~ By Tom Boggie

One of the first lessons you learn as a journalist is that there’s no cheering in the pressbox.

Sportswriters are supposed to be impartial observers, reporting what they see, not how they feel. So, no rooting in the pressbox.
But now that I don’t play by the rules anymore, I really wanted to see Ronnie Johnson win Tuesday night’s DIRTcar OktoberFAST at Albany-Saratoga Speedway.

I’ve known Ronnie since he was a kid hanging around his father’s garage. In fact, one of the first feature stories I wrote when I started working at the Schenectady Gazette was about his father, Jack. Jack had won the Schaefer 200 at Syracuse the previous October, and I wanted to do a story about Jumpin’ Jack’s racing career as a preview to the 1980 racing season.

So, Ronnie and I go back a long way.

And 2020 hasn’t been a typical Ronnie Johnson season. Constantly trying to get the right setup on the Bicknell chassis after making a switch from TEOs during the winter, Ronnie struggled. After finishing third in the first race of the season at Albany-Saratoga, he had just one other top-five finish, on Aug. 7, heading into OktoberFAST.

When Ronnie drew the pole, I thought Tuesday was going to be his night. After all, that’s how Demetrios Drellos won last year’s Super DIRT series race at Albany-Saratoga, leading all 100 laps from the pole, and Ronnie only had to get through 60.

And with 10 laps to go, I still thought Ronnie was finally going to get his first win of the year at Albany-Saratoga. He had been rim-riding the entire race, and Anthony Perrego had been hounding him from the bottom groove, but the top still looked like the place to be.

But 10 laps can be an eternity and in those final 10 laps, Ronnie got just loose enough to really open up the bottom. Perrego got a big run coming out of the second turn and then pulled off a perfect slide job coming out of four to get the lead heading to the white flag, and track champion Mike Mahaney also got by on the bottom on the final lap, dropping Ronnie to third.

If it had been a 58-lap race, Ronnie would have had a win. Instead, he was third.

“I thought I could hold him (Perrego) off,” Johnson said after the race. “But it just wasn’t sticking the way it was early on.”

Although the 2020 season is just about over, Johnson thinks he may have finally found a winning combination.

“We went to Canandaigua last week and tried some stuff, and got a top-five finish,” he said. “We came here with the same stuff tonight and the car seemed to be better.”

In fact, if you wanted to measure levels of disappointment, Mahaney seemed more discouraged by finishing second than Johnson did about finishing third, even though Mahaney had to overcome an 11th starting position.

“Tonight was kind of like our whole season. Steady and real strong, but coming up a little short,” Mahaney said.

Mahaney had to ride the George Huttig-owned Bicknell hard to get into contention, but once he got up to third, he became little more than a spectator.

With the first 24 laps being run under green, Mahaney worked his way up to fifth, but it took him another 10 laps just to gain two more positions.

“The cautions didn’t fall the way we needed,” he said. Mahaney dropped back to fourth, losing the No. 3 spot to Ken Tremont Jr. on lap 42, but Mahaney got around Tremont on lap 53 and sat helplessly in third until the final lap.

“They (Johnson and Perrego) were racing each other so hard,” he said. “It’s tough to make a move when they’re two-wide in front of you. There was nothing in the middle. You either had to run the top or the bottom.”

Mahaney changed his color scheme for Tuesday night’s race, switching to a black-and-pink wrap for breast cancer awareness. The car also included a “Keep fighting, Maryann” message for Maryann Monaco, the daughter of one of Mahaney’s sponsors.

“Professor” Tremont was happy with a top-five finish. When I stated he had a good run, he joked, “I can still get one or two a year.”
“We were right there,” said Tremont. “It just got snugged up enough that I had to slow down in the corners near the end.”

Like Johnson, he said that getting the right setup on his Bicknell chassis is a constant struggle.

“Shocks and springs,” he said. “It’s all about shocks and springs. There’s so much new technology now. Everybody has good equipment, so it’s hard to make up ground on someone, and then it’s hard to pass. It’s not like the old days, where someone like Will Cagle would get inside you, push you up and he would go by. It’s all about finesse and corner speed.”

Tremont had some momentum going into OktoberFAST, as he was coming off his first win of the season at Devil’s Bowl in the Fall Foliage run-whatcha-brung race for sportsman/modifieds. Tremont had a four-foot-high Lexan sheet attached to the side of his car, making it look a lot like the Hutting-owned car Mike Perrotte drove to a run-whatcha-brung victory at Albany-Saratoga Speedway in 2003.

MORE FROM OKTOBERFAST
How tough was it to qualify for the 60-lap modified feature? Among the drivers who didn’t make the field were Lebanon Valley champion Andy Bachetti, Fonda champion Mike Maresca and Don Ronca. Ronca had the worst luck. After a false start in the second consi, he suffered a flat right rear tire while the field was under caution and had to duck into the pits for a new tire. That put him at the rear of the field and he never had a chance.

Marcus Dinkins didn’t even make it through time trials. He caught the berm in the third turn and flipped his car. The same cushion caught Rocky Warner during his heat race, but the Flying Squirrel never got up and over. But the incident did drop him into one of the two consis.

Stewart Friesen had an un-Friesen-like night. He started on the front row of his heat race, but got spun around going into the first turn and was then hit hard by Peter Britten. Friesen quickly went to the pits, but when he came back out, the field was already taking the green and he was half-a-track behind. With two laps to go, Friesen brought out the yellow when he slowed dramatically, but I think that might have been his strategy. Now tucked in at the rear of the field, he was able to pass three cars in the last two laps to get the final qualifying spot. But that put him 20th on the starting grid for the feature, and he was only able to work his way to 12th. I wouldn’t be surprised if that hit by Britten did enough damage to upset the handling of the Halmar car.

A total of 55 sportsman were in the pits Tuesday, with many making the long haul from the outer reaches of Western New York to race for $1,000 to win.

AROUND THE TRACKS
The second race of the six-race OktoberFAST series was rained out Wednesday night at Utica-Rome Speedway.

Glen Ridge Motorsports Park isn’t done yet. Officials announced this week that a Halloween Havoc racing card will be held on Oct. 16-17. The Friday portion will include the regular divisions, while the Saturday card will be highlighted by an enduro and demolition derby. Check the track’s Facebook page for details.

Looking back at last weekend’s racing, Maresca made the long haul to Lernerville Speedway in Pennsylvania and won the DIRT modified race there, while Mat Williamson won the second night of the Fall Nationals at Brockville in Canada and walked out with $9,600. According to reports, that racing card ended at 3 a.m.

Tremont’s win at Devil’s Bowl was the 89th of his career at that track and was also the 100th career victory as an owner for Ken Tremont Sr., who has been taking cars to the Bowl since it opened.

The open competition show also included an unlimited open division. Floyd Billington was first in a sprint car; his son Travis was second, also driving a sprint car; Jim Introne Jr. was third in a small block; and track champion Drellos was fourth in a big block.

Even though Albany-Saratoga Speedway’s season is now over, there’s still a lot of racing ahead (anyone want to go to Louisiana in November?), and I’ve always got something to say. So keep checking back for The 4th Turn.