(Press release from Stafford Speedway)
Stafford’s Limited Late Model division has seen a see-saw battle between defending track champion Jeremy Lavoie and the #6 L & S Equipment team and Matt Clement and the #59 Aquatic Wildlife team in the race for the 2019 track title.
Lavoie began his title defense in the best possible fashion by winning the season opening race on May 4th. Clement, who entered the 2019 season with 0 wins to his name in 4 seasons of Limited Late Model competition scored his first career win on May 11 and he has followed that up with 4 more wins this season to lead all Limited Late Model drivers with 5 wins. Clement and Lavoie are the only drivers with multiple feature wins this season with Lavoie having notched 3 wins. Drivers with one win each this season include Alexandra Fearn and the #12 SAFCO Foam team, Gary Patnode and the #22 GP Fence team, and Duane Provost and the #88 Facchini Law Firm team.
After Lavoie won the first race of the season, Provost scored podium finishes in 4 of the first 5 races to take the points lead. A family vacation forced Provost to miss several races and Lavoie took over the points lead following the June 7 feature event. Patnode took over the point lead from Lavoie following the June 14 feature with Clement then taking the lead following the June 21 feature. Clement has been in control of the points standings since the June 21 feature but his point lead has not been more than 6 points during that 4-race stretch.
Patnode currently sits third in the standings, 26 points behind Clement while Fearn’s first feature win of the season last Friday night sees her sitting fourth in the standings, 34 points behind. The race for the Limited Late Model crown is a race that will be sure to go down to the final race of the season as part of the NAPA Fall Final Weekend on Sept. 28-29.
Leading the way in the race for the R.A.D. Auto Machine Limited Late Model Rookie of the Year award is Kevin Crosby and the #33 Crosby Motorsports team. Crosby holds a comfortable lead over Devon Jencik and the #23 Jencik Motorsports team although Jencik only began racing on June 28 and he has 3 starts thus far in 2019.
This Friday night, July 19, is Girls Night Out & the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund Track Walk with Ladies General Admission Tickets just $10. All other Adult General Admission Tickets are $20.00. As always kids ages 6-14 are just $5.00 and kids 5 & under are free. Reserved seating is available and is priced at $23.00 for all ages. All ticket prices include 10% CT Admission Tax. Stafford Motor Speedway offers plenty of free parking for auto racing events along with overnight parking available for self contained Recreational Vehicles.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Kind of hard to have a lot of race battles with way less than 10 cars in a feature event. Combine them with the Late Models and adjust the rules as well as paying a bonus to the Limited’s. This is by no means a negative response to the LLM competitors who have no fault in the current LOW car count in the division. They could use this opportunity to speed up the show.
I’ve been to 4 races and despite the small field of cars, I thought the quality of racing was surprisingly good with quite a bit of side-by-side battles.
Fast Eddie is on the ball as he’s been to the races and seen for himself. The LLM field is pretty good and a few more cars have shown up recently. The cars are out there! Great division to race as it is virtually the same cost as the Street Stock division to run but more power, more car, locked rear, better brakes, easier to maintain body. I cannot understand why there is not more cars out there, the car count will come up for sure.
The LM division has been really strong this year too. More cars every week relative to last year and the competition is very close. Recently Tom Fearn has been dominant but we’ve had pretty good luck on almost every win just dodging wrecks, being in the right lane on restarts, cars ahead wiping each other out, etc.
Bottom line is the fenders are strong along with all the racing at Stafford. I have to say the SKL show is super exciting with the young racers mostly, and the SK battles just speak for themselves. If you have missed a single feature this year you are missing something let me tell you. This is from a fender guy but first a racer.
Thanks Mr. Fearn! And I agree, the LM racing has been much better with additional cars. It’s always good to see multiple position battles going on. I wish I could get to Stafford more because I think it’s the best show in New England for racing, but I’m logistically challenged. North of Boston to Stafford on a Friday afternoon is not an easy ride, not to mention getting out of work early!
I was in the rich0 camp. Now not so much. No heats and 15 laps with 5 competitive cars capable of winning is fine in my view. Especially with the respectable car counts this year in the LM’s.
Otherwise my view from the bleachers is that Mr. Fearn sounds like a politician touting the low unemployment rate when the reality is most of the jobs are low paying and folks have to work more then one job to make ends meet.
More LLM’s in the pipeline? You said the exact same thing a couple years ago and yet here we are with a total of 11 teams listed in the team roster.
Are they the same cost to build as a Street Stock. Who would know better then a guy that’s built them. However it seems like there are more after market suspension components in an LLM then a Street Stock and the more powerful motors would have a value added cost. Internal sheet metal and more extensive modifications to the LLM frame when they’re being converted to race cars. Saw the article on Justin Bren’s new car that was built as an LLM at the time a couple years back and it looked like a rather expensive work of art. But who am I to disagree.
So what do the numbers say about the finishes of races?
Using the results of the last three regular distance races in each division I averaged the interval of the 2nd through 4th place cars time differential off the winner. LLM 1.56, LM 2.19, SKL 1.01, SK .45.
True the LLM’s have had a few great finishes that compared to the LM’s seem quite good. The numbers however confirm what we as fans pretty much know to be true from what our peepers see. Sleek race cars with no fenders and big fat tires with a lower center of gravity provide more exciting finishes and more enjoyment for the average fan.
More drivers are going from the Streets and Karts right to the SK Lights for obvious reasons. Who wants to spend tens of thousands of dollars investing in an iffy division when you can be a part of a thriving SK Light field that has a very bright future.
On the other hand the unemployment rate is very low and if you’re last name is Fearn I should think you’d feel the LM’s and LLM’s are pretty much perfect as they exist now. Perfectly understandable but perhaps a bit biased.
Congratulation once again to the Fearn clan for taking down two more wins in a repeat of last week. Add Narducci and Williams to the gang and excellence is concentrated this year in just a few elite teams so good for them.