~ By Tom Boggie

Victory lane interviews are usually pretty predictable.

Ask a driver why he wound up in victory lane, and he’ll probably say a good starting position made the difference, or he got his good motor back, or his shock guy put together a good package for him.

But last Friday at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, it was a little different. After recording his first modified win of the season, Jack Speshock gave credit to … literature. That’s right. Speshock, a graduate of Auburn University, said a book helped him get the win.

The book he cited was “Inner Excellence,” written by Jim Murphy. In a promo for the book, it states, “Discover the mental training system that has developed world champions.”

“Inner Excellence, a great book,” said Speshock after his win. “It teaches you to keep your head in the game, to stay in the present.”

That philosophy certainly worked last Friday. Midway through the 35-lap feature, Speshock lost the No. 2 position to Ronnie Johnson coming out of the fourth turn and then brushed the wall, forcing him to scrub off even more speed.

But, as the book said, he kept his head in the game, and then got around both Johnson and leader Brian Calabrese in the last five laps of the race to get the victory.

“When Ronnie went by me and then I hit the wall, I started to panic,” said Speshock. “But then I told myself to just stay focused, to take it one lap at a time and pretty soon, I was right back in it.”

Speshock was really wound up on the top and when he got by Johnson on lap 31, was all over Calabrese for the next couple of laps before getting the lead with a slide job in the fourth turn on lap 33.

“He (Calabrese) kept climbing up in four and I even hit him a couple of times,” said Speshock. “But I had such a head of steam on top, I wasn’t going to give it up, and it worked out.”

NFL fans will recognize “Inner Excellence.” That was the book that Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was caught on camera reading on the sidelines during the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs last February. Commentators made jokes about him reading on the sidelines during a game, but obviously, he was just trying to keep focused.

It worked for him, and it worked for Speshock last Friday.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS

Albany-Saratoga crowned its modified, sportsman and pro stock champions last Friday. Mike Mahaney won his second modified title, Tim Hartman Jr. picked up No. 6 in the sportsman class and Pete Stefanski won his first pro stock crown.

Going into the modified feature, Mahaney knew he just had stay out of trouble and follow Marc Johnson around the track to win the championship. Because they started side-by-side in the seventh row of the starting grid, that made his job even easier. Mahaney finished sixth, just one spot behind Johnson, and won the title by 11 points.

“Since we started next to each other, I just wanted to keep him in sight,” said Mahaney after the race. “If I could have gotten by him, I would have, but he had the speed to stay ahead of me.”

It won’t be hard to Mahaney to remember the year of his second title, as it was also the year that his son Emjay was born.

“This championship means so much,” Mahaney said. “George (car owner George Huttig) gives us great cars and without him, I wouldn’t be able to do this. Last week, I think I might have understated somewhat how important the championship is. We’ve been focused on it all year. Not a weekend went by that I didn’t try to get as good a finish as I could. I wanted to win this in the worst way.”

Winning championships should be pretty routine for Hartman Jr., but he was still excited, and in a joking mood, last Friday, even though he only ran three laps of the sportsman feature. He was involved in a wreck on the fourth lap and officially finished 27^th..

“I didn’t want to go through tech,” he joked after posing for pictures holding up the 2025 track champion poster. “After all we’ve been through this year, I figured they’d keep me in tech all night.

“About three weeks ago, I finished 12^th, I think Joey (Scarborough) was 11^th (he actually had finished seventh) and Zach (Buff) was back in the pack. I thought, whichever guy gets his head out of his ass first is going to win the championship. I guess I was that guy.”

I poked my head into Stefanski’s car as he waited to be teched, and found out that he’s a man of few words.

When I asked him if he had planned on running the entire season at Malta, he just said, “No.” Pressed further, he explained that he “didn’t want to be behind the 8-ball when the (DIRTcar Pro Stock) Series began.”

The series was scheduled to begin on May 23 at Malta, but was rained out. But from the first week of the season up to May 23, Stefanski had a fourth and three straight wins, which convinced him to keep making the approximate five-hour trip to Malta from his home in Wheatfield, which is about 15 miles north of Buffalo.

Although Stefanski got the championship, Phil Difiglio has to get the assist. On the weekend of May 30, Stefanski skipped racing at Albany-Saratoga because his daughter was getting married. He recruited Difiglio as a substitute driver, with any points Difiglio garnered going to Stefanski.

Difiglio finished 14^th in a 15-car field that night, but he added 30 points to Stefanski’s total. Stefanski wound up beating Kim Duell by 24 points for the title.

“I’ve known Phil for a couple of years,” said Stefanski “He’s a great guy.”

It remains to be seen if Stefanski comes back in 2026 to defend his title.

“The drive doesn’t really bother me,” he said. “I’ll go anywhere to race. But it’s expensive to come here every week.”

Felix Roy, who was a regular at Albany-Saratoga for the first time this season, finished third in the final leg of the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Shootout Series last Friday and won the championship in the series.

“It’s been fun racing against a field like this all year,” said Roy after the race. “I had a fast hot rod all year. I was able to pull out wins the first two weeks, and after that, we had consistent runs. I’m happy to be the champion here.”

Roy was joined in the victory lane celebration by his grandfather, who helped set up the deal that put Roy in the Elmo’s Speed big block for the 2025 season.

MORE FROM MALTA

In the last three weeks, Calabrese has been involved in some wild modified features at Malta, but has yet to get his first modified win.

“I’m not frustrated,” he said after his third-place finish last Friday. “I had a winning car, but the tire chunked up. If the tire didn’t go, I think I would have won it. When you’re leading the race and pulling hard, you don’t want to back down because you don’t know how close anyone is to you. I probably wore out the tire. It didn’t look like Jack even touched his.”

Elliot Lussier finally joined his brother Nick on the all-time sportsman win list at Malta, leading flag-to-flag to record his first career victory. “Everything I’ve touched in life, I’ve been able to conquer, but not this,” said Lussier in victory lane. “I can’t even believe it. I’m so excited.”

He also took a minute to thank his brother Ben. “Most people don’t even know my other brother Ben. He’s the middle brother and runs the shop with me. When I leave at 3 o’clock on a Friday to come to the track, Ben is the one who stays at the shop and keep things running smoothly.”

Hats off to Justin Stone, who finished third in the modified points race. He was easily the most improved driver in the division this season.

Albany-Saratoga will the sight of another big show Friday, highlighted by the third annual Upstate Chevy Dealers Autism Awareness Night, with the pro stocks competing for a top prize of $10,064. The sportsman were originally going to get the night off, but have been put back on the racing card. There’s also a slight schedule change, with the four-cylinders hitting the track first, at 6:45 p.m.

The modified field at Malta might be missing a couple of big names, because there’s also a Super DIRTCar Series race running at Can-Am Speedway on Friday.

AROUND THE TRACKS

Wow. I’ve got to go back to last Thursday for this recap.

L.J. Lombardo took home the top prize of $15,500 by winning the 100-lap Super DIRTcar Series Mr. Dirt Track USA race at Lebanon Valley. In the accompanying Mr. Crate Track USA sportsman race, Hartman Jr. recorded his 100^th career win with car owner Mike Parillo. Hartman Jr. then locked up his second straight track title on Saturday night.

Eddie Marshall won Saturday’s big block feature at the Valley. The 67-year-old Marshall has been racing at the Valley for 46 years, with the last 43 In big blocks. Andy Bachett locked up the 2025 big block modified championship.

But the Valley has already canceled the Kings 200 weekend, which had been set for Friday and Saturday, because of a formidable forecast for rain. The Kings Weekend was going to be highlighted by a 200-lap feature for sportsman, which was going to pay $10,000 to win.

Matt Janczuk won the Vermont 200 at Devil’s Bowl for the third straight year last weekend, walking off with the top prize of $10,067 (Janczuk also earned a $200 bonus for setting fast time). Janczuk put together a last-minute deal for the 200, because he wasn’t sure if he’d be eligible to compete this year because he had moved up to modifieds at Utica-Rome early in the season. Janczuk was joined by two other invaders, Peyton Talbot and Cody McPherson, on the podium. The Vermont 200 drew a total of 67 cars.

Former Albany-Saratoga Speedway champion Demetrios Drellos had a rough weekend on the RUSH Late Model Series, finishing 13^th at Tri-City Speedway on Friday and 17^th at Tyler County Speedway in West Virginia last Sunday. Drellos fell from third to fourth in the overall point race and now leads Zach Carley, who had a pair of top-10 finishes last weekend, by just nine points in the battle for Rookie of the Year honors. The RUSH Series will be running at Winchester Speedway in Virginia on Saturday in a $5,000-to-win event.

Glen Ridge Motorsports Park also crowned its champions last weekend. Congratulations go out to Jordan McCreadie (358 modifieds), Zach Buff (sportsman) and Slater Baker (pro stocks).