~ By Tom Boggie

Wow, I don’t even know where to start.

Do I start with Marc Johnson, who is off to a great start at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, the total opposite of the beginning to his 2023 season?

Should I start with the bold moves made by first Johnson, and then Tim Hartman Jr. which resulted in victories for both drivers?

No, let’s start with chiropractors.

In all my years being around racing, I don’t think I’ve ever been in the pits on a night when two different drivers talked about chiropractors.

It started early, when I saw Don Ronca standing near the rear of his hauler while his car was on the track for warmups. What’s going on, I thought.

“My back’s been bothering me,” said Ronca. “A couple of more trips to the chiropractor and I should be OK. If it really meant something tonight, I probably could have done it, but I didn’t want to risk it. I have a substitute driver to stay in the handicapping.”

That substitute driver was Elmo Reckner, who I swear has told me on a couple of occasions in the last two years that he was officially retired!

Reckner qualified through his heat race, but then got caught in the middle of the multi-car wreck on the second lap of the modified feature, with the Ronca car sustaining a lot of damage after taking a hard hit from Brett Hearn.

If there’s any silver lining to this story, at least Ronca wasn’t in the car for that jarring wreck.

Matt DeLorenzo was the other driver who played up the chiropractor angle. After leading flag-to-flag to win the first leg of the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Shootout Series, DeLorenzo said, “I’ve been going to the chiropractor all week. I threw my back out.”

If we’re talking about back issues, we might as well throw in Kim Duell, who is dealing with nerve problems from a compressed spine involving the L4 and L5 vertebra. Earlier this year, he told me that the problem stems from an accident he had in a modified in either 1990 or 1991.

Time to move on to Johnson.

Johnson made a wild move to get the lead on lap 31 of the 35-lap modified feature. Going into the second turn, he was behind both CG Morey and Neil Stratton, who were looking for a way around Ryan Stortini, who was trying not to go a lap down. Coming out of the second turn, Johnson went so far to the inside that he appeared to be off the racing surface entirely. But he got by all three cars, managed to get back on the racing surface before getting to the inside barrier in turn three and went on to the win.

“That was an old-school Marc Johnson move,” he said with a smile after the race. “The way the track played out, we had to have the bottom. Guys just weren’t making it on the top. That’s why I didn’t want to leave the bottom.”

There was another reason. “I was kicking myself in the ass all week for leaving the bottom last week,” he said. “It cost me a couple of spots because I got greedy.”

Two weeks ago, DeLorenzo nipped Johnson at the finish line for fifth place. Johnson has finished second, sixth and first in his three modified starts this season.

I’m sure his on-track performance has been enhanced by a different attitude this year.

“I own everything myself now,” he said of his Friday night racing program. “Now I do exactly what I want to. That’s the way it used to be.”

He was also quick to give credit to his newest sponsor, Jamie Scott’s Auto Center. “A huge thanks to Jamie Scott,” said Johnson. “He’s helped us out a ton this year.”

As good as Johnson’s backstretch move was, Hartman Jr.’s drive to the front was even a little more jaw-dropping. On a restart on lap 17, Hartman Jr. lined up fifth. As soon as starter Rich Petersen dropped the green flag, Hartman Jr. took off, and had the lead by the first turn. Here’s how he saw it.

“I hoped that they would start far enough outside that (Michael) Wagner-Fitzgerald would spin his tires,” Hartman Jr. said. “I had the car pointed in the right direction, and that worked. Then it looked like the leaders (Scott Towslee and Connor Crane) were going to wreck each other on the front stretch. They gave me a hole and I got through it and went into (turn) one with the lead.”

Hartman Jr. also had his second two-fer of the season, as he won Saturday night’s sportsman feature at Lebanon Valley Speedway. Whitney Slavin crossed the finish line first, but failed post-race tech, giving the victory to Hartman Jr. His Friday night win also earned him the Madsen Overhead Doors Back-to-Back bonus, which was worth $250.

MORE FROM MALTA

Among the modified drivers who didn’t qualify for last Friday night’s feature was Ronnie Johnson. But he did finish third in the 358 Shootout.

Kris Vernold, who picked up his first career Albany-Saratoga win last season, made his 2024 debut Friday night, but tangled with the inside Jersey barrier during his heat race and did enough damage to sideline him for the night.

Andrew Buff, the 2023 sportsman champion at Malta, has moved up to the 358 modifieds this year and made his return to Albany-Saratoga last weekend for the DiCarlo Shootout. He easily won his heat and finished sixth in the feature.

Kolby Schroder, a Lebanon Valley regular who said earlier this season that he wants to race at Malta as often as he can this year, followed Marc Johnson across the finish line last Friday for his best career finish at Malta. The next night, he also finished second at Lebanon Valley, falling victim to a last-lap pass by Brett Haas. Schroder, who has been racing modifieds fulltime at the Valley since 2012, made his first career start at Albany-Saratoga in last year’s Malta Massive Weekend Super DIRTcar Series race, finishing 18^th.

The modifieds will be competing for $3,000 to win at Malta on Friday, while both the sportsman and pro stocks winners will receive $1,000 through sponsorship from Crane’s Outdoor Power Equipment.

AROUND THE TRACKS

Stewart Friesen, who sat in victory lane at Albany-Saratoga Speedway on opening night, won Wednesday night’s Diamond State 50 at Delaware International Speedway, leading all 50 laps. Following him across the finish line were two former Albany-Saratoga champions, Anthony Perrego and Mike Mahaney.

Friesen has only run a dozen dirt modified races this season, but Wednesday night’s win was his fourth of the year, and he also has a second-place finish.

Fire Swamp pulled off a big upset last weekend, winning the season-opening Matty B. Memorial at Devil’s Bowl, taking home the top prize of $3,200. Albany-Saratoga fans will remember Swamp, who ran some early-season sportsman races at Albany-Saratoga in 2021.

Former Albany-Saratoga champion Dave Camara has come out of retirement and will be running at the Bowl on a regular basis. He finished fifth last weekend, after starting 18^th, carrying sponsorship from Cloud Nine Cannabis. The car Camara is driving has a throwback wrap designed after the small block he raced in 2001, the second straight year he won the title at Malta

Congratulations to another former Albany-Saratoga champion, Josh Coonradt, who already has two limited sportsman victories under his best in 2024. Coonradt moved from the pro stocks to the sportsman division last fall and looks like a force to be reckoned with in his DKM chassis.