Doug Coby celebrates victory in the Whelen Modified Tour Starrett 150 Friday at Stafford Speedway (Photo: Fran Lawlor)
STAFFORD – Will the real Doug Coby please stand up?
It’s fair to say the first half of the 2018 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season has been quite Un-Coby-like for Coby, who has won the last four series titles and five championships in the last six seasons.
After eight races this year Coby sat eighth in the series standings, winless, with just two top-five finishes.
Friday Coby made a trip to his home track the elixir his Mike Smeriglio Racing team has been looking for all year.
Coby recovered from an early spin and drove away from the field over the closing laps to win the Whelen Modified Tour Starrett 150 Friday at Stafford Speedway.
It was the 24th career series victory for Coby, of Milford, and his first since Aug. 26, 2017 at Seekonk (Mass.) Speedway.
“We’re happy,” Coby said. “That’s good.”
Woody Pitkat of Stafford was second and Eric Goodale of Riverhead, N.Y. third.
Coby held off challenges from Timmy Solomito and Jimmy Blewett on restarts over the last 25 laps before driving away late.
“No quit in the Mayhew Tools team,” Coby said. “We circled the Starrett 150 on our calendar. … I’m just so proud of my guys. Everybody is counting us out. It’s a long hill to climb up, but a win feels good.”
Pitkat’s best finish in six starts this season before Friday was 12th.
“This is definitely my best finish in a long time,” Pitkat said. “We had a real good car there, just missed it a little bit at the end. Like this is a win compared to the season we’ve been going through. I just told the guys ‘I kind of got sick of sucking so I got up on the wheel tonight.’ They gave me a great car.”
It was the third top-five in the last four events for Goodale.
“Considering the way that our season is going, two top-fives in a row, really proud of the guys,” Goodale said. “Our pit strategy played out. My guys nailed the pit stops again and gave me an opportunity to win. We just missed on the setup just a little bit. Doug had a good car tonight.”
What a boring parade called a race!! Very little passing for the lead. Very little side by side racing. Congratulations Doug !!
Way to go champ. Ct boy done good!
Sad for Chase. Thought it would be his night but it was the opposite.
What an exciting race!!!
Action was i credible all race.
Thanks Stafford…laps 1 through 100 wete non stop action…im so tired from cheering all night..congrats to Doug…heees. backkk!!!!!
Racer28, What race were you watching? Some people are never satisfied.
Way to go Woody! Congrats to whole DWR team!
Jerry the only times these cars were two file was on restarts. They were single file with in two laps. There was very little racing for the lead. It was fun watching pennick try to go back through the field at the end. But I don’t like watching parade races. It would be nice to have at least 2-4 cars battle for the lead. The sk lights were the best show of the night again.
I thought is was a great race with the pit stops and I saw lotsa passing and good racing, on to BIG T
I thought last night’s race was one of the better NWMT events at SMS. Strategy, plenty of action throughout the field, and some excellent driving that prevented a few minor incidents from becoming major. From where I sat, the race held the crowd well, not a lot of people left early. Good call on the late red to avoid finishing under yellow. Non-regulars to the track also got to see some excitement in the support races.
I also thought the crowd turned out excellent, especially after nearly all of my weather sources showed bad weather but totally blew the forecast.
All modified races were very good, the SK Light race was VERY good.
The NWMT event was very good. Cars faded, made a stop, got adjusted, got better and went to the front, and this went on all race. The racing was going on in the back and mid pack as cars that got adjustments went to the back and had to work up through the pack. Numerous cars had to do this, I think the 3 had to do it a couple times.
The 3 and 15 were the front row after qualifying, but were sent to the back for unapproved adjustments. They had to work their ways through the field.
The 2 was running the special gilded flux capacitor again. They pulled out all stops last night. Once the 2 got out front, it was super cruise mode, like old times.
There’s an anti-LFR kryptonite device in the guard rail at the apex of T1-2, it ate the 15 and 44. Both cars drove right into the guard rail, as if hypnotized. Like moths to flame.
Get this… 19 cars on the lead lap. Too many good cars had equipment issues.
It was a crew chief and crew race. They serviced the cars just right and made them better throughout the race. Kudos to the crews and crew chiefs. The 2 got a lot better on its last stop, that stop produced the win. The 3 got better the whole race, and much better the last run. The 3 led the most laps.
The crowd was pretty good, especially given the weather. But then, I don’t think most people pay attention to the weather predictions. Weather forecasts come from the mainstream media and therefore must be fake news. The weather did stay just to the west and north of the track. You could see the weather system passing by. It was close. I had a few drops of rain on the windshield when I arrived at the track. I live west of the track, and felt awkward when I left home in treacherous weather to go to a race.
I agree with Racer28. The thing that governed the race was the stupid rule about only changing one tire per pit stop. It was confusing for the fans, especially when some racers came right back in the next lap and some did not. The only way 2 got the lead was because of the tire rule. He certainly did not pass anybody for it. The only exciting racing occurred right after a yellow, at the drop of the green flag. Glad to see Rowen Pennick racing again. He sure was blasting through the field after his last pit stop. He ran out of laps. I did not like NASCAR stopping the race during a yellow. I understand they were trying not to run up the lap count. Why not just stop counting yellow flag laps. I suppose it would render their 1 tire per stop rule as stupid. I’m done.
COLBEE COLBEE COLBEE AND LFR THEY THE BOMB
The #15 was light, not unapproved adjustments. Thanks to Rob Summers, the #15 ate the guardrail. https://www.facebook.com/laro97/videos/1987112064685337/
@ Joe White, if they stopped counting the yellow laps, there would be a great chance of cars running out of fuel. For this race they had to pack every drop of fuel in the car to make it to the end.
Just Me,
Yes that’s what was said, but just reporting it as NASCAR announced it officially.
did goodale deposit the 44 into the guardrail???
Joe White, the 2 restarted from the back after a pit stop, had to get through the entire field, and did so without incident. A remarkable achievement.
A couple years ago, the 2 and 44 ran out of gas at Stafford.
Racer28, since you are only watching the lead car, you are missing out on so much more racing.
@Sour grapes of wrath
58 was running in front of the 44 by about three positions at the time of the incident. There’s a replay on Staffords twitter feed.
once again i will say it again i so wish i diidnt have to cross the sound i would have a seat every friday night once again proving best racing in the northeast PLEASE build that bridge lol also anyone who pays there money and leaves a race early should not bother coming…. to save ten minutes in traffic makes no sense.
Even dareal saw the 2 passing cars in traffic it’s to bad Joe and eraser 28 didn’t , they missed one of the better MT races in a long time at Stafford
Yeah I so agree about the passing and the pit stop strategy was fun to watch and it was amazing that the black clouds that were on the horizon at 5:00 just stayed over turns 1 and 2 with blue skies over 3 and 4 for almost 3 hours and didn’t move, Stafford has been doing something right this year with weather
Agree people leaving early what is the point???
Dareal, I watched more than the leader. I had to go back 10 to 15 places to find any racing. The front was a parade most of the race. Did they have even 1 lead change not from a pit stop? the pit stops were fun to watch But to me racing is more than follow the leader. it’s cars side by side beating and banging fighting for positions. Not get in line and follow the leader.
Dareal. It was the 46 that almost wrecked the 51 and then wrecked the 44. The 15 was riding along and got taken out. Do you have a chassis wins count for us Einstein? LFR has less than 20% of the cars in the field. Troyer has 75% and the rest who cares. Is it possible to have 85% of the wins with only a 20% chance every race? How you like dem apples? Loser to another level.
Racer28, last night was a great demonstration that beating and banging is not necessary to have a great race. I think most of the contenders were up and down the field at some point which made for a rather interesting race from start to finish. It was a thinking person’s race to figure out risk to make sure the car was there and ready at go time. Like wmass said, it was fun watching the pit strategy. Cars were fading and you knew they had to pit soon. There were a lot of cars on the lead lap, and they were never spread far apart. The tail end of the pack was never at risk of being lapped. Look at all the cars on the lead lap.
12 lead changes amongst 6 drivers did include WOODY who passed many cars and Eric Goodale made several passes, lots of action which has not been the case at Staffoed lately
What was wrong with Jimmy Blewitt 76? He was all over the track. The other cars were trying to avoid him. He was a menace on the race track. Did any of the other drivers comment on his driving after the race? As far as the cars running out of gas, is there a rule against adding gas to the tank? Maybe you can only add 1 gallon per pit stop. I thought Woody Pitkat did a masterful job of driving the 82 last night. He qualified bad but did well in the race finishing second. Way to go Woody. Of course people are going to say that Woody has a lot of laps around Stafford, but so does the 2 and the 3.
LFR shill, do you have the LFR chassis sales figures? Chassis actually sold at retail pricing. Doesn’t matter now, does it? Very few chassis out there after all these years. Why aren’t teams selling off their Troyers and such and buying LFR? Have you figured that out yet? How long can LFR survive without sales? I hope Chase Dowling understands how important he is to LFR, and takes advantage of that importance. Imagine if Fuller had to go back to driving the house car?
So dareal that’s a cowardly way of saying I don’t want to tell you the actual stats. Almost all teams that are running LFR chassis now had them before Dowling was driving. Man your stats need some adjusting. So are you the accountant at LFR? You know the figures that well I guess. Hmmmm. I’m sure LFR isn’t just selling cars to every team that calls up. You should set up a meeting with them and get some facts. If they would let you in the building that is. Oh wait….. your such a Sally that they wouldn’t know it’s you because you hide behind a fake name. Kinda like a internet stalker. You know… the ones you see on dateline. What happens to those guys in prison would happen to you in any garage area if you went public.
For what it’s worth. We have been a Troyer customer for over 30 years with championships and multiple wins. We spoke with Rob on a purchase of 3 LFR cars we will hopefully run at the end of this season and full time in 2019. So be careful on asking why teams aren’t calling LFR. They are.
I think an “anti-LFR kryptonite device in the guard rail” would actually be a repellent to LFR chassied cars. The correct way of saying it would be a “LFR kryptonite device in the guard rail” .
Point of order. Fullers operation in diversified. He has a storage facility, racing component sales and rebuilding including shocks as I recall. Is likely a manufacturers rep for numerous racing component suppliers. Can’t prove it but probably sells a lot of components to teams with others chassis. The notion his survival is chassis sales dependent would be incorrect. No one could argue he’s made progress in a few years in a market that is tiny, specialized and insanely technical. Good for racing, good for Rob.
Great comments on the race. Thanks.
Joe as far as jimmy that’s just jimmy being jimmy the drivers know him he was going to be king of dirt and those guys took him to school and yes woody did have a great run
Shill wrote, “Hmmmm. I’m sure LFR isn’t just selling cars to every team that calls up. ”
Carefully selected clientele, yeah, good move. lol. Yeah, like they are waiting for certain specific teams to call looking for a chassis or two. Too busy to supply chassis to all teams. Yeah, I get it. lol. So tell me, what are the customer criteria that enabled the 01 team to acquire a LFR chassis? If they aren’t selling to every team that calls, what teams would be prohibited from purchasing a LFR? I really don’t think the market is so large that a chassis reseller can afford to be that choosy. Good luck with that. Aren’t there already several idle chassis?
Dareal showing your vast knowledge AGAIN. The 01 purchased a car from some guy in NY named Ray Graham. The second car was also bought second hand. Neither car was sold direct. You can control anything you want in life. If you saw the compound they have over there you would get it. Like Doug said there is a storage facility, full baseball complex and a pretty large amount of land still vacant. LFR is Fuller’s hobby. Period. I don’t care what he says he does it for enjoyment. It’s not the main source of income which is why they will be successful. Something you will never experience in this life time.
Don’t forget Draco. I have purchased several springs from Fullers other company Draco Racing. He is the designer and owner of the racing spring line. Probably the biggest of his companies. Lot of Draco springs out there. Like Doug said, he sells a lot of things to a lot of teams. Troyer cars are on Draco also. Fuller is a business man. If it’s losing a lot he won’t do it so something is working.
I think anyone who owns/runs a business is in it to make money and as much as possible, Now for many years Troyer has been TOP DOG because of the name and lack of a better product, no slight to SPAFCO OR RACEWORKS, LFR has stepped to he plate and it hitting GRAND SLAMS so either Troyer figures something out or LFR WILL BE THE TOP DOG!
No one is talking about the real controversy. That’s right it’s those dorky hats the 2 team was wearing in victory lane. And just how cool is Coby whether you’re a fan or not. He made the dorky hat look good and delivered his usual great comments on the race and season. I have to get me one of them hats.
So I am a first time poster. I just drove by the LFR shop and Fuller is there working on a Sunday morning. Now I don’t know much about racing but I do know that there aren’t many owners working on a Sunday. That’s why the man is ahead of everyone. To the Dareal hider. My son is a IT director at one of the largest companies in Boston. After speaking with him there are ways to find out the domain server you are using and get your identity. I may have to look into this further with him. It would be a good past time project for him. This town is proud to have Rob Fuller doing business here. Haters are something successful people deal with every day. The Dareals of the world not only provide motivation but also prove that the guy is doing his job. Great job LFR and team. Keep the wins coming.
Shill wrote, “Oh wait… your such a Sally that they wouldn’t know it’s you because you hide behind a fake name. ”
I love when people that hide behind screen names accuse others of hiding behind a screen name. You do it with such profound confidence that the hypocrisy just reeks. Have someone with a fourth grade or higher education explain that to you.
Shill wrote, “LFR is Fuller’s hobby. Period. I don’t care what he says he does it for enjoyment. It’s not the main source of income which is why they will be successful.”
Wow, where do I begin?!? Shill is a real business mogul. {sarcasm} Thanks for the enlightenment. I’m sure everyone reading this will be relieved to see that LFR reselling chassis made by another company is a hobby, and not a serious business. That instills very little confidence, but you wouldn’t understand that.
Shill wrote, “What happens to those guys in prison would happen to you in any garage area if you went public.”
There’s lots of people in the pits watching the hobby chassis reseller and wonder the same question you, or one of you other screen names, asked, why aren’t owners selling off their Troyers and such and buying LFR? You just answered your own question. LOL!!! 🤣 🤯
Hey Shill, are you the LFR marketing/sales/advertising department?
I still wonder why he didn’t retain ownership of the chassis manufacturing/design company.
Shill, the early chassis went to the most talented teams, one way or another, in order to make the chassis look good. The standings today are no different than if those teams presently running LFR were running their Troyers, SPAFCOs, etc.
Phil Moran, JBon, and Chase Dowling are making the chassis look good, not the other way around. The 2 team, how could this season possibly happen with the LFR chassis? This needs another Congressional investigation. Must be fake news or a hoax. It must be Hillary and Obama. There’s collusion somewhere. What about the 44 team? A couple wins, but also very inconsistent with frequent terrible finishes even when it’s running at the end. Look up the 44 stats, the complete stats, yourself. And the 01 still being black flagged for lack of speed.
So the chassis were put in the hands of some top teams and they are still top teams. No surprises there. Now put the chassis into the hands of the regular guys and see what happens. If the chassis can make the mid-pack teams better and put them in the group of competitive contenders, then you have something. When is that going to happen?
Big Fan, you can design your own spring online. The NASCAR rules make springs very, very, very simple. If you are breathing, you can design your own spring. The trick is knowing what the spring needs to do.
Bentley I think there is plenty of SUCCESSFUL owners who work on Sunday and night and holidays and by the looks of things Rob is one of them , and something dareal doesn’t understand is there is plenty of SUCCESSFUL companies sold every day a dying company is much harder to sell and make a profit unless you can find someone as dumb as dareal
Dareal. I’m looking for info on a regular team. The 2 car had 1 win in 2014. The 51 had zero wins last year. Could you send a list of the stats on a what You call a regular? I would really like to see the stats of teams that switched before and then after. I just read the Justin credited the LFR chassis and heard Bobby give credit to them as well. Anyway so I’m glad to see that spring design is so easy to you. You must be a pretty smart guy to know everything but do nothing. Manufacturing is very costly. Most smart business are using other companies to avoid overhead. It’s business 101. LFR designs are what is winning. Welding metal is easy. You might be able to do it actually. The design and function is what sells product. I’m not going to waste my time typing anymore. Just keep posting so people have something to laugh at. And keep avoiding the pre LFR and post LFR stats. Really smart to keep putting off answering those. Look at how many Troyes cars are for sale and compare to how many LFR cars are for sale. No one has said that they are happy switching FROM LFR to another brand. Probably be like that for a while. Get over it.
I drove a Lexus. Does that make me a Toyota owner? Tell me Dareal.
LFR sold 49 modifies chassis and kept 2. Fury sold 6 to LFR then LFR does updates and sells to teams. ALL MOD teams purchased LFR chassis from LFR. None were purchased from NC. I own 2 myself. As long as Fuller is backing them I don’t care where he gets them from. I would not purchase anything from someone who can’t help me after the sale. Just my .02. Oh yea….. dareal is a moron. My other .02. Peace.
Shawn supposedly moderates these threads.I guess only for potty talk.Bentley says his big time IT son can find out someones identity.Why pray tell?This is an implied threat.This is not the first time this has happened on his site.If anything happens the police will know where to go and the attorneys in a civil case will also know where to go.that would be Raceday CT and it’s owner.This will be my last post here at this site.It’s unwise to rattle the cages of nutcases, especially when their identities are protected by Shawn.
Art,
Yes I do moderate the comments for threats. Nobody threatened anybody. Bentley is hardly the first person here to talk about knowing someone who knows someone who can find out who someone really is. It’s talk, nothing more.
So Bentley, unless I missed something did Chase Dowling get wrecked Friday night? Does Chase Dowling drive the Rob Fuller car? So I guess it would be safe to say the reason Rob Fuller is at his shop working is because he is repairing his race car getting it ready for Thompson. Now I am just speculating here but I think I may be on to something.
Man is that deja vu all over again or what? Two years ago a guy wants to meet Dareal in the parking lot at Stafford for a hard “talk”, Art jumps in to raise the specter of all manor of chaos and bloodshed and yet Dareal survived very nicely. I’m confident he will survive this crises equally as well. As for RacedayCt there must be nothing better then to be sitting at home monitoring the free service you provide and be threatened with nonsensical predictions of law suits and visits by police. Uncool infinity.
Credit where credit is due. We got some nice information on the 01’s origins, Robs diversified interests including springs and the number of chassis he has been involved with and where they came from. All from Dareal. Thanks dude.
Just a minor disagreement with Needs stats who says “welding is easy”. True it is easy to weld in general. To fabricate a chassis, understand blueprints and the geometry necessary to bend the tubing. To tack it all in place then painstakingly Tig weld it all with life dependent welds. No that is not easy.
Now if Shawn could find a way to make money off the words typed in the comment section from Goodfella and every one coming back at him life would be good.
Humphry. Do me a favor. Look at the top 10 teams and tell me how many OWNERS are working on their car. I hope your not catching what dareal has. Ignorance might be contagious.
Bentley, not all owners may be hands on like Fuller especially when he owns LFR and that is his house car that is second in the WMT points. Thompson is Wednesday night and it is all hands in deck. Ignorance? You better look in the mirror my friend.
This was one of the better races in a while.
Thompson has potential to be a great race. JBon likes Thompson, as do many others. Just hope that the cars that are supposed to be good got the right care in the shop and don’t have more mechanical issues.
Shills, what do you think?
Looks like the 2 figured out the gremlin(s) that has been plaguing them this season, that car was on rails for the last run. If that is the case, everybody is back to racing for second place again. Leave it to Phil Moran to figure it out.
So the 98 is a new LFR car to the show? How did it do? Does it have a crew chief the likes of Phil Moran?
I think Woody was gaining on the 2. 25 more laps might of made for a different result, 1 race does not make all better, the 51 was caught with the multiple tire changes during yellow, 15 got wrecked and the 3 had to come from the back, Preece back at Thompson to add to the mix
Where did the 44 send the car to be repaired? Need a quick turnaround.
After seeing the video I don’t know how anyone could say that wasn’t just an outstanding race. I appreciate the live updates but in this case with so many cautions and the pits strategy so dynamic it was almost impossible to follow who was coming and going and what it meant.
True the leaders usually fell in line within a lap on restarts but in a long race why waste rubber racing so early. Coby, Pennink, Santos,Dowling moving through the field was the real racing that no update or video can capture. Pitkat proving the naysayers wrong was a huge story. Love Goodale and he has been very competitive lately. Looking forward to seeing him in the VMRS race.
Seriously could these NWMT fields be any more loaded with top notch cars. Like always the leader JB gets the attention but seriously there has to be 8 cars or more that have the juice to win at longer complicated tracks like Stafford.
I don’t like timed warm ups and am not smart enough to understand chess. I like heats, sprints and checkers. If you only play checkers it’s probably smart to stay away from chess matches like NWMT races.