The 4th Turn

~ By Tom Boggie

Back in the 1980s, when Jack Johnson was winning EVERYTHING (there will never be another year like 1984), there were times modified racing fans would get in my face and say, “Why don’t you write about someone else?”

Well, because I was working for a newspaper, and being totally objective, I was writing about a race, which Johnson just happened to win. So the headline and lead paragraph were going to be all about Jumpin’ Jack.

I’m glad that’s not the case now, because I’d be getting pretty tired of writing about Rocky Warner, Erick Rudolph or Tim Hartman Jr.

With that thought in mind, has anyone been paying attention to what Andrew Buff is doing this year?

On Sunday night at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park, the driver out of Latham finished second to Warner (geez, Rocky, there you go again, getting into the conversation) in the crate modified feature. That’s the fifth time this season that Buff, whose father Kevin was a top runner in the IMCA modified division at Fonda Speedway before climbing out of the car to oversee the career of his sons, has finished second at the Ridge. In four of those races, he followed “The Flying Squirrel” across the finish line; on the other, he was second to Joe Orlando.

Doesn’t Buff deserve an asterisk next to his name for finishing second four times to a driver who won his first race in 2002 and who has been to victory lane during Super DIRT Week in Syracuse three times? (Don’t forget, he never got to celebrate the sportsman win in 2015 because he wasn’t officially the winner until Tuesday of the following week.)

On Friday night, Buff has been more then holding his own in the sportsman division at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, which has to be one of the toughest fields of cars around, usually 30-strong. In 14 starts, Buff is winless, but has finished in the top five eight times, with four thirds, a fourth and three fifths. He’s sitting third in points, which puts him ahead of his preseason goal of finishing in the top five.

Buff is one of the few local drivers racing three nights a week (Quiet down, Rocky. I know you’re doing it, too), as the Buff family takes the Buff’s Auto Service sportsman to Fonda on Saturdays. Because of one horrible stretch in mid-season, he’s only 11^th in points. But he has finished in the top 10 in the last three features, including a fourth last weekend, and he did finish second to Brian Calabrese on June 2.

Buff made his debut in the limited sportsman division at Albany-Saratoga in 2014, chalking up five top-five finishes, including a pair of seconds. The next season, he made three trips to victory lane in that division, which earned him a promotion to the regular sportsman division.

He went winless in 2016, but finished ninth in points, and in 2017, he recorded his first career win at Albany-Saratoga on Aug. 4.

Last year, he visited victory lane twice, once at Albany-Saratoga and once at Glen Ridge. Both wins involved rain. On the night of his win at Albany-Saratoga, the sportsman feature was the only one that was run before the rest of the card was rained out. His win came at Glen Ridge came in a feature that was ended after 17 laps because of rain.

But because of his ability to bring the car back in one piece, he finished seventh in points at Albany-Saratoga, allowing him to raise the bar a little higher for this year.

Andrew’s brother Justin is also racing in the sportsman division at Albany-Saratoga this season, and while Andrew is still looking for his first win, Justin was declared the winner on May 31, when Derek Bornt, who was first under the checkered flag, was disqualified for failing postrace inspection. Justin had two limited sportsman wins last year before making the move up.

The winner is always going to get the headlines, but sometimes, it’s nice to be a little subjective, and root for the underdog.

LET’S NOT CELEBRATE

I’ve never seen a winner of a modified feature as depressed as Mike Mahaney was last Friday.

Mahaney was in victory lane after recording his second win of the season at Albany-Saratoga, but the expression on his face and tone of his voice were like someone had just told him his dog had died.

You see, Mahaney had blown one of his big blocks two days earlier at the Super DIRT Series race in Eldora (that was the fourth motor he’s lost this season), and the engine that Mahaney had in his car on Friday night died right after the race, forcing track officials to use a push truck to get Mahaney across the scales and to victory lane.

“I don’t know what it is,” Mahaney said of the rash of engine problems in the George Huttig-owned modified. “We’ve tried different systems, different products, but nothing seems to help. I really don’t know what to do. This is our last motor. Now, we’ve got to look at it and figure out what’s wrong before Monday.”

Monday was the Super DIRT Series race at Merrittville, and Mahaney was forced to drop a 358 engine in the Adirondack Auto-sponsored car so he could race. But DIRT mandates big blocks for its tour races, so after Mahaney finished 10^th on Monday, he only received one-half of the allotted points for that spot.

Rudolph won Monday’s 100-lapper. Local drivers competing included Peter Britten (eighth), Mahaney, Demetrios Drellos (19^th) and Jack Lehner (24).

The SDS race at Ransomville on Tuesday was rained out, and DIRTcar officials decided not to use the Wednesday rain date because of a forecast for more rain. It’s not known if the race will be rescheduled.

AROUND THE TRACKS

Warner did another double dip at the Ridge Sunday, winning both the crate modified and 358 modified features. “The Flying Squirrel” has now won 11 features at the Ridge, boosting his overall season total to 17. Car owner Jake Spraker is probably happy he didn’t decide to sell all of his equipment in the offseason.

Ken Tremont Jr. recorded his 136th career victory at Lebanon Valley Saturday night, but the highlight of the card had to be John Flach’s victory in the Mohawk Valley Vintage Dirt Modified Tour feature. Flach pulled one of his son J.C.’s old modifieds out of a warehouse, and dropped in a freshened small block that his son Keith ran during the 2005-06 season.

In case you missed it, Lebanon Valley pure stock driver Scott Morris of Connecticut is lucky to be alive after an incident at the track two weeks ago. After winning one of the pure stock features, Morris was back in the pits, watching the small block modified feature, when Sean Mandel crashed into the backstretch wall and debris from his car flew into the pits. A metal body brace pierced Morris in the chest, like an arrow, and left a 3/4 inch hole. Safety crews and EMTs at the track stopped the bleeding, and Morris was taken to a hospital, where he was examined and later released.

Chris Johnson finished 10^th in the modified feature at Albany-Saratoga Speedway last Friday. Why is that significant? Because it was just his second race with the modifieds, after spending most of the season in the sportsman division.

Brett Hearn officially abdicated the throne as the Albany-Saratoga Speedway modified champion Friday night. He pulled into the pits with a flat tire on lap six, but after his crew looked the car over, he parked it, officially finishing 29^th. He went into the night fourth in points, but dropped to seventh, 64 behind leader Matt DeLorenzo.

Scott Duell ended his long winless streak by taking the checkered flag in the sportsman feature at Malta last week. Duell hadn’t been to victory lane since July 14, 2017. He was happy he ended the streak on “John Grady Memorial Nostalgia Night.” “I’ll never forget when I brought my car here the first night, John took a picture of me,” Duell said. “He knew my dad, and that was the first time anyone took a picture of my car. To win tonight is pretty cool.”

Chris Grady did a heck of a job putting together the second annual Nostalgia Night in honor of his late father. A lot of the drivers from yesteryear turned out for Nostalgia Night. The group included Flach, Dave Leckonby, Jack Cottrell, Nick Ronca, Dick Larkin, Brian Ross, Billy Greco (who won the first feature at Malta in 1965), Win Slavin, C.D. Coville, Wes Moody and Andy Romano.

Bodie Bellinger was back behind the wheel of a car Friday for the first time since being injured in an ATV accident in April. He finished 17^th.

The CRSA sprints will be making their only appearance of the year at Albany-Saratoga Speedway Friday. Former modified driver Jeff Trombley comes into the race with a 72-point lead over Darryl Ruggles in the battle for the series championship. Seven different drivers have won CRSA features this season, with Trombley the only two-time winner (Canandaigua and Afton).

Devil’s Bowl Speedway will be holding the 50-lap “Battle at the Bowl” big block/small block challenge on Sunday. The feature will pay $10,000 to win, and is expected to draw most of the top drivers in the Northeast, including Stewart Friesen, whose Halmar 44 modified appears on the Devil’s Bowl home page (the race is a fund raiser for Autism Awareness, so it’s only natural to have Friesen’s car displayed). There will be a very unique qualifying format. After time trials and heats, there will be two 25-lap qualifiers, one for big blocks and one for small blocks. Each will pay $1,500 to win, and the top 10 finishers advance to the 50-lapper. Drivers can enter both qualifiers, if they have both a big block and a small block, and then will choose which car to run in the feature, if they finish in the top 10 in both qualifiers.

The top 12 starting spots for “Battle at the Bowl” will be determined through one-on-one elimination races between the top six finishers in each qualifier. There will also be a consolation race to determine the final four starters for the 24-car field for the feature.