STAFFORD – On a chaotic day at Stafford Speedway it was a driver known most for always having the orderly plan of attack who ultimately tempered the mayhem.
Matt Hirschman survived an ugly late restart with Anthony Nocella and held on to win the 80-lap Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series 51st NAPA Fall Final Saturday at Stafford Speedway.
“I’m kind of just relieved to win a race,” Hirschman said. “Those are kind of exciting when you win when you kind of don’t think you’re going to. The one’s when you’re out front and you know you’ve got the car to beat, they’re not as exciting, you’re more hoping nothing goes wrong. In this one, I didn’t really think we were going to win.”
It was the second consecutive Fall Final victory for Hirschman, who also won the 2022 NAPA Spring Sizzler at Stafford.
“We’ve won some big one’s here,” said Hirschman, who earned $15,000 for the win. Making a habit of it. I’d like to see if we could get another [Spring] Sizzler in the collection before I’m done.”
Hirschman, of Northampton, Pa., became the first repeat winner this season in six Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series events. It was his record 21st series win over 54 career starts since 2014.
The event seemed plagued at the start with three cautions flying before a lap could be completed. Twelve of the 30 starters completed the event.
“It was an ugly race just from the drop of the green,” Hirschman said. “We couldn’t even get the drop of the green.”
Ronnie Williams of Lebanon was second and Cory DiMatteo of Farmington third.
“For us it was a day from hell,” Williams said. “I felt like everything that could go wrong in the beginning did go wrong. Just stupid stuff really. We started way back there. I think we started 19th and before we even did a lap I was up to 11th. It was chaotic for sure. But we kept our nose clean. … I don’t think you ever expect something crazy like that at Stafford. But a lot of money on the line, a lot of very good guys here, it just happens I guess.”
Said DiMatteo: “We were almost a lap down at one point. It was a long race for us. We started off really good and then the handling went away. We were able to battle back. I’m super happy. Super proud of my guys. This is my first completed Open race in maybe the half a dozen we’ve done in the past couple years.”
The turning point in the event came on a lap 78 restart. Nocella controlled Hirschman on two previous restarts on lap 76. On the lap 78 restart Nocella got a slight edge on Hirschman at the flagstand. Nocella then got up the track and spun in front of Hirschman and into the wall.
“I’ve always raced well with [Nocella], but that was 100 percent his fault,” Hirschman said. “He started taking away more and more space with each restart. … It got to the point where he’s putting me in the wall and putting himself in the wall. I think that was a mistake on his part. I thought maybe if he just ran his race he still could have won but he got a little bit dirty with me on the restarts and it cost him. … It could have cost us as well.”
Said Nocella: “On those late restarts, he was staying down on me, I was staying up, whatever. For a win for that much money it is what it is. That the specific restart, I definitely when I went to shift to high gear I spun the tires a little and kind of chased it up and we were out of room.”
At the start pole-sitter Mikey Flynn was slow to get fired forcing third place starting Ron Silk to check up. Silk, who was considered the favorite coming into the event, tried to find a way around Flynn as the issue rippled through the field. Silk’s car ended up getting hit and wrecking in turn one, ending his day.
On the second attempt at starting the race Flynn did not get up to speed again and then spun in front of the field while numerous drivers were forced to take evasive actions.
On the third attempt at a restart second place Keith Rocco didn’t go, stacking up the field. The wreck eliminated Craig Lutz and Jacob Perry.
The fourth attempt at getting the first lap completed was successful with Kyle Bonsignore getting by Nocella for the lead with Joey Cipriano going to second.
The action was short-lived. On lap four Teddy Hodgdon IV spun out of sixth place in turn one and collected Doug Coby.
Following the lap four restart Bonsignore and Nocella went side-by-side before Nocella cleared for the lead off of turn four on lap five.
By lap 25 Nocella and Bonsignore had checked out from third place Cipriano with Hirschman running fourth.
On lap 33 Hirschman went by Cipriano fourth. Nocella and Bonsignore were a straightaway ahead of Hirschman at the time. By lap 52 Nocella and Bonsignore remained checked out from the field with Hirschman running in third, more than three seconds behind Nocella. By lap 58 Hirschman had gained about a second on Nocella. By lap 61 Hirschman was within just about a second to Nocella.
On lap 62 Tyler Hines spun in turn two to bring out caution. Under caution the field headed to pit road. Nocella edged Hirschman in the race off pit road with Cipriano moving to third and Bonsignore falling to fourth.
On the lap 62 restart Hirschman got a huge jump from the outside lane to go to the lead for the first time in the race. On lap 63 Nocella fought back to the inside of Hirschman and took the lead back with a diving move into turn one on lap 64.
“We had a good pit stop, I came out second and got the lead right away and I was just way too tight on the short initial run and he was really good,” Hirschman said “There wasn’t even a thought to hold him off. He drove right underneath me and drove right by me. But as the race progressed, with each lap, with each restart I thought we started to equalize more. And then it was almost to the point of ‘Well maybe we still have a shot here’ and that brought us to those closing restarts.”
On lap 68 caution flew with Eric Goodale stopped in turn one with major left front damage. For the restart Hirschman chose the inside lane when the choose cone came out, putting Bonsignore on the front row for the restart. Nocella controlled out front on the restart. On lap 70 Hirschman got under Bonsignore for second with Williams following to third and Ryan Newman to fourth. Newman went by Williams for third place on lap 71 but Williams took the position back on lap 73.
By lap 74 Nocella had opened a half second lead on Hirschman. Caution flew on lap 76 for the stopped cars of Buddy Charette and Brett Meservey. Under caution fourth place running Newman slowed on the track and went to the pits.
On the lap 76 restart Nocella and Hirschman went side-by-side through turn one, but caution was quickly back out for the wrecked car of Chris Pasteryak in turn one.
On the next attempt at a lap 76 restart, Nocella and Hirschman went side-by-side for much of the lap before Nocella cleared for the lead off of turn four. Caution was back out on lap 78 for a wreck in turn one that began with Nick Salva turning Cipriano in a battle for seventh. It set up for the decisive restart that ended Nocella’s chance to win.
Hirschman controlled at the front on the final restart, leaving DiMatteo and Williams to fight for second. Williams went by DiMatteo for second on lap 79.
Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series NAPA Fall Final At Stafford Speedway
What an absolute mess. Almost 1/3 of the field knocked out before a lap is done. Instantly took a lot of the wind out of the sails when it was set up to be another ~20 car spread out race with not much going on.
Barely 1/3 finished.
Was tri track using the standard Stafford painted restart zone? Or their own?
If they were using Stafford’s, just absolute massive jumped starts near the end. Like, dont even need a replay big.
Cant imagine what would have been said if this was a tour race.
sometimes it be that way though, i guess.
A Flo/Stafford pit reporter said that Rocco had a cam failure, which led to his no-go restart. Do we know why Flynn didn’t go twice?
Ben Dodge guessed that Rocco had a distributor problem and later he and Rickey said that Newman lost an axle (vs. running out of gas, as stated by Newman in a pit interview later in the race). Perhaps Ben and Kyle should leave such explanations to the pit reporters.
The Beginning Was An Embarrassment To Modified Racing At Stafford Speedway!!!!
Bring back the real tour.