Woody Pitkat celebrates victory in Saturday’s ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (Photo: Brenda Meserve)
LOUDON, N.H. – Woody Pitkat’s dream scenario for this weekend was celebrating in victory lane after the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour F.W. Webb 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for Ted Christopher.
Pitkat didn’t get the opportunity to drive Ted Christopher’s Whelen Modified Tour car to victory lane Saturday, but he did get the opportunity to get there and dedicate another victory to his longtime competitor and friend.
Pitkat, of Stafford, won the ACT Invitational Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It was his first career American-Canadian Tour victory.
“Obviously whenever you can win for Ted and try to honor Ted that’s good,” Pitkat said. “Keith [Rocco] put the pressure on for what he did Friday night [at Stafford Motor Speedway]. But it was a good weekend to see Bobby [Santos III] win [the Whelen Modified Tour event] and I could win.”
The ACT Invitational was shortened from 50 laps to 18 laps because of darkness.
Pitkat was racing for the Summit Ice team has been competing for in the event since 2015.
“They always asks me every yeary to do it,” Pitkat said. “I love racing Loudon. The past couple years we’ve been like a sixth or seventh place car. It seems like the car sits in a trailer for a year and then they pull it out like two weeks before the race. It’s kind of funny. I said, ‘If you ever get a fresh motor in this thing I think we’d be in good shape.’ The car seems to handle pretty good.
“Unfortunately the race didn’t go the distance but, it had to have been a pretty good show because I went from 19th to the lead in like 13 laps. It was pretty fun. I was just trying to get to the front so I could set my pace.”
Jimmy Hebert was second and Kyle Welch third.
In the Whelen Modified Tour race, Pitkat was racing the No. 82 Danny Watts Racing ride that Christopher had been competing in this season. He finished eighth.
“Obviously I wanted to win the [Whelen Modified Tour] race for Ted,” Pitkat said. “There was a time there when I was coming up through the field and I got greedy and tried to pass two cars at once. I probably shouldn’t have done that. I lost everything I gained.
“Then we made some adjustments for the second half and it wasn’t as good. But there at the end when they all started really racing hard and they bottled up on the outside and I thought I was going to be OK and maybe get a top-five finish, but I just misjudged off of turn four and caught the fence with the right front. It was probably a little bit of trying too hard to get the best finish I could. But you can’t knock anybody for trying to hard.”
I have seen a lot of races in my day and I have got to say that “race” probably was the worst I have ever witnessed. 2 plus hours and only completed 18 laps! There were at the very most 10 guys out there that even had any business racing on a track like that. 3rd place given to a car that was totaled out and not even on the track for the previous three or four restart try’s?! Hack a Rama all the way around. Total joke.
Congratulations Woody. Glad you were able to make to the front through all the carnage. That was the worst race ever, anywhere. Almost 2 hours to run only 17 laps. The longest green flag run was only 12 laps.
Good job Wood ,Teddy would of been proud of the effort
Last night’s race was crazy. When they first announced an ACT event a few years ago, I thought it would go like last night, but the ones I saw before were pretty good races. I think last night could have been a lot better with better coordination of setting the field for restarts. That would have supplied another 15-20 minutes of racetime.
I have been to probably 100 ACT races since the late 80’s and the only way that kind of a sheet show would happen is over Curleys dead body. It took those goons 8 laps on a 1 mile track to get the damn lineup right. Car awarded third while sitting in the pits junked that caps it all off.
Despite the way the ACT race turned out, how cool is it that the two brothers-in-law who both competed against and had a lot of respect for him both won one for TC? Congrats to Woody and Bobby!
New people ruined the ACT race. Time to get the guys not to run it. What a JOKE. Only 18 laps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations Woody!