~ By Tom Boggie

It’s Labor Day Weekend, and if you adhere to DIRT rules, like Albany-Saratoga Speedway does, point races in the modified, sportsman and pro-stock divisions will end this weekend.

It’s been an unusual year, with the COVID-19 pandemic throwing a monkey wrench into Northeast dirt track racing, but Friday night’s card at Albany-Saratoga Speedway will be the 11th of the season, nowhere near the 26 racing nights that were held in 1982, but a season is a season, regardless of the number of weeks it entails.

Mike Mahaney, in his second full season of driving for George Huttig in the Adirondack Auto 35, has a 24-point lead over defending champion Marc Johnson in the race for the modified championship. I had a nice talk with Huttig last week, as we reminisced about the old days of the Champlain Valley Racing Association and the new state of dirt track racing. “We started coming here in the early ’80s,” said Hutting. “I can’t believe it’s been that long.”

It has, George. Hutting and Mike Perrotte first started racing at Albany-Saratoga Speedway in 1986, and Perrotte recorded his first of 18 career wins at Malta on June 13 of that year. His last win came on June 8, 2012, the first year Howie Commander took over operation of the track.

Mahaney won the first modified feature of the season this year, and then sat in second place in the point standings, behind Stewart Friesen, until July 24, when Friesen missed a race because he was competing in the NASCAR Gander RV Truck Series. Mahaney has been on top of the standings ever since.

Twenty-four points might seem like a lot, but in a 30-car field, anything can happen in the blink of an eye. Mahaney already has first-hand knowledge of that fact, as he narrowly escaped disaster last week after getting caught up in a multi-car tangle in the first turn after a restart on lap 4. He slammed into the rear end of Ronnie Johnson’s car, but the damage wasn’t enough to put the Adirondack Auto 35 out for the night. After a pit stop to have the damage checked, Mahaney came back to finish seventh, keeping him in the lead.

In the sportsman division, Tim Hartman Jr. has a 42-point lead over Connor Cleveland and only needs to take the green flag in the feature to win his second title. I really like the irony surrounding this discussion, because the Hartman Racing Team had packed up its pit sign at the end of 2019 and said they wouldn’t be back at Albany-Saratoga in 2020, upset with what they felt was a bias on the part of track officials toward the team.

I remember walking into the back of the Hartman Racing Team trailer before the second race of the 2020 season, and saying I thought they weren’t coming back.

“I got outvoted,” said Tim Hartman Sr. Hartman Jr. explained that he had had dinner with Albany-Saratoga promoter Lyle DeVore during the winter, and they had ironed out their problems. Also, because of the coronavirus, “We needed someplace to race on Friday nights, and this is close to home,” Hartman Jr. said.

It looks like that decision paid off.

Moving on to the pro-stock division. I really thought this one was over two weeks ago, when Luke Horning opened up a 26-point lead over defending champion Josh Coonradt. But last week, continuing with the anything can happen at anytime theme, Horning got caught up in a melee in the fourth turn with two laps to go in the feature, and pulled into the pits. His 14th-place finish, coupled with Coonradt’s runner-up finish behind Nick Stone, pulled Coonradt even with Horning at 534 points going into Friday night’s race.

Point races in the limited sportsman, street stock and four-cylinder divisions will end on Sept 11.

OKTOBERFAST
DIRTcar officials announced the formation of the six-race OktoberFAST, which will be held in place of Super DIRT Week, earlier this week. The six-race series will begin at Albany-Saratoga on Tuesday, Oct. 6 and then will stop at Utica-Rome on Oct. 7, Fulton on Oct. 8, Can-Am on Oct. 9, Land of Legends on Oct. 10 and end at Weedsport on Oct. 11. Details and purse structures are still being worked out, but modifieds will be running all six nights, probably in 100-lap features. For the opener at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, sportsman and pro stocks will also be on the racing card.

The Oct. 6 racing date will be one of the latest in the history of the Malta track. The latest date was Oct. 18, 2009, when Bruce Richards took three weeks off following the regular season to scrape the dirt off the track and reveal the original asphalt in preparation for the 2010 campaign. Matt DeLorenzo won the Asphalt Assault on Oct. 18th.

One of the other October dates was Oct. 3, 1982, when C.D. Coville won the final race of the season.

THEY SAID IT
Nick Stone, after his fourth pro stock win of the season last Friday at Albany-Saratoga. “I didn’t feel like I had the fastest car, but I felt like I made good decisions on the restarts.”

Hutting, on watching Stewart Friesen race. “He’s like a jockey on a race horse. He really works it. If it needs a little more whip, he gives it a little more whip.”

Scott Bennett Jr., after his first career limited sportsman win at Albany-Saratoga. “After the last couple of weeks we’ve had, for us to be here, this is amazing. My crew have been killing themselves in the garage.”

DeLorenzo, who started 22nd in last week’s modified field but finished fifth. “It’s better than going backwards.”

AROUND THE TRACKS
DeLorenzo had overheating problems during last Friday’s feature. “Someone went out with a tire wrap on, and it sucked into my radiator,” said DeLorenzo. “On the lap 19 restart, I looked down and saw the temperature was 230, and said, ‘That’s not good.”

Rocky Warner was behind the wheel of Jason Simmons’ modified, which is usually piloted by Tyler Thompson, last Friday. That gave Warner the coveted Bicknell-big block combination for the night, but a series of problems, which began with an incident with JaMike Sowle in their heat race, kept Warner from getting a good feel for the big block.

Demetrios Drellos recorded his second win of the year at Devil’s Bowl last Sunday, winning the 54-lap Charlie Laduc Memorial and earning a guaranteed starting spot in Sunday’s Vermont 200, which will pay $7,500 to win, plus lap money. In the event of rain, the Vermont 200 will be run on Monday. Also at the Bowl, Montgomery Tremont finished third in the limited sportsman feature, the best finish of his young career.

The modifieds will be running for $3,000 to win at Albany-Saratoga Friday night, and DeVore announced at a pit meeting last Friday that the Sept. 11 card will include a 50-lap modified feature, paying $5,000 to win.

Anthony Perrego, who picked up the modified win at Albany-Saratoga two weeks ago, made his first start of the year at Thunder Mountain last Saturday and won the open modified feature. Warner was eighth in the DIRTcar 358 feature.

Friesen, who finished fifth at St. Louis last weekend, will be running a throwback paint job on the Halmar/Friesen truck when the NASCAR series swings into Darlington on Sunday. Friesen’s paint scheme will be red and white, a tribute to the colors his grandfather Stan ran on his 1936 coupe he campaigned during the 1970s around the Northeast.