~ By Tom Boggie

First, we had “Free Willy,” a 1993 movie about a kid who wanted to free a killer whale from the aquarium of an ailing amusement park.

Now, we have #freezippy.

When Jack Lehner pulled into victory lane at Albany-Saratoga Speedway last Friday night, ending a victory drought that stretched back to 2021, most of his crew members were wearing black T-shirts that had #freezippy on the front. The back featured a faux mug shot of Zach Szurek, aka Zippy.

Here’s the back story. On May 10, Szurek was involved in an incident in the pits at Albany-Saratoga and as a result, was suspended for four races by promoter Lyle DeVore. In accordance with DIRTcar rules, Lehner, as the driver of the car, was put on probation for the remainder of the season.

So Lehner and the crew decided to have a little fun with it, had the T-shirts made up and probably made some good money selling them as souvenirs.

Lehner put on a heck of a show last Friday, coming from his 17^th starting spot to finally get back to victory lane. His first, and only other, win at Albany-Saratoga came on June 18, 2021.

Winning has never come easy for the extremely talented 25-year-old. Now in his eighth year in a modified, Lehner has three wins in 345 career starts. But he’s also fully aware of the competition he’s facing every time he gets on the track.

“It’s frustrating,” he said, “because the handicapping here is so brutal. If you’re running well, you have to start so far back that it’s tough to win.

“Running the Series (Super DIRTcar Series), you’re against the best of the best, so it’s hard to win there, too. I feel like I should be winning more, but I also understand why it’s so hard to win.”

Friday wasn’t really any easier, although he admitted after the victory that he had a little help from defending modified track champion Demetrios Drellos, who had started in front of Lehner, in 15^th.

“Drellos was making some big moves early, so I benefitted from that,” said Lehner.

A caution on lap 22 allowed Lehner to join the lead pack of Ronnie Johnson, Brett Hearn and Drellos, but it only took Lehner three laps to put his Benson’s Pet Center-sponsored modified into the lead for good.

“It seemed like I was the only one who could run the bottom,” said Lehner, who also has five runner-up finishes at Albany-Saratoga since moving up to modifieds. “The other guys were slipping around the top.”

The reason Lehner started 17^th in the feature is that he got too high in the fourth turn on lap two of the first heat race and slid into the concrete barrier, bringing out the caution and sending him to the rear. He got back up to finish fifth in the heat race (all heats were reduced to nine laps in tribute of Bob McCreadie, who had died earlier in the week), and only the top four finishers got handicapping spots.

Personally, I don’t think Lehner will have to wait another three years before he’s back in victory lane again, but in this game, patience is a virtue.

“Once you get a taste of it (success), you want more,” Lehner said. “I’m running well, but I want to get more wins.”

When I reminded him that the two best dirt track drivers in the Northeast (Matt Sheppard and Stewart Friesen) are in their 40s, he laughed and said, with a big smile, “I don’t want to wait that long.”

ROOTING INTEREST

I’ll admit it. I was rooting for Hearn to win Friday night’s feature. I wanted to be able to say I saw Brett Hearn’s final win.

Yes, I think his next win (if there is one) will be his last one. He’s not going to get many more opportune chances that he did last Friday, starting in the second row on a dry, slick track at a facility where he is the all-time win leader.

And running a parttime schedule isn’t a positive, either.

I knew that his tires probably prevented him from getting a win last Friday, and after the race, he showed me why. Two rows of tread on the right rear had started to chuck up, which hurt him late in the race, allowing both Lehner and Drellos to get past him.

“If I was running fulltime, we probably would have been paying more attention to tires and caught something like this before it happened,” he said.

The 65-year-old Hearn will be skipping Albany-Saratoga for the next couple of weeks as he prepares to co-promote “The Big Series” Nostalgia Night at Orange County Speedway on June 9. He’ll definitely return for the Don Davies Memorial NY Modifieds 76 on June 25, but after that, who knows?

MORE FROM MALTA

Pete Stefanski made the long haul from Western New York to Malta last Friday for the DIRTcar Pro Stock Series race, and had a very eventful night.

During his heat race, Stefanski made contact with Shane Henderson on the second lap, and went pit-side. He started 11^th in the B main, but two early cautions helped him climb to fifth, and he passed Jay Corbin on the last lap to win the B main, which put him 21^st on the starting grid for the 30-lap feature. He then suffered a flat right tire on lap 17 of the feature, but came back out and battled his way back to seventh.

DeVore tweaked his qualifying rules a little bit last week, adding guaranteed starters for both the modified and sportsman fields. Anyone in the top five in points who doesn’t qualify through the B mains in either division can now take a provisional starting spot.

Luke Horning always provides excitement, no matter where he races. In last Friday’s Pro Stock Series race, he was running the extreme outside and was fourth with 10 laps to go. He got around Jason Casey for third and then tried to work his way past Devon Camenga coming out of the fourth turn on lap 23. The two cars made contact coming out of the fourth turn and Horning bounced off the wall and shot across the track, into the infield. Casey missed slamming into Horning by a matter of inches. Casey finished second to Brandon Emigh, while Horning was credited with a 22^nd-place finish.

Cody Bleau’s sportsman win at Albany-Saratoga last Friday was the fourth time he’s visited victory lane at Malta, and the first time since Sept. 20 2016. He picked up his first career win on June 14, 2013.

Josh Coonradt made a successful return to Albany-Saratoga last Friday, winning his first career limited sportsman feature. After a successful career in street stocks, Coonradt won the pro stock championship at Albany-Saratoga in 2019 and then moved up to open-wheel cars late last year. He now has four wins in 2024, as he also picked up first career win at Glen Ridge on Sunday.

Is there anyone at Albany-Saratoga who is racing harder than Peter Britten is? Two weeks ago, he finished seventh after starting 28^th, and last week, he came from 24^th to finish fifth.

The second leg of the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Shootout Series will be held Friday. Matt DeLorenzo was the winner in the first race of the series. Both the sportsman and pro stocks will be competing for $1,000 to win.

AROUND THE TRACKS

Chalk up another sportsman win for Tim Hartman Jr. He’s now 4-for-4 at Lebanon Valley Speedway after last Saturday night’s victory in the Andrew Sherman Memorial, which paid $2,000 to win. Just how well is Hartman Jr. running at the Valley? He went from 12^th to fourth on the first lap last week and put his DKM chassis into the lead for good on lap five.

Did anyone else catch the completion of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro last Sunday? It looked like Friesen was in for another frustrating afternoon, but when the last yellow came out late in the race, he took a chance, went into the pits, got four fresh tires and charged up to finish 10^th, his first top-10 finish all season. But my question is, what was the deal with the backpack that one of the crew members pulled out of the truck during that pit stop?

Woo-wee, I’ve got a lot of respect for Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s right hand after he belted Kyle Busch after Sunday night’s NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro. But I was more impressed by Busch’s crew member who was shoving guys off the ramp of the trailer. He looked like The Mountain from “Game of Thrones.”

There probably weren’t a lot of fans at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park who knew who Kevin Stevens was when he pulled into the pits last Sunday. Stevens had never raced at the Ridge before, but he went on to record his first career 358 modified win. Most of Stevens’ racing in the past couple of years was done at Accord and Orange County.

Memorial Day weekend means a ton of racing. The Super DIRTcar Series will resume this weekend, racing at Weedsport on Sunday and then making its first stop ever at Thunder Mountain on Monday.

In the first three races of his comeback tour, Dave Camara has yet to finish out of the top five at Devil’s Bowl. He’ll be shooting for his first win again on Sunday, when the Bowl hosts the 100-lap, $5,000 to win Northeast Crate Nationals.

Speaking of Glen Ridge, I noticed that they’re running the RUSH late models once a month now. Oh well, running them on a weekly basis sounded like a good idea in the winter.