Kerry Malone Reaps Benefit Of Ryan Preece – Woody Pitkat Battle To Win Second SK Mod Race Thursday At Thompson

THOMPSON – When it came to the best views of the night Thursday at Thompson International Speedway, Kerry Malone’s couldn’t be beat.

Kerry Malone

Malone got an up close show the highlight SK Modified dramatics of the evening and then had the best sightline when the final checkered flag fell, the one in victory lane.

After a battle for the top spot between Ryan Preece and Woody Pitkat got ugly, Kerry Malone inherited the lead on lap 21 and held on to win the second 25-lap NASCAR Whelen All-American Series SK Modified feature at Thompson Thursday.

It was the first victory at Thompson for Malone since July 30, 2009.

“It feels so good,” said Malone, of Needham, Mass. “It’s a big monkey off my back. It’s been a few years. It’s almost like starting racing all over again. You need to get one under your belt and know that you can still do it and get all that stuff behind us.”

Dennis Perry of Pawcatuck was second and Todd Ceravolo of Gales Ferry third.

The fireworks on the track between Preece and Pitkat carried over to some emotional accusations after the event.

Preece, of Berlin, went by Ceravolo for the lead on a lap 15 restart and when Ceravolo slipped up the track on lap 17, Pitkat moved into second place.

On lap 20 Pitkat got under Preece and the two ran side-by-side for the lap. With Pitkat in the low lane, the two made contact in turn two and Preece ended up hard into the wall.

Pitkat was immediately black flagged for aggressive driving and thrown out of the event.

“He got me,” Preece said. “I didn’t go straight into the wall myself. The way the cars are meant to be raced, when you go into a corner you’re supposed to let it roll, wait for the car and give it throttle, and then throttle out. Where what I kept hearing every corner was him getting on the throttle, which basically is using your car as a weapon I feel. What are you going to do? I was leading the race, obviously I was a little emotional, which I shouldn’t have been. But when you’re leading a race like that and you get wrecked, I take that intentionally. It’s not unintentional because you’re more than capable of controlling an SK Modified and trying to make it go beyond its limits is something that shouldn’t be done.”

Pitkat, of Stafford, said he made a mistake and took blame for the contact but said he was surprised to hear Preece described the incident as intentional and described him as a weapon.

“Racing hard for a win is a weapon?” Pitkat said. “He would be the least person that I would want to wreck here. I talk to him like two or three times a week, but I was trying to wreck him?

“Yeah, I [messed] up, I can admit when I make mistakes. I’ve got the [courage] to do that, I’ve got no problem, unlike other people. I tried to pass him, I got into him and he wrecked. Everybody is human, it’s hard racing here, we’ve talked about it for how many years? The outside is the preferred groove, it’s hard to pass. … It’s a part of racing. If he think’s I’m here trying to be a weapon that’s [bull]. He’s pinching me, he already has the preferred groove. If he’s chopping me, what does he expect me to do? I’m going to move him up. We’ve talked about it every week. If he wants to think that I wrecked him on purpose he needs to watch the tape.”

Pitkat’s car owner Jimmy Paige said his team wouldn’t be returning to the track. Paige was upset because Pitkat was thrown out of the race instead of put to the back for the aggressive driving call.

“I’m done,” Paige said “They don’t want me to race here, that’s fine by me.”

Pitkat said he was surprised officials made the decision to throw him out of the event. Pitkat claimed that Ceravolo intentionally wrecked Paul Newcomb in a qualifying heat race but was not thrown out for the night.

“When a guy wrecks somebody deliberately in a heat race and they put him to the rear and he starts the first feature, and I’m here trying to put on a show for the crowd, that’s barely anybody, [race director Jeff Zuidema], I don’t know what he’s trying to do,” Pitkat said. “We’re here trying to help and support Thompson and that’s good hard racing trying to race for the win.”

Zuidema said Pitkat made contact three times with Preece before wecking him.

“There was contact in [turns] one and two, there was contact in [turns] three and four and finally [turns] one and two he got him,” Zuidema said. “I don’t think Ceravolo wrecked [Newcomb]. I think there was contact. There was definitely contact between Ceravolo and [Newcomb] in a qualifying heat. I don’t think contact in a qualifying and contact in a feature event for the lead is the same. You take the leader out in a feature event, it’s not the same.”

Malone said he wasn’t surprised Pitkat was thrown out of the event.

“It seems that the racing here, that’s the only way you can pass the fast cars is you have to get into them,” Malone said. “Woody, he’s been getting into everybody a little bit more. He got into me a few times. You know you’re expecting it, you’re wating for it. … It’s just the nature of the beast. I think Woody maybe had to get toned down a little bit. But it is really the only way you can get by somebody that is running good. He maybe should have used a little bit more patience.”