Terry Guest
Special to The Record
It was Speed Night at Saratoga Speedway on Saturday as the Wilroc Lites, Dwarf cars and Old Timers made their last appearance of the 2016 season. The I.M.C.A Modifieds and the Bomber cars completed the Open Wheel night, with Thrifty Foods sponsoring all the fun.
Great weather over the past week made for excellent track conditions, and with that said, Chris Beaulieu set a Modified division track record; Kevin Noble (who no longer races) held the record for two years with a time of 15.065, but Beaulieu smashed that, breaking into the 14-second mark with a time of 14.941.
Great heat race action followed qualifying, with wins going to Troy Tarbuck, Murray Degraag, Matt May, Tim Openshaw, Jeff Montgomery and Gregg Sagmoen.
The first main event saw seven Old Timers take to the track for 18 laps. Tarbuck jumped into the lead on the first lap and was soon pressured by the rest of the field.
But Tarbuck would not be stopped as he held off the pack to take home his first-ever Old Timer main event at Saratoga.
Next up, five Bomber cars took to the track for their 18-lap main event. Degraag dominated once again, pulling away from the pack on the first lap and holding on to take home his first-ever Bomber car main event win.
Twenty laps were given to a nine-car Dwarf main; May, who dominated the heat earlier in the night, jumped out to an early lead once again and held it for the first 15 laps. But Mike Meeres was on May’s bumper and finally made his move around May then held on to take the win.
The final Wilroc Lite main event of the season had 11 cars take to the track for 35 laps. Points leader Montgomery quickly made fast work of the the slower cars, working his way into the lead on lap eight and pulling away from there, taking home yet another main event win.
The final feature of the night saw quite a few top cars taken out early. Dano Bryant and Ryan Monks were among the early departures, Bryant with a broken rear end and Monks with a blown motor.
After the track was clear, Beaulieu grabbed the lead and steered his rocket of a car to victory lane, taking home yet another main event win and pushing himself closer to the championship lead.
EXTRA LAPS This weekend Saratoga hosts the biggest Eve of Destruction night the Speedway has ever seen…Josh Beckel from the Crusher Car Stunt team will be back to put on yet another amazing jump show…when he was here in July he threw his car through a stack of three cars going over 100 mph..Josh has an even bigger show planned this time around…we will also have two monster trucks here to rip it up…Blown Income and Island Outlaw will be back, and this time they will be crushing two huge motor homes…the feature event will be the first-ever travel trailer race at Saratoga Speedway ….this is much like our usual boat race, but instead the boats are swapped out for travel trailers…now that’s gonna be a mess!…filling out the card will be the Galaxy Motors Mad Max cars, Crash to Pass cars, Hornets, Bombers and Roadrunners, who were added on for a rain out date …
