This Past Week At Delaware...a Fan's Eye View, June 7

Hello all and welcome once again to This Week @ Delaware (formerly known as the Shadow Report) I know its been a few weeks in coming but we're gonna try doing the Report once again. Firstly, to all the CRO faithful that are still reading, please please please "Share" this to your Facebook timeline. Just go up to the top here and click the blue F icon. And, if you're reading this after coming here from Facebook, please by all means sign up for a CRO handle and join in the discussion. We'd love some fresh faces and perspectives for our discussions!

If you're new to the report, a disclaimer: This report is a fan's-eye view of the races, from the cheap seats. It is not Delaware PR. I'm not employed by Delaware, and my reports are scribbled in a notebook, on my knee, from the grandstands. If you like the report, by all means share it on Facebook, or join our forum at www.canadianracingonline.com. (and my twitter feed is @ShadowracerDel...I do my best to get a few odd pics and comments out on race nights.) If you don't like the report, please let me know and I'll refund your purchase price. 😉 

Onward...

So we've had a few weather pains so far this year in 2013. Weather was iffy on opening night, it was darned cold the next week, it rained the week after...and this past Friday saw overcast skies too. The good news is, for those of us that came in spite of the cloud cover, that we were treated to the best show yet in 2013...and it didn't rain. On the card was FT Garage Late Models, a rained out Demar Aggregates Truck feature, our annual Delaware 4 Cylinder Invitational race, and this week's Truck feature with a number of V8 stocks mixed in WITH the trucks, just to shake things up a little.

Its always good to get back to the track on a Friday night, get a world famous Delaware Dog, grab a strip of 50 50 tix, and settle in for a good night's show.

Up first was a Demar Aggregates truck feature left over from when the rain fell the week before.

Right off the hop it was 39-Smith in the lead with 77-Zagarodny right on his tail. Soon Zagarodny dropped off and 55 Adriaensen was up past him into 2nd. Smaith had a bit of a lead but Adriaensen caught up to him by the halfway marker, followed closely by 7-Blaauboerr and 51 Colliver. The 4 of them run nose tail for a little while, then things start getting weird. By the 14th curcuit, Adriaensen is by Smith for the lead, and on lap 17, the 55 truck shows to a crawl on the backchute with mechanical failure, at the very same moment that his main rival Colliver does the same on the frontchute. Colliver comes to a stop in turn 2 to bring out the caution. Adraiensen has broken something in the rearend of his truck, so he's out, while Colliver just appears to have slipped out of gear and lines up at the end of the pack.

While the caution flag is still flying, we discover that 22-Denboer is also stalled out on the frontstretch. He needs a push and hes off too. And coming around on the green flag, Colliver once again dies on the backchute. In an interesting little bit of drama, he coasts and almost makes it to the back pit-chute, ands the track crew (still while under green) rushes out and pushes hm the rest of the way in.

Now Smith has things firmly in hand, while Blaauboerr and 6-Marche are having a great drag race for 2nd. Blaauboerr wins the battle for 2nd (those guys have done their homework over the winter Im thinking) And in the end its Smith with checkers, Blaauboerr 2nd, Marche 3rd, Zagarodny 4th and 95-Pocs in 5th.

Heat Race Action

Now we're rolling out the 4 Cylinders for their heat. These invitational races are neat, in that they have a cool cross section of different types of 4 cylinder racers. Some tracks have their 4 bangers that are almost straight stock, Delaware's are strictly stock, some are more modified, and some, in the case of the guys from South Buxton, are actual 4 cylinder, open wheel dirt modifieds. So the variety is what makes this show so neat. Also the fact that they've been doing this event for a couple of years now, the word has gotten out, and we're getting good fields of these guys...and a lot of track's top dogs are here for bragging rights. So, 4 cylinder or not, its pretty intense.

In heat race action: Heat 1 was a runaway for the Flamboro gang, and won by hot-shoe 31-Dave Bailey, who was followed across the line by 37-Rob Hoskins and 88-Tolton (Varney regular)
Heat 2 was a win for Varney as 36x Corey Young took checkers, followed by 86-Shwartzenburg (Flamboro) and 69-DeSerrano (South Buxton Dirt Mod) DeSerrano and Shwartzenburg put on a mighty fine battle for 2nd in this race. Young is the defending champ of this race and showed his full intention of backing it up with a second win.

Now that the Minis are done their heats, its time for some FT Garage Late Model action. Heat 1 starts off with a drag race for the lead between 69-Rawlings and 51-Nyssen. Rawlings gets the best of that, while Nyssen is passed by 2nd place finisher 2-Stewart and 3rd place to 6-Quarrie.

LM heat 2 saw some fireworks. Off the hop it was JR Fitzpatrick behind the wheel of the Beachville Bullet, subbing in the 5 car for Jay Christie. Following hot on his heels is 43 Doerr, who has found some speed over the past week and posted some wicked fast lap times in practice. The two of them run nose to tail, JR making his car as wide as possible to keep Doerr behind him. Last lap Doerr goes low into 1 and gets a bumper on Fitzpatrick, but gets loose in 2. 21-Pritiko jumps at the opportunity, dives to the inside of Doerr, but coming out of 2 the 2 cars are leaning hard on one another, and Doerr ends up against the wall with a couple flat tires...and mad as hell about it too...going by the (really colorful) interview he gave shortly after hopping out of the car.

Now the battle is between Pritiko and Fitzpatrick, except they too end up leaning on one another, and their antics (they apparently thought it was the last lap of the Daytona 500) allow 22-Cox to squirt past to take 1st and checkers. 2nd to Fitzpatrick and 3rd to Pritiko

Now the Trucks division did something a little different this time around and had a few V8 Thundercars running with them. They kept them seperate in the heats though. Adriaensen took the checkers in the Truck heat, which was pretty cool. After dropping out of the first feature, Gary and crew had scrambled to work with a welder under the truck while the other divisions were running their heats. Looks like they got it licked too, because by the time their heat came around, the 55 truck looked even faster.2nd was Marche and 3rd was Blaauboerr.

5 V8 Stocks took the green for a short heat. 1st was the red battle wagon of 172-Verheyen, 2nd to 07-Klumper and 3rd to 93-Zwygers (who probably has the slickest looking V8 out there) 

4 Cylinder Invitational - 35 Lap Feature

Well this one will go down in the history books as the day the 4 Bangers wowed the crowd. If there was ever any doubt that 4 cylinder cars could put on a show good enough to get the crowd on their feet, then let us erase all that doubt right now. 86-Shwartzenburg jumped out to an early lead, trailed a few car lengths back by 31-Bailey and 36x-Young. Bailey and Young dueled fiercely for 2nd, and it allowed Shwartzenburg to stretch his lead out a little bit. By lap 8, they had caught the 86 car and the three of them ran nose to tail. The fun started once the leaders began to hit lapped traffic and started trying to outfox one another thru the slow cars, reminiscent of an old school endurance race. Finally Young caught Shwartzenburg in the high line and dove low to make a 3 wide pass for the lead. Shwartzenburg and Bailey battle for 2nd, again shucking-and-jiving thru the slow cars. Shwartzenburg pulls ahead for 2nd. Almost at the same moment Young is held up by a slow car...and Shwartzenburg is back in the lead with Bailey 2nd.

A couple of laps later, Young drops the hammer and shoots back into 1st, leaving Bailey and Shwartzenburg to resume their battle for 2nd. The two of them race side by side for almost 10 laps till Bailey finally boxes Shwartzenburg behind a slow car and makes the pass. A brief caution when 22-Schindel ends up the wrong way against the turn 2 wall, but they're back to action shortly.

Final was Young, Bailey, Shwartzenburg, DeSerrano and 37-Bob Hoskins. Cory Young brings the trophy back to Varney Speedway for the 2nd straight year...but an amazing battle was had in order to make it happen!

Demar Aggregates Truck / V8 Feature

Well it was an experiment for sure. Basically, they lined the trucks up first and then the V8s at the back, logic being that the trucks are running for points and the V8s are just there for "exhibition" Honestly, it wasn't the slam bang affair that one might have expected, but then it was the first time out too. I'd heard there was a moment at the driver's meeting where they just sorta slipped in that the trucks were not to pass V8s on the inside...to which 15 guys - truck and V8, simultaneously said "wait a minute....say that again??" Apparently the powers that be figured that the trucks had too big a blind spot on the right and they didn't want to see the V8s getting pinched into the wall. Not that they really needed to worry, as the trucks were faster than the V8s and they didn't really mingle much once the green flag dropped.

Once again it was the Gary Adraiensen show, as he piloted the 55 truck into a commanding lead after a short battle with Marche. Final score was Adraiensen 1st, Marche 2nd, Smith 3rd, 64-Book 4th and Blaauboerr 5th. Book was the only V8 that really had anything for the trucks.

FT Late Model Feature

Your polesitter is none other than 69-Rawlings, with 6-Quarrie alongside, then 2-Stewart, 38-Hendricks, 27-Box and 5-Fitzpatrick rounding out the top 6 coming to green. Quarrie wins the duel to take first, and soon Stewart is past Rawlings into 2nd. Doerr, who had started in the 4th row was up to 4th spot and moving fast. By lap 14, Doerr is in 2nd and chasing down Quarrie, followed by Stewart, Fitzpatrick, 72-Thompson and Cox. Quarrie has built up a pretty good lead, but caution flies around the halfway point, as JR Fitzpartrick has an issue in turn 2 and goes spinning up against the fence on his own. Fortunately Jay Christie's car isn't bent up too badly.

At the restart, now Quarrie has lost his lead and he has Doerr right beside him. Its a drag race off the green and Doerr powers ahead and starts to run. Your order now is Doerr, Quarrie, Cox, Thompson and 24-Richmond. By lap 30, Cox is past Quarrie into 2nd, and starts to reel in Doerr. By lap 33, Cox is tucked securely behind Doerr's bumper. Over the final few laps, Cox tries a number of times to get a bumper under Doerr, but no dice. At this point we're wondering how far Cox will go to get past Doerr, however they keep it clean. Cox gives it one last try, but Doerr emerges the winner. 2nd goes to Cox, 3rd to Quarrie, 4th to Thompson and 5th to Richmond. 

Closing thoughts

Again, what a feature for the 4 cylinder guys. And congrats and thanks from all of us fans to the guys for making the trip to Delaware. We appreciate and applud your efforts! This is quickly becoming a high point on the racing schedule for us, and I'm already looking forward to next year. In speaking with a few guys after the races, it was apparent that the race was actually made more exciting due to the fact that there were large discrepancies in speed for many cars. Usually a strung out field is considered boring, but what made this race fun to watch was the chess game through lapped traffic. This race might get the nod for race of the year.

V8/Truck seems to be a work in progress. Maybe we can turn the tables next time the V8s are running and throw the trucks in with them. That might be interesting too. Bottom line for Trucks though, as has been all year, is "Who can stop Gary Adraiensen?" The guy is a bullet I tell ya.

Late Model looks like its shaping up to be a good fight over the course for the season. It was strange that Pritiko wasn't much of a factor in this week's feature, but I'm sure he'll get that turned around. Looks like it'll be a 3 way dance at the top of the heap between Cox, Doerr and Pritiko, although I expect to see Hendricks and Richmond a little closer to the front. Look out for the old man Doug Stewart too. That orange number 2 hasn't been looking too shabby out there.

This Weekend Coming Up

Its the first of our major race weekends this weekend. Friday night (7:30 start time) will see the return of our hyper-competitive Coca Cola Super Stock Division, and more FT Late Model action. All this is ollowed by Delaware's signiature King of the Hill race, where folks like you or me can enter the family car into a series of one-on-one drag races around the Delaware half mile. Its always a crowd pleaser, as the chance of racking the family car up on the concrete wall always looms large in the minds of our participants. (Fortunately it doesn't happen TOO often.)

Then on Saturday its the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, at Delaware for the Emco 200. You'll see DJ Kennington, JR Fitzpatrick, Kerry Micks, and a host of other NCTS stars. The most recent race at Mosport started 28 cars, so Saturday night's race at Delaware promises to be a barn-burner. That race starts at 7pm, but if you show up by 5 you'll get to see some Demar Aggregates truck action too.

So, as Billy Red Lyons used to say "It'll be an action packed card for sure...and don't you dare miss it."

As always, enjoy the races!

Shadow out.