~ By Tom Boggie

If you weren’t sitting in the grandstands (or watching on Dirt Track Digest TV), you missed a heck of a modified feature at Albany-Saratoga Speedway last Friday. Peter Britten started 15^th, worked his way to the front and used some backmarkers to get around leader Demetrios Drellos with two laps to go in the 35-lap, all green-flag feature.

That’s the condensed version. But there were a couple of factors that played prominent roles in the outcome of the race.

First, there was the track.

After preparing the racing surface, promoter Lyle DeVore came back up in the control tower and mentioned to me that he had “slowed down” the track. He said that a couple of modified drivers had told him during the week that the opening-night surface was too fast (of course it was, it rained all day!). So in prepping the track for last Friday, he took some of the bite out of it (don’t ask me how – track prep isn’t my area of expertise).

Drellos said after the race that he definitely felt the difference.

“He (DeVore) slowed it down a lot,” Drellos said. “That’s not the way I like it. I like it when you can pull sliders and make big moves. I just think it’s better racing that way.”

Second, the backmarkers.

I hate using that term. It conjures up a bunch of slow cars that won’t get out of the way.

Anyone who’s watched a modified feature at Albany-Saratoga knows it helps to start up front. While the leaders get away cleanly, the drivers farther back in the pack are usually running side-by-side, nose-to-tail, looking for racing room. If the race doesn’t have an early caution, it’s not uncommon for the leaders to catch the tail end of the pack after about 15 laps.

That’s what happened to Drellos, who started fifth last Friday. He caught the field on lap 14, and spent the rest of the race in heavy traffic.

But he couldn’t make a lot of progress, because everyone was running at about the same speed. He had to pick off cars one by one, and some drivers were harder to get by than others. It took Drellos a couple of laps to get around Justin Stone, and while Britten was running out in no-man’s land on the far outside, Drellos found his path blocked by Garrett Poland with two to go. That’s when Britten made his move.

“What was I going to do? Try a new line when I was leading the race?” asked Drellos.

Britten was running so far outside that the “slower” cars never saw him coming. The only car running the top that gave him any problem was Kolby Schroder, and Britten quickly ducked to the inside, and went right back to the top without losing a lot of momentum to make that crucial pass.

By running so high, Britten was able to sneak up on Drellos, as well.

“I didn’t want him to know I was out there,” Britten said. “I didn’t want to give him a chance to try to block me.”

Here are some facts to mull over. Of the 28 cars that started the feature, 27 finished (Ryan McCartney dropped out after 10 laps).

Twenty-one of the 27 cars ran the entire 35 laps; the remaining six were one lap down. That means that Drellos was able to get past just six cars in the final 21 laps, after catching the tail end of the field on lap 14.

Here’s why I don’t like the term backmarkers. Look at finishing positions 18, 19 and 20. Mike Mahaney, Keith Flach and Jack Speshock, separated by eight-tenths of a second. Mahaney started 20^th, Flach started 21^st and Speshock started 23rd.

So when Drellos says, “Basically, you’ve got 30 cars out here, running the same speed, when the track is like it was tonight” – he’s not exaggerating.

THE JET IS BACK

Prior to the heat races, I stopped to talk with Brett Hearn, who has come out of retirement to run a part-time schedule this year.

“I always liked this place,” said Hearn, the winningest driver in the history of Albany-Saratoga. “We can’t be here every week, but I’ll see how the spring goes and where the fun meter is.”

Hearn finished ninth on opening night, but was only 16^th last week, after starting 12^th.

Talking about his opening-night performance, Hearn said, “I felt good. It felt like we were still coming at the end. I just have to get a little better early.”

Opening night marked the first time Hearn had raced at Malta since Oct. 6, 2020, when he finished 20^th in the DIRTcar OktoberFAST race.

Hearn is an eight-time modified champion at Albany-Saratoga, and sits on top of the all-time modified win list with 136 victories.

MORE FROM MALTA

To set the record straight, Tim Hartman Jr.’s sportsman win last Friday was the 40^th of his career at Albany-Saratoga. He backed that up with an opening-night win at Lebanon Valley on Saturday, and if my numbers are accurate, the win at the Valley was the 89^th of his career.

It looks like DeVore won’t have any trouble filling a modified field this season. Erik Mack, a two-time sportsman winner last season, and Tommy D’Angelo have made the move up to modifieds, joining Chris Bisson, Brendon Darrah and Poland, who made the move late in the 2023 campaign. David Schilling has joined the Friday night crowd, and Josh Masterson ran the first two events, although it’s unclear if he’ll be racing two nights a week when Devil’s Bowl opens this weekend.

Mahaney looked like he was in for a long night last Friday when he slowed during hot laps and had to be towed back to the pits. “It was a brake issue,” he said. “The shutoff valve locked up.”

While many of the Albany-Saratoga regulars are just getting their seasons under way, Friday night’s race was Britten’s 10^th this season, after running seven races in Florida during February. “The more prepared you are, the better off you’re going to be,” he said after his first win of the year.

Britten wasn’t the only driver who passed a lot of cars last Friday night. Jack Lehner finished fourth, after starting 13^th. Lehner had just four top-five finishes during the entire 2023 campaign.

Maynard Forrette once told me that if I didn’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything. So I’ll keep my feelings about the RUSH late models appearance at Albany-Saratoga to myself.

AROUND THE TRACKS

Andy Bachetti picked up the opening-night big block modified win at Lebanon Valley last weekend, while former Albany-Saratoga modified champion Anthony Perrego took home $10,000 for his win at Big Diamond.

Friday night’s card at Albany-Saratoga will include the first leg of the DiCarlo Auto Parts 358 Shootout. That means there will be four divisions that look exactly the same. Oh, wait. Forrette told me not to say anything bad. The sportsman will be competing for $1,000 to win through sponsorship by Saratoga Masonry Supply, and Michael’s Automotive will be sponsoring the $1,000 to win pro stock feature.

Glen Ridge Motorsports Park will kick off its 2024 campaign Sunday. The Ridge has added the RUSH late models as a weekly division this season.