Marcello Rufrano is putting the DARE Stock division at Stafford Motor Speedway in the rearview and turning his focus to open wheel racing at the historic half-mile.
Rufrano, of North Haven, will go from running full-time in the DARE Stock division at Stafford to running full-time in the track’s SK Light Modified divison. He will make his Stafford Speedway SK Light Modified division debut Friday.
“This is pretty much the starting ground for the big boys,” Rufrano said. “People are proven in [SK Light Modified] division. I want to do this for a couple years. I don’t plan on getting out of this for a while. I’ve got to learn these cars before I think I can even compete with Rowan Pennink or Keith Rocco or all of those people.”
The 15-year old Rufrano is the son of SK Modified team owner John Rufrano, who fields a car at Stafford Speedway full-time for former NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national champion Keith Rocco of Wallingford.
“I’m looking in the garage and we’ve got the go-kart wing from when he started and the car flipped over and it’s all bent over,” John Rufrano said. “I’ve got his original helmet there and there’s a picture on the wall of the DARE Stock and I’m ooking through these chapters of everything. … Sometimes it feels like things are going fast.”
Marcello Rufrano made his DARE Stock division debut in 2015. Despite missing three events due to a mid-season trip to Italy, Marcello Rufrano completed his rookie season eighth in the DARE Stock standing. He had two victories, nine top-five’s and 14 top-10’s.
He made his first SK Light Modified start in April at Thompson Speedway with a third place finish in his opening event and has competed in all three events run for the division there this year. He also made a start in the SK Light Modified at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl. Stafford rules prohibited him from competing in both the DARE Stock and SK Light Modified divisions at the same time.
“It’s really exciting,” Marcello Rufrano said. “It seems like we’ve had more luck this season with the SK Light [Modified] than we’ve had with the DARE Stock. With the DARE Stock we were pretty much following the leader and the racing wasn’t as good so we decided to sell the car.
“Going to [Stafford] is kind of like a family reunion every Friday. Going there with a Modified, I’ll probably have a lot more confidence because I know the track and I expect to run a little bit better than I did at Thompson. But I’m not going to go out there and be a hero, I’m just going to go out there and do what I’ve got to do.”
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