Preece Captures Third Consecutive Win at Riverhead

Barbara and Jim Cromarty may have their name on the title to Riverhead Raceway, but it is clearly Ryan Preece who owns that track. Preece scored his third straight NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory at the Long Island quarter-mile, becoming just the second driver to do that in 53 Tour races at Riverhead. Mike Ewanitsko is the only other driver to accomplish that feat.

“I’m in the record books,” said Preece. “And somebody else in order to do it has to race three straight to tie me and Mike so it’s pretty unbelievable. Riverhead has always been good to me. Three out of the last four quarter-mile tracks I’ve won so my percentage is looking pretty good.”

The Green Earth Technologies 200 was marred by caution flags, 13 to be exact, the slowed the pace of the race down to a 38.343 mph average speed.

Riverhead regular Timmy Solomito qualified on the pole for just his sixth Tour race with a lap of 11.849 seconds. Solomito was the only driver to make it into the 11-second bracket in qualifying. Solomito led a majority of the race until Preece got by him with 23 laps to go in turn four. Though he had lapped cars to battle it was pretty much smooth sailing for the final 20 laps for Preece who won by 2.314 seconds over second place finisher Justin Bonsignore.

“I don’t know if his car went away as he went,” said Preece. “But one time I got a really good run off the corner and I didn’t try to pass him and I saw where he was lifting. And he knew when I would take the corner wide that I was really trying to get under him and he was holding the bottom so I tried to set myself up and get a run halfway down the straightaway. That was my chance and I took it and we won the race. We did everything we needed to do tonight.”

The look on Solomito’s face after the race was a mix of happiness and disappointment. The 21-year-old led 176 laps at his home racetrack before falling to third place by the end of it.

“We tried as hard as we could and came up a little short,” said Solomito. “But if you told me at the beginning of the week that we would qualify on the pole, run up front and finish third I would have told you that you were kidding me.”

Preece extended his points lead over defending champion Doug Coby to 43 points with just three races remaining. Coby brought out the caution on lap 138 with a flat right front tire. He was then penalized one lap for intentionally bringing out the caution. He finished 14th.

Soper Wins Legends

Kyle Soper took down the victory in the 30-lap INEX Legends race. He started from the pole and led every single lap to score his second win of the season. His biggest challenge came from Brad Van Houten on a restart at the halfway point of the race, but Soper quickly took off.

“It was just our night this week,” said Soper. “This was awesome leading every lap and driving away with it.”

Jimmy White Jr. Declared Blunderbust Winner

Jack Handley Jr. crossed the finish line first at the end of a thrilling 30-lap Blunderbust race, but he was disqualified around midnight and the victory was given to Jimmy White Jr. who crossed the finish line second. Handley was deemed to have “illegal cylinder head modifications” according to track officials.

Tom Pickerell started the race from the pole position with Handley to his outside. The two battled hard all race long zipping in and out of lapped traffic all the while. Handley took a lot of damage to his left rear when Rob Bader took out Tommy Walkowiak in turn two. The damage didn’t slow Handley much as he charged back to Pickerell’s bumper before the race’s only caution came out with five laps to go.

With just two laps to go the leaders were trying to pass the lapped car of Tim Mulqueen who ended up spinning out right in front of them at the exit of turn two. Pickerell went high to try to miss Mulqueen and that ended up giving Handley the chance he needed to take the lead. Pickerell dropped from the lead to fifth.

“Lapped cars getting in the way and that’s what happens,” said Pickerell. “We’ll be back next week trying to race again.”

NWMT Green Earth Technologies 200 Results:

1. (3) Ryan Preece

2. (5) Justin Bonsignore

3. (1) Timmy Solomito

4. (11) Woody Pitkat

5. (2) Howie Brode

6. (6) Eric Goodale

7. (16) Rowan Pennink

8. (7) Ted Christopher

9. (12) Todd Szegedy

10. (9) Patrick Emerling

11. (8) Donny Lia

12. (10) Shawn Solomito

13. (23) Jamie Tomaino

14. (18)  Doug Coby

15. (20) Wade Cole

16. (19) Ron Yuhas Jr.

17. (26) Ed Flemke Jr.

18. (28) Glen Reen

19. (22) Gary McDonald

20. (14) Ken Heagy

21. (21) Bryon Chew

22. (24) Ron Silk

23. (27) Frank Vigliarolo

24. (4) John Beatty Jr.

25. (25) Bobby Santos

26. (15) Mike Stefanik

27. (17) Eric Berndt

28. (13) Cole Powell

Legends:

1. (1) Kyle Soper

2. (5) Brad Van Houten

3. (3) Richie Davidowitz

4. (4) Timmy Solomito

5. (2) Brendon Bock

6. (7) Kevin Nowak

7. (8) Kyle Ellwood

8. (9) Vinny Delaney

9. (6) Justin Strumpf

10. (10) Paul Dodorico

11. (11) Greg Harris

12. (12) Artie Pedersen III

13. (14) George Tomko Jr.

14. (13) Dylan Slepian

15. (22) Eric Hersey

16. (16) Tom Sherman

17. (18) Allan Pedersen

18. (21) Anthony Marsh

19. (20) Shawn Wanat

20. (24) Joe Sedotto

21. (28) Chris Rogers

22. (19) Mike Van Houten

23. (23) Steve Hersey

24. (25) Steve Smith

25. (15) Alex Urbina

26. (17) Christian Conklin

27. (27) Gary Molnar

Blunderbusts:

1. (7) Jimmy White Jr.

2. (4) Scott Maliszewski

3. (6) Tommy Walkowiak

4. (1) Tom Pickerell

5. (3) Bill Wegmann Jr.

6. (10) Bill Wegmann Sr.

7. (24) Brian Brown

8. (9) Tom Sullivan

9. (5) Joe Seeger

10. (13) Justin Wahl

11. (15) Tim Mulqueen

12. (8) Paul Parisi

13. (12) Johnny Cricchio

14. (20) Bryan Quilliam

15. (17) Bob Muller

16. (19) Gary Caldwell

17. (22) Jessica Cohan

18. (14) Brandon Hubbard

19. (18) Thomas Puccia

20. (21) Rob Duffus

21. (23) CJ Zuckowski

22. (16) Ron Langdon

23. (11) Rob Bader

24. (2) Jack Handley Jr.

 

Source: Rob Blount/LongIslandJam