(Press Release from the New London-Waterford Speedbowl)
Race drivers never actually retire —they keep waiting for one more great ride to come along.
After being idle since 2002, Bill Anderson obtained that great ride — an SK Modified owned by Billy “Bear” Calicchio of Berlin.
During Saturday’s 35-lap SK Modified feature at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl, Anderson demonstrated he still knew how to find the winner’s circle.
Anderson led almost every lap to grab his first feature win since July, 2002. In other Speedbowl action, Jason Palmer remained hot, storming to his third Late Model victory in a row.
Not only did Doug Curry win his second straight Street Stock Feature, he moved into the point lead. Tom Silva struck gold in the Mini Stock feature for the fifth time this season, while Wayne Burroughs, back in his own car, won in the SK Lite Modifieds.
After missing his heat race because of truck trouble, Jim Boyle stampeded from the rear of the field to win the 25-lap event and John O’Sullivan held off a late charge from Brody Monahan for his sixth Legend win of 2021.
Anderson, however, had only driven a handful of races since his last win in 2002. He was sharp Saturday, however, holding off Todd Owen over the final five laps.
“This is so unbelievable,” Anderson said. “To come back like this after all these years, this is a dream come true. The car might have been a little tight at the end, but for the most part, the car was great. The Bear gave me an awesome car.”
Tim Jordan, who had won three in a row, and Andrew Molleur were sidelined early after fracturing the Turn 3 wall.
Owen gave Anderson a scare over the final five laps, but could get no closer than 0.2 of the lead.
Palmer also had an awesome car as he took the lead from Charles Bailey III on an outside power move with eight laps to go and maintained it the rest of the way.
“Charles had an awesome car, and I’m sure he didn’t want to give me a lane,” Palmer said. “But he did and I took advantage of it.”
When a caution flag came out with two laps to go, Palmer had to hold off Ray Christian for the win.
“Me and Ray always race good,” Palmer said. “It was a tough two laps.”
With point-leader Ryan Waterman and Jason Chicolas, the third place man in points, sidelined early after hitting the wall, Curry was able to move through the field. He took the lead from Nickolas Hovey in the late stages and then held off Eric Lutz at the end.
“Two in a row. Are you serious,” Curry said in victory lane. “It was an awesome race. I knew if we had a late caution and I could get to the bottom I would have a chance, and that’s what happened.”
Silva took his second consecutive Mini Stock race and his fifth of the season by finally figuring out a way to get past an aggressive David Dorr at the midway mark. Chris Garside made a late charge but came up short.
“I just had to keep him to the outside,” Silva said. “I pinned him out there. The last thing I wanted to do was go sideways.”
After suffering motor problems, defending SK Lite champion Burroughs borrowed a ride last week and finished fifth.
He returned to his regular ride Saturday with a repaired motor and blew the field away for his third 2021 win.
Burroughs usually is a slow starter, but he took the lead from Jake Hines on lap 6 and cruised the rest of the way.
Boyle had to start at the rear of the field after missing his heat race with mechanical woes.. But he didn’t stay in the back for long. He blistered his way to the lead, taking the top spot from Josh Stringer, as he thundered to his fourth win of the year. He also opened up a 5-point lead over Ken Cassidy in the standings.
O’Sullivan had some nervous moments with four laps to go in the Legends feature when Monahan tried to carve underneath him.
“We both went sideways, but Brody it lost a lot more,” O’Sullivan said. “His car was spot on today. We were lucky to win.”
Racing resumes on Wednesday with the Legends cars, the Super X-Cars, the X-Cars and the Bandoleros appearing for Wild-n-Wacky Wednesday.
1. Bill Anderson. Wolcott; 2. Todd Owen, Somers; 3. Cory DiMatteo, Farmington; 4. Joe Gada, Uncasville,; 5. Jacob Perry, Pawcatuck; 6. Rob Janovic Jr, Waterford,; 7. Jeff Malave, Manchester; 8. Paul Buzel, Trumbull; 9. Wendell Dailey, Gales Ferry; 10. Adam Gada, Bozrah.
25-lap SK Lite Modifieds: 1. Wayne Burroughs, Oakdale; 2. Jake Hines, North Haven; 3. Paul Charette, Woodstock; 4. RJ Marcotte, Millville; 5. Jason Chapman, Ellington; 6. John O’Sullivan III, Salem; 7. Corey Caddick, Richmond,; 8. Anthony Marvin, Colchester; 9. Tyler Alkas. Kensington; 10. Tyler Chapman, Ellington,
30-lap Late Models: 1. Jason Palmer; 2. Raymond Christian, Uncasville; 3. Glen Thomas Jr., West Bridgewater, MA; 4. Isaiah Newcomb, Plymouth,; 5. Michael Benevides, Westerly; 6. Keith Scalia, North Branford; 7. Paul Heard, Lisbon; 8. Charles Bailey III, Lisbon; 9. Charles Bailey IV, Lisbon, ; 10. Diego Monahan, Quaker Hill,.
25-lap Street Stocks: 1. Douglas Curry, Groton,; 2. Eric Lutz, Miller Place, NY; 3. Nickolas Hovey, Chaplin; 4. Shawn Monahan, Waterford; 5. Shawn Gaedeke, Groton,; 6. Al Stone III, Durham; 7. Brian Norman, Clinton; 8. Jon Porter, East Lyme,; 9. Tyler Cinamella, Willimantic,; 10. Ray Downing Jr., Canterbury.
25-lap Mini Stocks: 1. Tommy Silva, Gales Ferry; 2. Christopher Garside , Groton; 3. Kevin Moore, Moosup; 4. David Dorr, Gales Ferry; 5. Nicholas Pappacoda North Branford; 6. Hailey Beal, Ledyard,; 7. Jesse Oloski, Salem’ 8. Jared Roy, Sterling; 9. Wayne Taylor, Moosup,; 10. Bill Sylvia, Preston.
25-lap Speedbowl Trucks: 1. Jim Boyle; Dayville; 2. Tyler Chapman, Mystic; 3. Joshua Stringer, Dayville,; 4. Ken Cassidy Jr., Lisbon,; 5. Jeff Karns, Quaker Hill,; 6. Rick Ashlaw, Manchester; 7. Andrew Pellegrini, North Grosvenordale; 8. Ari Jencik, Canton,; 9. Mercedes Caron , East Hampton’ 10. Todd Taylor, Stonington.
20-lap Legends: 1. John O’Sullivan III, Salem,; 2. Brody Monahan; 3. Joel Newcomb, Plymouth; 4. Dylan Cote; Griswold; 5. Scott Limkemann, Lebanon; 6. Scott Kinsman, Berlin, CT
Great job by bear harvesting tires and waiting for a pole shot. Great job starting on the pole with 4 tires when no one else has any.
Superb
That’s called strategy and it’s all part of racing. Others can do the same thing.
Way to go Todd Chassis Pro on the Podium every where they go 🏁
SK and SK lite features can be summarized in the headline: “BIG STEAM PREVAILS AT NO TECH SPEEDBOWL”
A win is a win. Congrats to Bill, Bear and the 14 crew.
Haters can keep hating, those of us that attend the races see GREAT racing, in every division. Hands down the best racing in Ct. Incredible racing, side by side, for EVERY position. Yes Anderson won from the front, but Owen made him work for it, Great race!
Cash only…. Because its easier to Traffic/Exploit with.
Press releases from the Speedbowl are as sketchy as tire availability this year. This is a nice, complete story publicizing the hard working teams competing so why can’t they do it every week?
Speaking of sketchy that’s what the term “tire harvesting implies” doesn’t it. Some underhanded practice giving a team or teams an unfair advantage on any given night.
Used to be the best funded teams rolled into the paddock and bought whatever the max allotment was but with a shortage it’s not that automatic. They’re being brought into line with teams that do tend to try to get more out of their tire purchases. Just another wrinkle in a sport where there are an abundance of wrinkles we just aren’t privy to who is tire strong on any given race night.
Calicchio and Anderson have paid their dues appearing in races leading up to this win. They were 2 or 3 tenths off the leader in prior events probably on used tires banking the tire credits one would assume. How is that wrong it’s part of the sport. Ronnie Williams returning to the SK’s at Stafford struggled Friday probably on old tires. Rocco meh, then wins then meh again so they are probably banking stickers to use at the right time as well.
What, no one happy for Anderson? On the shelf for a couple decades now blasting back onto the scene in the 89 at Stafford and Calicchio’s 14 at the Speedbow and now a win. Pretty cool if you ask me and the vehicle for doing it even better. The ugly Narducci divorce at Stafford and the Bear disgusted with Stafford. Goes from a young up and comer that didn’t pan out then pulls an older driver off the shelf for another go at another track in 2021 and gets a win. That’s racing drama baby so who cares how much harvesting he did or how in front they were you still have to outrun the wolves and they did just that.
Ask a lot of people, the latest being the Narducci clan what they think of Calicchio and it probably won’t be very flattering but you know what. It’s his car, his investment in time and money so he can be as big an SOB and do whatever the hell he wants. Good for him!
Doug gets it great story congrats bear and billy good win for a team that’s had a lot of changes this year and comes out on top
@Doug
Full press releases such as this are made and sent out weekly for both nights of racing, always available on the home page of Speedbowlct.com and posted in the Speedbowl’s Facebook feed.
Congrats to Bear motor sports,Anderson family,and Mikey the tire guy. So much fun watching Billy race for the past three weeks. It’s all about the fans.
Cool to see the old dads getting the job done. Not only Anderson but the Lutzcracker Sr. getting second, his best finish.
Responding the what Mitch said but not Mitch specifically.
On May 8th Mr. Courchesne corrected points I had made in a post. That’s not important here but what is was the snap shot in May Shawn provided of what the Speedbowl was doing leading up to the season with regard to promotion.
“Shawn Courchesne says
May 8, 2021 at 9:34 am
I totally understand the adversarial relationship with the media because they covered his legal issues. But the fact is, in today’s world, a properly run business can do its best promotion from within thanks to the free tools that social media offers. There has been almost zero promotion of any events or any competitors that support the facility from the staff or management. The lack of promotion is not about the adversarial relationship with the media, it’s about not having a staff or management with the skills or understanding to do their own promotion. Or maybe they’ve just been instructed not to do any promotion for some other reason.”
The Speedbowls approach to the media has not essentially changed since the spring of 2017 under any of the track managers excepting perhaps Mike Serlucca. Mainly because the media and especially the one racing publication in Connecticut has reported on the legal issues of the owner of the Speedbowl. The result has been an on again, off again, smattering of stories many of which the owner of RaceDayCt has had to do from a distance I would presume not being the most popular person at the Speedbowl.
I watched in 2020 as the Speedbowl moving toward the season opener. For fans and competitors there was virtually no information provided as soon as two or three weeks before the season eventually began. It was amazing that with virtually no traditional outreach or promotion they somehow pulled it off.
Since then it’s been the same old thing. Mr. Courchesne may print something about a meaningful event at the track but it’s inconsistent at best. I would presume the reason is the fractured relationship with the track that isn’t likely to change under the current ownership.
Yes there are some nice articles on the Speedbowl web site. Some are terrific. That’s one leg of track promotion. Social media another the track is active in to some degree. A third leg is missing. Were this a traditional situation the track promoter would be all over the publisher of THE ONE RACING PUBLICATION IN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT hounding him weekly and daily. Providing a steady stream of promotional pieces on drivers and events at the track as well as making sure the race result press release is published. Providing a special place at the track to view and report on events there with access to all the teams and competitors. That clearly is not happening.
As it stands it appears that Mr. Courchesne can decide to publish the press release or not and one can assume the Speedbowl doesn’t really care one way or another if that happens.
In my view the Speedbowl fan base is one of the best of any track anywhere. Fiercely loyal and 2020 showed how they were ready, willing and able to build cars and attend races based on what amounted to word of mouth pipeline of what was coming. The ownership, virtually no constructive relationship with anyone in media, no beer, the bus and half the billboards blank. It’s just a weird ass track with a weird ass situation with a weird ass owner that for obvious reasons has different reasons and goals for holding races at the track then making money. It’s more like doing the absolute minimum to assure the continuance of the one place he can go where he is appreciated for doing something good.
So sure, there is a press release and some are really good. But nothing has changed since May as far as I can see. The Speedbowl promoter could care less what RaceDayCt prints or doesn’t print about events at the Speedbowl. My view it’s short changing a fan base with well over a half century of loyalty but at this stage it’s clear. They’ll support the track they have no matter how imperfect a situation it is hoping for new ownership and a more traditional relationship at some point in the future.