By Mike Mallett
WEEDSPORT, N.Y.: Someone in the New York State marketing department needs to get David Gravel an, ‘I love New York,’ t-shirt.
Sunday night’s World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series Empire State Challenge at Weedsport Speedway was the only appearance in the state by the traveling group. Gravel made the most of his trip to the tune of a $20,000 payday for winning the 35-lap feature.
“It’s a track I look forward to going to,” said Gravel. “It’s different, unique, slick, just a place that I’ve always run good at and the last couple years I’ve been winning at, so it’s nice to come to a track with confidence and run good consistently.”
Gravel matched Steve Kinser and Donny Schatz for wins at the facility after picking up his third Sunday. That’s pretty good company.
It wasn’t a perfect night for Gravel. He had a hiccup in his heat race and then another in the feature. Somehow, he managed to find a way to win. It’s what good drivers do.
“Making the dash was huge, that was everything,” said Gravel. “A lot of weird things happened in the feature tonight with some guys, but yeah, being in the dash is everything.
“I hit the infield wall (in the heat), bent an axle, broke a shock stud and knocked the radiator out of it. In the feature I hit the wall in one and two on the top and broke the ladder strap, so it was an eventful night, that’s for sure.”
In the heat race, he managed to drive the car even with all the damage. He willed his Todd Quiring-owned No. 2 to a second-place finish when it could have easily been taken back to the pits. He was racing on three wheels, as his left front tire bounced uncontrollably.
“It would bottom out like crazy,” said Gravel. “I just tried to go to the top to hold the car up as much as possible. If it was at Eldora, or Williams Grove, or Knoxville, I wouldn’t have been able to overcome it. We don’t usually try to dodge jersey barriers on the bottom. It’s a unique place, so I was just lucky to overcome that, it made our night.”
Gravel made the move around pole-sitter Danny Varin on the bottom of turns three and four in the main event. After that, he hustled the middle and the high-side in an effort to keep up his momentum on the ultra-slick Weedsport surface.
“I didn’t run the top very much in one and two, but I tried to run the top a lot in three and four,” said Gravel. “I just tried to slide myself and shorten the track up in one and two to get to the grip on the top. In three and four, I wanted to go to the bottom, but I was just scared I was going to break my momentum. If I had to, I was going to, but it’s so hard to judge when you’re leading. I chose to go high and keep the momentum up.”
The only real challenge anyone was able to mount at Gravel came from Carson Macedo. Macedo got a run on a lap-26 restart. He slid to the inside of Gravel off the exit of turn four and nearly completed the slide job for the lead. Momentum was again a key to keeping Gravel at the point.
“I saw him coming up, but I don’t know how he got a run on me,” said Gravel of Macedo. “He obviously got a good run down the backstretch. I was able to shorten the corner up that time and it all kind of worked out because if I had gone high and stayed high, he might have cleared me. It all worked out.”
Macedo Makes it Close: It wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of Carson Macedo as to why he didn’t win Sunday’s feature event. Macedo threw everything he could at Gravel, well except the kitchen sink. He got close but couldn’t find a way by Outlaw point leader.
“I feel like I could get close,” said Macedo. “One time I had that shot, I felt like I gave it all I could, at least to try and get to the center and maybe break his momentum, but he was pretty good.
“In one and two, that was where I felt like I struggled. He could enter right in front of me and just kind of dirty my racetrack up. Then I’d struggle to get across and get to the cushion. I could get to it sooner, but I was spinning getting to it. It would take me everything to get back going where I feel like he could drive across with a clean track and make more speed down the backstretch.”
Macedo was constantly on the move during the night after winning his heat race. He went forward in the dash after starting seventh and went forward again in the feature to second from fifth. Although it was not a win, it was one of his better runs in recent memory at Weedsport.
“I feel bummed; I want to win the race, obviously, but I feel pretty happy,” said Macedo. “We’ve struggled here in the past, and we haven’t really been very good. To run second, especially starting seventh in the dash, I felt like we were able to move around, we were able to make passes, and we did a good job.”
One for the Old Guys: Dave Blaney hasn’t done a lot of racing the last couple of years, but he’s made the most of the races he does choose to enter.
Such was the case at Weedsport. Blaney has tried to stay away from the hammer down tracks in favor of sticking to what he likes, the slick, and the New York facility was right up his alley.
“This car is kind of made for this kind of slippery stuff, and Sharon’s the same way,” said Blaney. “We don’t run much; we just come to tracks like this. It’s fun to compete, and it was fun to race with those guys. They’re so good, so when you can race with them all night, it’s fun. I was hoping to have a night similar to this when I came here.”
Blaney has less than 10 starts this season and plans on keeping his total in that neighborhood for the season. He only has one car and one motor. His team is limited. On this night, it didn’t matter. At the end of the night, Blaney was one of the fastest cars on the speedway, keeping pace with both Gravel and Macedo. He came from 12th to finish third.
“I think I was faster than anybody in three and four, but I couldn’t make one and two work,” he said. “Everything I gained in three and four, I’d lose in one and two. I just could not find anything in that corner to hold my own, and that’s what kind of killed me. You can enter three here so much faster than one; my car just liked that.”
Calling in a Sub: Larry Wight was scheduled to compete Sunday night in his own No. 99L. He was ready to go toe-to-toe with the Outlaws in a 360 powered car, something that has worked in the past.
Things changed early in the afternoon when he received a call from the Colagiovanni racing team. Their driver, Paulie Colagiovanni, was sick, and they needed a driver.
Wight was in.
“Paulie was feeling under the weather, and I got the phone call,” said Wight. “I was literally walking out to fire up the truck to bring our car here. We bounced it around. I wanted to make sure everybody was part of the decision, and we decided to go for it. I haven’t been in a 410 here in a couple of years. With all the rain we had, I kind of figured of all the nights to try it, tonight would definitely be the night.”
Wight struggled in hot laps and again a bit in time trials as he worked to get comfortable in the car. Even though he and Colagiovanni have similar styles; they like to rip the lip. They do it differently. The team borrowed some different brake pads from fellow competitor Matt Farnham, and that made all the difference. Now he was ready to go.
He made hay in the feature, going from 15th up to the seventh spot at the finish. He did it all while battling an ill-handling race car because something let go in the frontend.
“We were just ripping wheelies so bad in both straightaways,” said Wight. “It didn’t matter if I had the wing all the way forward or all the way back; I just couldn’t get much over half throttle or it would pull a wheelie all the way down the straightaway. I think there were a couple of times where I set it down too hard and maybe blew a front shock out.”
Weedsport Notes: A total of 34 cars entered the Empire State Challenge. Macedo set the fastest time with a lap of 13.479 in time trials. Heats were won by Sheldon Haudenschild, Brad Sweet, Donny Schatz, and Gio Scelzi. Spencer Bayston ran away with the Last Chance Showdown, while Danny Varin won the Dash.
-Haudenschild broke the driveline on his No. 17 while running in the top five. He left a trail of fluid on the speedway before pulling into the infield. It was more than likely the result of an incident on a lap 21 restart when contact was made with Schatz.
Schatz looked low into turn one at the green and caught Haudenschild’s left rear. The contact sent Schatz spinning and to the work area. Schatz returned to action and raced his way back to 10th. Haudenschild ended up in the pits with a 19th-place effort.
-Jacob Dykstra and Jordan Thomas were battling for a qualifying spot in the Last Chance Showdown when Dykstra pulled a wheelstand off of turn four. His frontend caught the top wing of Thomas’ car before coming down. Both drivers were finished for the night.
-Jacob Allen returned to the cockpit of the No 1A. He finished in 12th. … Varin made an early exit from the A-Main while running fifth, as his motor was beginning to overheat.