(Press Release from Stafford Motor Speedway)
The 2018 season at Stafford Speedway is quickly approaching and changes for the renamed Street Stock division are starting to take shape. Historically named the DARE Stock division, the rebranded Street Stock division will have their weekly lap count increased from 15 laps to 20 with the total weekly purse increased 30%. The division will also have two extra distance events on the 2018 schedule, a 25-lap event Friday, May 11th, and a 30-lap event Friday, September 7th. Both events will have increased payouts announced in the coming days.
“The DARE Stock and now Street Stock division is a very important part of racing at Stafford, and we are very excited to add these two events,” explained Stafford General Manager Mark Arute. “We are extending the weekly racing distance, adding two extra distance special events, and also boosting the weekly payout.”
The Street Stock division morphed from Stafford’s “Left and Right” division in the early 90’s into the DARE Stocks and held that moniker until getting rebranded to Street Stock. Historically the division has served as a division for affordable weekly racing and a place to get comfortable behind the wheel of a race car on the tricky half-mile.
“Street Stocks are the ideal place to get your feet wet in racing,” continued Stafford General Manager Mark Arute. “Take a look at Woody [Pitkat]. He got his first win in a Dare Stocks in 1996 and went on to win the NAPA Spring Sizzler® in 2015. We want the division to be a place for drivers and teams to learn and have fun. If the time comes when the team is comfortable and wants to move up, we have our ladder system into the Limited Late Models or SK Lights.”
Number registrations for the 2018 Street Stock season are underway. Two time defending champion Johnny Walker has registered his #01 for the new season but will have tough competition from some emerging young talent. 2017 rookies George Bessette in the #39 car and Travis Hydar in the #11 car both scored wins last season and are looking to compete for the championship in 2018. Vince Gambacorta and Nicole Chambrello were also both feature winners in 2017 and are set to return for the 2018 season while Chris Bagnall, who finished a career high 4th in last season’s standings, is back searching for his first career win.
More details regarding the Street Stock 25 and 30 lap events will be released in the coming days.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
This is great news. Stafford is doing a great job developing their racing portfolio.
How does this compare to the purse and points fund at Waterford? 🤠
Great job Stafford at increasing the purse to your racers. I hope others take notice as this is a great way to support those who support you. Thats the way to keep them coming back!
Attention Geezer Alert: Old Street Stocker about to vent.
When is increasing the purse for any division a bad thing…..never.
When does a few bucks really make a big difference…….rarely.
When is an extra distance race going to attract outsiders……infrequently as long as Stafford runs gears in the mid 3’s.
When is suggesting to Stafford a change have any chance of being considered………never.
Nonetheless.
Call them anything you like Stafford but they aren’t Street Stocks. Street Stocks were the cars you had from 1976 to 1986. Motor home front springs, any stock rear spring, no jacking bolts, stock gas shocks, no lead, stock Muncie or Saginaw four speeds and if you wanted to win a T/A engine. What you have now is vintage 1987 plus Late Models.
Now it should be called the Classic Car division. Frames passed down for a decade plus, old body styles that are mostly at car cruises and plastic body panels because the real things go to collectors.
One idea would be to simply end Street Stocks and just go with the LLM’s. Crate motors, same frames, kind of the same idea. Or do what Seekonk does. S10, Ranger and Dakota Sport Trucks. Nah. Those are getting hard to get as well now that they are mostly obsolete and car counts at Seekonk aren’t any better then Stafford’s Street Stocks.
Suggestion:
Full size pickup trucks. Plenty of them, cheap to buy, easy to strip and modify and an endless supply of parts. Long bed only and include extended cabs to add personality. Roll center can be lowered easily, not top heavy after being stripped. Add lead, jacking bolts, a crate engine and away you go.
Why not. Have someone like Barry Fluckiger build a prototype, introduce in at the second Open Modified show and start testing. Test it to make it equal to the Street Stocks now so they can run together and transition over a period of years. Come on man, we all love and can relate to our pick up trucks, even the young grasshoppers. Is it worth thinking about or has it and been rejected?
The three STOOGES strike again !!!
Can this move by Stafford lure any Waterford cars up to Stafford?
🤠
Doug, FYI, most of the Seekonk trucks are full sized Fords and Chevys. I think their rules are the small trucks have either a 4 or 6 cyl, and the big trucks have more weight and an 8 cyl.
So Crazy, are you saying that increasing the purse is not a good thing or do you just feel the need to take a free shot?
Thanks Eddie. I’ll admit never going to Seekonk but their rules show the Sport Trucks to be the smaller brand with V-8’s for the Saturday shows. On youtube they look like all the other trucks at all the other tracks and touring series. I’m not suggesting that. Full size and stock sheet metal. F-150’s, Rams and Chevy 1500 series. You can get them all day for under $1000 right up to 2005. May not be practical but I thought I’d throw it out there.
Actually the street stocks can now run tube clips but no front jacking bolts and they run on the same tire as the late models I think rear suspension is still gm style four link no pannard bar so they are not hand me down used late models and at the same time are not cheap to build or run
Ya I see all the clipping going on in the rules that is clearly necessary because the basic chassis’s are so hard to come by. That seems to be the basic problem.
They do not run same tires as LM or LLM
Good news. A $15 increase in payout doesn’t seem exciting or newsworthy especially when the winner is only taking home only $150, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.
Here, here. An increase in the pay out is never bad but I’m willing to bet the teams aren’t facebooking each other saying how grateful they are.
My curiosity is the increase in feature laps. Why. They seem to be pretty strung out at the end as it is and it is after all the bottom division with four others divisions to go. Why? a 33% increase in laps is a ton more tire wear and expense for folks on tight budgets. Why?
My opinion is that the Street Stocks have the tightest racing of all the fendered divisions. Hate to say it, but if they were to drop anything, this is the LAST division of the fenders that I’d want to lose.
I guess if someone mandated that the three full fendered divisions be reduced to two I’d be on board with keeping the Street Stocks since I wrote the big long deal suggesting that full size trucks be added to the division. The comment that was completed ignored for lack of interest. And that Stafford would never consider anyway. Oh well.