Valenti Modified Racing Series To Award Championship Points For Heat Races Effective Immediately

When the Valenti Modified Racing Series returns to action Thursday at Thompson International Speedway, heat racing for the series will have taken on an all new importance.

Effective immediately, championship points will be awarded for finishes in the qualifying events at all Valenti Modified Racing Series events.

The top five finishing positions in each heat event will earn points, with first place earning five points, second place earning four points, third place earning three, fourth place earning two and fifth place earning one.

“This addition will be instituted to ensure the integrity, competitive balance and safety of the heat race events is maintained at all times,” read a notice posted Sunday on Valenti Modified Racing Series website.

“While the 2013 VMRS feature races have been the most competitive in series history, the heat races and subsequent tire conservation that many teams have established, has continuously grown more of safety and legitimacy concern with each event.” series director Scott Tapley said in a quote in the bulletin announcing the rule change. “[Heat race competition] has placed us, as a series that prides ourselves in our heat races and their competition, in a box and it is my job to make sure all of our events are contested with the utmost importance.

“As our events have gone on this season the differing heat race competition has gotten more and more of a safety concern to all teams competing. We have some teams are radically changing pace mid-lap or for multiple laps and then picking up the pace dramatically while other teams are racing behind or beside them and it has created some very dangerous situations lately, particularly several incidents at our last set of heat race events at Oxford Plains and I cannot sit back and let something like this happen when I could make a change that could diminish these problems.”

The Valenti Modified Racing Series points system awards 50 points to a race winner and then two points less for each subsequent finishing position down to four points for 26th place.