 season to be eligible to win the award. Any post-race technical violation will also forfeit a driver’s eligibility to win the award.
HOW DOES THE “CBYD 811 CHALLENGE” SYSTEM WORK?
Each feature finisher is awarded a point value, with 100 points awarded for a victory. Each subsequent position will be worth 5 points less, i.e. 2nd=95, 3rd=90, 4th=85, 5th=80, and so forth until everyone from each feature event has been awarded a point value for their finish on a given night.