STAFFORD – Before Saturday, Joey Polewarczyk Jr. had never turned a lap in competition at Stafford Speedway.
Though it’s fair to say the Hudson, N.H. driver took a quick liking to the tricky half-mile layout at Stafford.
Polewarczyk put a whooping on the field in running away with victory in the Granite State Pro Stock Series Casagrande Builders 75 Saturday at Stafford’s NAPA Opening Day.
It was the first appearance for the series at Stafford.
Polewarczyk took the lead from Eddie MacDonald on lap 15 and was never challenged again at the front.
“We struggled a little bit in practice getting the feel we wanted for it,” Polewarczyk said. “Number one, this facility, this place is beautiful. I’ve only been here one other time, it was a long time ago. We just kept working at it trying to get the feel that I wanted. And I was still a little iffy before the feature because we made some more changes before the feature. It doesn’t happen often but we hit on it just right and man this thing was fun to drive and this track is fun to drive too.”
Cory Casagrande of Stafford was second in his home track return and David Darling of Seekonk, Mass. was third.
With Polewarczyk checked out up front, Casagrande and Darling put on a spirited battle for second place over the closing laps.
“It’s a good finish,” Casgrande said. “Yeah it sucks to finish second, but we had to pass a lot of cars. We started sixth, but we still passed a lot of cars it felt like. Me and [Darling] had a hell of a race going. It felt like the whole 75 laps we were going at it. Hopefully I got a lot of TV time for my sponsors and we’ll move on to the next one.
“It’s definitely a relief. It’s almost a relief to finish second. But winning obviously would have been awesome. I think this is my best finish in a Pro Stock. I think I had a few thirds but never a second. There’s only one more to go and we’ll look at it that way. Strong day altogether.”
Great day all around!
Joey Pole reminded me of some Lewis Hamlton F1 leads, you have to work to find him so far ahead. The 2-3-4-5 race Cory C. was involved with was great, lots of action there.
The GPSS format of both time trials and heat to sort cars was confusing at first but made for a good show.
Tell you what those things honk around the track flirting with SK speeds at times. Quite a lesson in the difference between Late Models for we that are relatively ignorant on full bodies.
Was it a good race? Had it’s moments and I sure didn’t thing Polewarczyk who is a master of shorter tracks could dominate on the bigger track but what do I know. I was hoping for something like NHMS with a lot of clustered, side by side racing that probably was never going to happen.
Wondering what the consensus is on the quality of this race.
The best racing was the show Cory C. Put on. Awesome run Cory! And thanks to Casagrande builders for sponsoring.
I thought there was supposed to be some locals in it. Fearn, Rocco? Was an ok race. I’ve seen better pro stock races at bullrings.
Nice to see Pro Stocks back at Stafford and frankly they should have never left in my opinion. Doug, not bad speed wise for what is called aPro Late Models across most of the country; imagine what a PASS car would do or an actual real Super Late model which they run down here in the south.
I was surprised that the winner’s check was for only $3K.