(Press Release from Rob Fuller Motorsports)
Todd Szegedy (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
Rob Fuller Motorsports (RFM) will be making their first start of the 2016 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour (NWMT) at Stafford Motor Speedway with Todd Szegedy behind the wheel. The team will have a Research and Development focus at the track this year while continuing to promote the message of its charity partner 15-40 Connection.
“This is actually the debut for Rob Fuller Motorsports at Stafford,” said Rob Fuller, team owner. “I’ve been to a lot of races there but never actually fielded a car there. We have been incredibly busy this winter and really hadn’t touched our car since Thompson last year which made the Icebreaker tough to attend. If we cannot be 100% we simply won’t go, which was the case at Thompson.”
RFM’s goal for the 2016 race season is to serve as an in-house Research and Development team for LFR Chassis. The group will be experimenting new equipment, set-ups and technology throughout the season to help the chassis company continue to progress and provide cutting-edge services to its customers.
“R&D is really what I enjoy doing,” Fuller continued. “I like to analyze data and come up with set-ups that most teams do not have the resources to do themselves. When we come up with a proven set-up then we can share what we learned with the customers at LFR Chassis. To make the teams spend their time and money to develop a product just doesn’t make sense. It also leaves the customer further ahead than the company and that’s just bad business. This will be a great year for our team I believe.”
Piloting the 15-40 Connection modified entry will be Todd Szegedy, a 19-time winner and 2003 NWMT Champion. Szegedy, who raced for RFM in 2014, is looking forward to getting the opportunity to experiment with set-ups and equipment throughout the season.
“I’m very excited to be back working with Rob and his team this year and look forward to our first race of the season at Stafford,” said Szegedy. “When I first worked with them two years ago, the cars and company were new so we had a lot of trial and error at the track. Now the cars have been raced and have more reliability, so we can go back to doing some R&D but have a much stronger baseline to refer to. I’ve been racing a long time and I’m at the point in my career where I enjoy trying new things, so I’m looking forward to helping LFR Chassis improve their performance even more.”
The Ridgefield, Conn. native has a long history of success at Stafford Motor Speedway, collecting four wins, 23 Top-5’s and 31 Top-10 finishes in his career.
“Stafford is one of my most-visited tracks,” Szegedy continued. “I enjoy racing there a lot. We’re going out there this weekend with no points on the line to worry about and look to just have fun while learning a couple new things in the process! I do have quite a few wins at Stafford, but I haven’t won the NAPA Spring Sizzler yet so that’d be a cool bucket list item to potentially check off this weekend, especially with the support of 15-40 Connection on board. They are a really great organization, and I want to promote them the best I can at the track.”
RFM’s entry at Stafford Motor Speedway will be the familiar 15-40 Connection paint scheme, as the race team’s partnership with the non-profit is entering its fourth year. 15-40 Connection is driving a new cancer conversation to race fans across the country with by asking them a simple yet powerful question of if they would recognize a cancer symptom. The organization is also teaching fans the three simple steps that can help them recognize potential warnings signs of cancer.
“This is the fourth season that Rob Fuller Motorsports and 15-40 Connection have teamed up to empower the lifesaving advantage of early cancer detection,” said said Tricia Laursen, Executive Director of 15-40 Connection. “RFM are helping spread 15-40 Connection’s New Cancer Conversation that teaches people how to recognize and act on health changes that could be the early warning signs of cancer and how to work with your doctor to receive the best healthcare.”
I believe that rand d stuff should be done at times when races are not going on
Please stay out of way of the leaders
You will be a lot of laps down
And not in contention all year long
Just what the tour does not need
A slow car in the way
Well, this car had better run as if it is bolted to the 2 car.
Top tier driver – top tier equipment – get in the way? Are you serious?
The two of you should get over yourselves…………….
So testing in race conditions is not good and when you test for a customer base you should run like your bolted to the customers. I wish you had to pass a IQ test to post on this site. My money is on this team to do very well. Todd didn’t quit the 4 car and join back with Fuller because he thought they would run worse. He obviously feels they will run better. If you can get fuller to focus on this car instead of the business you would have something. There lies the only problem with this group. Lack of focus by the main brain. I can’t wait to watch the pit stop myself. Those boys struggle and this race is not a race to have a bad pit stop!
Ron silk ran well in that car last year. To bad they didn’t go to Stafford in 2015
Jimmy Fuller is involved with LFR this year,but what does he know about running Stafford right!!!
Is the first post on this chain serious? This car will be in contention for the win every time it hits the track. Stay out of the way? Many laps down? Wow man. Now I remember why I stopped visiting this site. Too many idiots hiding behind a handle.
Before the 15 even thinks about doing R&D, it needs to make sure it can run with the field, particularly the 2. Get it? If the 15 does not run with the 2, or can even be a serious contender, it needs to focus on getting in the same league as the rest of the field before it can consider itself in an R&D position. R&D is to get better than what is already the best. doh.
Szegedy is a better driver than Coby, in my opinion. Coby is a disaster in traffic, anyone can run with Szegedy and know he is not a hazard. That means running clean, and not taking out other cars. Then it comes down to the cars. If the RFM/LFR brain trust is really feeding the 2 team with what is needed to make the chassis work, then the 15 car should be just as good, right off the hauler, make that better than the 2. The 15 can use that set up it developed and race with the 2. Yeah, right. LOL!
If the 15 RFM/LFR house car doesn’t run with the 2, then the 2 hasn’t been sharing data with LFR. If RFM/LFR and the teams using LFR have been open and sharing set up data, then RFM should be able to stick a known superior set up in the 15 and Szegedy should run with the 2, with ease.
And the SPEC engines are all equal, so they are not a factor. hehehe…
If the 15 is doing R&D (what better test than actual race conditions?) they likely may not keep up with the 2. Cars and drivers are like snowflakes. Two identically made chassis are not going to respond the same way to the same setup, and neither are the drivers. The 15 has run well almost every race it has run with both Todd and Ronnie. Mechanical problems and getting caught up in other peoples messes have kept their finishes from reflecting that. There’s no points pressure and talented open minds looking to have some fun and learn to get better. The spec engine should resolve some previous mechanical issues; this team will have some good races.
Fast Eddie is already making excuses for the 15… lol!!!
That long winded fella is exactly why I don’t come on here. He obviously didn’t watch the 15 car at Loundon or Bristol. The car is extremely fast period. Stop being a hater. Opinionated holes like you ruin the good things in this sport. The 2 car is better because of LFR obviously and I’m sure the baseline set up those guys ran and won with at the icebreaker came from LFR. I’m sure they tune on it for their needs but the basic package is the same. You can’t move too many pieces in a modified in case you have never looked at one close enough. The way you speak leads me to believe just that. It looks like the LFR supers are doing well. I’m sure LFR has nothing to do with that either? Wallace went 3 years winless and gets a new LFR and wins in his first race. He must have changed the set up in that car and didn’t share it with LFR huh? You are a special breed.
Paul, you are correct. dareal the bleacher warmer that has never laid finger on a modified in his life. With all that technical expertise he has I don’t know why someone has not snapped him up for a mod tour crew chiefs job yet. Special breed? More like legend in his own mind!
Like fast eddie said, there is no such thing as identical race cars or drivers no matter how you cut it. Every car responds differently to change and every driver has their own particular feel they are looking for. A base line is just that, a starting point to build off and you massage it from there to get the best performance as possible.
Now I am certain darea is going to straighten me out on this since he is the be all and end all of modified race car geometry, lol!
Paul, how can you say they are the same, and yet say LFR are different and better? Read what you said.
Paul, you responded to my one sentence post with a paragraph, and you accuse me of being long winded? Well, let me keep you honest.
I’m not a hater. You remind me of Micheal Waltrip. He was the most prolific loser until he won a Daytona 500. The guy won 4 races in his entire 32 year racing career and he promotes himself as if he is in the upper echelon with Earnhardt, Gordon, Petty, etc. If LFR can dominate the top 10, then maybe you are onto something, but right now, the chassis is not a differentiator. Look at the other LFR cars, nothing to brag about.
You are right in that the chassis are all different, but the same. The front suspension geometry is all pretty much the same regardless of manufacturer. Everybody plays with A-arm radius, trunnion height and angle, ball joint heights, lower control arm set points, kingpin angle, radius rod angles, pitch angle, etc. Pretty simply chassis set up considerations… whiskey-tango-foxtrot? It’s all different and the same at the same time. But is it? The rules really don’t allow for much latitude in front suspension geometry. The location of the chassis rails and the front track width spec pretty much dictates what goes on in between. Some might think they have the secret roll center location, but that really never lasts long. If there are 35 cars on the track, there are 35 different roll centers in use. And the rear suspension… all sorts of different things are tried, and tried again, and nothing comes of it. What was old becomes new, and then old again.
You can blather on and on, and advocate all you want, but it is nothing more than a sales pitch, and we know how credible they are.
So as you said, there isn’t much to move around on these modifieds. The chassis are cookie cutter status. SPEC motors are the norm. So what could be the differentiators?
But if you want to talk about something that can have a Trump-esque “Y-U-G-E” differentiating effect, look into carburetors. Put a massaged carburetor on any car and it will run. A little more horsepower can overcome a less than ideal chassis set up. But I’m sure you knew that.
So the 2, 8, 15, and 44 are running LFR and SPEC motors. It is reasonable to expect they occupy the top 4 spots, running nose to tail. Right? Any other cars running LFR? They are all running the same chassis set up, no? The LFR team shares data, right? And the SPEC motors are all clones, right?
LOL!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps a Bob Bruneau spec motor is the differentiator??
Don’t worry, the super massaged carbs will be a thing of the past soon because I am quite sure that NASCAR is playing with a spec engine with fuel injection just like their big brothers in the cup series and it just a matter of time until it is mandated. You talk about cost savings, no more buying $3,000.00+ carbs when you have a fuel injection system they can’t monkey with because NASCAR will set the parameters on the system. And then it will fall in the drivers hands and the chassis builder that can design the best mouse trap. But then of course it will be monkey see, monkey do and the dogs will keep chasing their tails.
Rafter fan, I hope not. These SPEC engines have no latitude for difference, other than manufacturing tolerances. The intake manifold and heads are not to be touched, the bore and stroke are spec’d. Even cam timing is spec’d. There is no performance machining to be done by the builders, just assembly.
However, some people just can’t leave the carburetors alone.
humphry, a $3k carburetor is a low cost option when compared to fuel injection. Fuel injection is crazy expensive. Here’s a homework assignment, Grasshopper, go search out the cost of the ECU the Cup cars are using. The fuel is pressurized, and needs a rather stout fuel pump/delivery system, far more expensive that what is used in a carb system. If NASCAR mandates FI in the lower levels, it will annihilate short track racing.
Dareal moron. Question and I need a answer.
The 2 car won 1 race and no poles in 2014.
They went to LFR in 2015 and won 7 races and 8 poles.
Same crew, hauler, owner and crew chief.
One question.
WHY?
Spin this one you opinionated POS.
And BTW my name is Paul StFrancis. I live in Hudson MA and I will be at Stafford if you would like to come out of the shadows and meet at the food stand in the paddock. I won’t hold my breath because people like you are spineless cowards. You can continue to live behind this fake name and accomplish absolutely nothing. I will have a blue dodge hat on and work boots. I am 54 years old. I will be with my son Joel an he is 19. Please feel free to introduce yourself to us and we can continue this conversation behind my pick up in the parking lot.
Paul, the 2 probably used the same rear view mirror, grease, coolant, and wheels, not that any of that makes a difference. Maybe the same paint too. And what about the oil filter? lol. Gee, I never considered the hauler. But what do you know about the things you don’t want talked about, like carburetors and… well, that’s enough for now. Hey Paul, how many carburetors were confiscated last season? You can’t count that high.
Hey Paul, you know the old cliché, you are involved in a battle of wits and you are totally unarmed. I have no interest or desire to meet you or your son. This isn’t a conversation, it’s an education and you’ve been schooled.
Hey Paul, if this whiz bang LFR chassis is so good, why didn’t the 8 and 44 see this wonderful jump in performance??? Answer that. Those teams are stacked with talent and resources every bit as good as the 2 team. Why hasn’t the LFR chassis elevated those teams? And the 15 will still be a mess. Sharp looking car, but it just doesn’t run. Great that Szegedy was available to drive it, that’s about the only good thing going for it. If the car is so good, anybody should be able to drive it and do well. Let’s see how that works out.
You know what Shawn.I had made a stupid tongue in cheek comment about a breaker bar one time.However I’m surprised you would allow a threat of violence to be made on your excellent website.I too will be in the paddock at stafford and certainly hope to see the police in attendance also.
I asked one question and you can’t answer it. Plain and simple. I’m not surprised you wouldn’t like to meet for a cup of coffee either. The 44 had engine issues from what I saw on FB. I would think with the amount of time you spend on the computer you would have know that. You know everything else.
I would like to buy him a coffee as well. Your wasting your time Paul. This dude is cooked.
dareal wrote: ” This isn’t a conversation, it’s an education and you’ve been schooled.”
You’re only credential will be a shoo-in for the Hot Air Balloon Hall of Fame and its “Legend in my own Mind Award” presented to the individual with the most muscular fingers at a keyboard. Congratulations!
Art,
I have no idea what you’re talking about referring to a “threat of violence”. Maybe you can be more specific about where anyone threatened anyone physically. Asking someone to meet in person is far from a threat.
The real goodfella: you seem to be such an expert on frame geometry, Chassis set-up, have a love affair with Troyer chassis , a big fan of the Mighty Mystic Missile And Jimmy Blewett I suggest you contact Mr. Garbarino I believe he’s in need of a crew chief maybe you can help them out
Guys, you are not going to hear any more from dareal, he is at Stafford warming the bleachers, having a dog and coke with his ear phones on watching the races. I can’t wait for next Monday’s posts to start, should be quite enlightening to say the least!
Shawn,I have been around awhile and when someone talks about cowards and continuing a conversation behind a truck i know exactly what is going to happen behind that truck. BTW in my opinion the 2 is consistently fast because Moran/Coby work very well together and they have a good car with a really magical carb!
Art,
I understand. I do my best monitor the comments here and nothing was said to set off any alarm bells. Yes, I get what was being inferred there, but let’s be real, nobody was meeting anybody behind any trucks. And if someone here chose to meet someone based on the comments then that’s their choice to go do that. Nobody outwardly or specifically physically threatened anybody here.
Fair enough Shawn.You do a very good job at keeping this under control.Sometimes it gets little crazy here.Maybe I should have not commented.Looking forward to the weekend anyway.
Art,
Thank you. I do make an effort to keep the comments from going off the rails. Sometimes some people push things to edge, and there’s plenty of comments that don’t get posted because of vulgarity and such, but basically if you leave a comment and keep it clean it gets posted.
Hi humphry!!!! I’m here!!!!
And Paul, be real here, do you really know everything that was the same and different when the 2 car went to LFR? Do you really know all the details that went on with the springs, shocks, carburetors, and other components? Do you, Paul? I didn’t think so.
Remember when Len Boehler used ball joint coolers? Because he wanted to focus attention away from other things.
So the rest of you LFR cheerleaders…. you need to answer my question. If the LFR chassis is so good, why didn’t the 8 have a Y-U-G-E jump in performance? And the 44? And why hasn’t the 15 ever left the field behind the dust? Why are you all Troyer haters? The 8 and 44 are well equipped teams. Go ahead. You all are attributing the LFR chassis to the anomalous (another big word, I know, look it up) performance of the 2, but the LFR chassis is not having the same effect on the other teams using it. So what does that mean? Sadly for you, the chassis is not doing what you think it is doing for the 2.
That would be Paul, Mark, Joe Lajoie, justafella (all of them), humphry, et al.
So go ahead my little sweeties, explain why the 2 is the only car that appears to have miraculously benefitted from this LFR chassis. The thing is, you can’t. Not one of you.
Make this clear, I’m not a LFR hater. I do not favor Troyer. I don’t have a favorite car, driver, chassis, engine builder, etc. I like modified racing. There are some teams that have been around a very long time, and they deserve respect. Too few are left. Those few teams are why modified racing is what it is, and why you love it. I like seeing the 3, 4, and 6 do well, they made modified racing. This whole LFR chassis deal is way oversold, and if LFR doesn’t show exclusive chassis induced performance soon, across all cars running the chassis, as in the top 5 had better be populated by all LFR cars all the time, the whole house of cards is gonna blow away with a gentle fart.
Modified racing has become somewhat cookie cutter. The chassis have little room to differentiate, and the engines are SPEC clones. So when a car does what the 2 does, it can only lead a reasonable and intelligent person to compare it to recent history. Remember what was found on the 7NY, 36 and 51 when they were running far ahead of the rest? And again Paul, do you know how many carburetors were confiscated last season? By the third race last season, something like 5-6 carbs were confiscated. At least that is all that is being said openly. The carburetors are supposed to be used as manufactured, out-of-the-box, untouched. It’s in the rules.
Paul, is there something about the rear of your pickup truck that helps you with cognitive ability? And along with your blue Dodge hat and workboots, will you be wearing a MSR/Coby tee shirt? That seems to be the uniform, only a couple hundred will look like you. You’ll blend in with the rest.
So did y’all see the latest chassis survey?
Four cars are running LFR at the Spring Sizzler. One of those four is the LFR house car.
Once the SPEC motor was proven to be a performance advantage, everyone (competitors, not hobbyists) is running one. And that change happened fast. Only three cars are running the LFR. lol!!! The Tour is DOMINATED by Troyer.
You don’t go out and buy a new chassis to race against a carburetor.
Hey, how did the LFR house car do today? I saw P2 in practice and P5 in qualifying. Dareal really looking dareal dumb now!
Wow. The tour is dominated by Troyer huh? How many wins did LFR have last year? Who won the championship? Who had the most poles? Just because they made you wear a helmet on your bus doesn’t mean it was a fast bus. I am honestly feeling bad for you at this point.
Hey Mark, if the LFR chassis was that great and superior, shouldn’t the LFR house car be P1? After all, that is the home of the brain trust.
Here’s how LFR cars Q’d:
P1, P5, P13 and P22.
Why aren’t they P1, P2, P3, and P4? And there should be only thousandths of a second separating P1 and P4. lol! If the LFR was so superior, it should OWN the top four spots.
The mighty 8 car isn’t looking so mighty at all.
Hey, I saw that the 4 car Q’d P2. Is that the old creaky 8 year old Troyer or the rumored new Troyer?
Here’s the top 10 Qualifiers:
1. LFR (2)
2. Troyer
3. Troyer
4. Troyer
5. LFR (house car)
6. Troyer
7. Troyer
8. BRE
9. Troyer
10. SPAFCO
So where are all those other LFR chassis? Why aren’t the LFR chassis occupying all four top spots?
The 2 was good when it ran other than an LFR.
And it’s only the 2 car LFR that goes Q1, the others don’t have a chance. Lia was the only other LFR pole last year, otherwise, all LFR poles are the 2 car. See the pattern, or lack there of? It’s not the LFR chassis, it’s one car that happens to be an LFR chassis.
Mark, the way you and the rest of the Troglodytes yap it up, the LFR chassis should be untouchable. They don’t look any better than the rest. The 2 car is way ahead. Far ahead. Way too far ahead to be attributable to a chassis when the other cars running the same chassis aren’t even in the same league. Do you understand that, Mark? If the chassis was the cause of any superiority, all of those LFR chassis cars should be in a cluster. But they aren’t, not even close, so it CAN NOT be the chassis. The 44 is still struggling and the 8 is lucky to be a top 10 car. The chassis did not help the performance of those teams at all.
There is no parity among the SPEC motors, and no parity among the LFR chassis. What does that tell you?
It means we are racing carburetors.
Bethany, there were many fans like you when the 7NY was winning the Loudon and Bristol races, with the highly sophisticated cheated engine. And when the 36 was driving over anything its way with that sewer sized carburetor. There were rabid fans of those cheating cars. And I feel sorry for those people. I was railing NASCAR for allowing those cars to go on, and I was right.
But NASCAR looked liked idiots for too long and finally had to do something about it.
So here’s something for you Troglodytes and LFR groupies to consider…
What if the 2 team did not exist, and the only LFR cars were the 8, 15 and 44. What would the status of the LFR chassis be then?
Does that help? One team that ran very good with their previous chassis now continues to run good with LFR and you want to make like the success is all due to the LFR chassis. Sorry, the statistics say otherwise. The rest of the field hasn’t converted over to LFR, and those that have aren’t lighting the world on fire which proves that the LFR chassis isn’t a differentiator.
Paul, do you agree? Go out behind your pickup truck to think about it.
Wow. This is amazing. I don’t know you but you have been asked several direct questions that you avoid. Then you say what if the 2 car didn’t exist. Wow. Wow. This is the car that has dominated since the car change. It’s that simple. You are now wanting to avoid the car that won the most races, poles and laps lead. Maybe in your world you can act like that car doesn’t exist but in reality it’s here. In a big way. LFR is a better car. Period. You ever hear of Burt Myers? Ask him, Doug, Todd, Donnie, Bobby or any driver, which drives better. That’s your answer to the question and no one else (especially as un qualified as you seem to be) can decide. I will never visit this site again. You have disgraced this site and more importantly yourself.
A good team is now a great team. 1 win and zero poles in 2014.
Now post LFR 7 wins and 10 poles.
The facts you continue to avoid will not go away. You can type all the comical posts but those are the hard facts. You are obviously a guy who avoids facts. That would explain your success in life that leads you to posting on a website hiding behind a handle. I’m with Bethany here. I’m out. I feel like a loser just responding to your rants. If you ever come out of the shadows and do decide to have a coffee let me know. I will sell tickets to that show and retire.
Hey Paul and Mark, I don’t drink coffee.
But that is not the reason why I have no interest in meeting you. From what I’ve seen here, that’s enough.
So why aren’t the 8, 15 and 44 tearing it up with the 2? As a matter of fact, the 8, 15 and 44 can’t touch the 2. Same chassis, right? Same engine. Why such a huge disparity?
How you feel now?? Da da dumb! Hahahahahahahahahahaha! 2-15 one and two! NoTroyer car in top 3 but they are domination. Hahahahahahahaha! Sleep tight bro!
And the 8 and 44? Why not a sweep of the top 4? Come back when the top X positions are consistently clogged with every LFR car that is running that race.
The 44 is still struggling, showed some signs of hope today. The 8 still stinks with all that expertise. Apparently no chassis can fix all those deficiencies.
darealgoodfella- Your knowledge is overwhelming. Please explain “trunnion heights and angles” to me, as I am fairly new and trying to learn about front suspension dynamics.