Team owner Scott Fearn celebrates Keith Rocco’s 200th career victory with a bottle of champagne in victory lane Saturday at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl
WATERFORD – A season of milestone marker crossings continued Saturday at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl for Keith Rocco.
Earlier this year the 30-year old Rocco became the all-time winningest driver in the history of the Speedbowl.
Saturday Rocco won the 30-lap Late Model feature at the New London-Waterford Speebdowl for his 200th career short track victory.
Rocco has amassed the victories in numerous divisions at the Speedbowl, Stafford Motor Speedway and Thompson Speedway.
“You can’t have this success without great people behind us and great sponsors and great friends and great owners,” Rocco said. “I’m very fortunate for what I have and the amount of people I have behind me. I don’t think about the numbers until I actually get there. The way we win races they rack up pretty quick.”
Rocco, the 2010 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national champion, got his first career victory at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl in a Limited Sportsman at the track on Aug 30, 2003.
On May 23 Rocco got his 107th career victory at Waterford to break a tie with Phil Rondeau on top of the track’s all-time win list. He now has 112 victories at the Speedbowl.
“Half of [my wins] wouldn’t be possible without the Speedbowl and everybody through the years that have supported the place,” Rocco said.
Rocco went by Chris Garside for the lead on a restart with 18 laps remaining and went unchallenged the rest of the way. Joe Curioso of Mystic was second and Jason Palmer of Berlin third.
“We just got to [Garside] and I was ready to go to the top and the caution came out and I got him on the restart,” Rocco said. “It was a great race.”
“Great Race”??? Not hardly… 10 cars and Keith started 5th. It was never in doubt who was going to win.
Not taking anything away from Keith because he’s a great racecar driver, but most of the features that Keith ran in with the late models had less cars than the heat races that Phil Rondeau used to race in.
Different eras and different circumstances, but still a great accomplishment.