Jennerstown, June 17, 2006 2006 June 24
Jennerstown Speedway:
On Saturday, June 17, I took a ride to Jennerstown Speedway to watch the NASCAR modified tour. This was my first trip to Jennerstown – a track I’ve been wanting to get to for some time now. As it turns out, although Jennerstown is still a hike it was closer then I thought and we made it there in plenty of time to go out for a steak at a local restaurant. FWIW: The steak was flavorful, but over cooked. I really don’t understand what is so difficult about cooking a steak the way it is ordered. Oh well, I digress. Jennerstown did a lot of nice things to make this an enjoyable day at the track. The first is they started on time. The second was that although they had a special division they kept all (or at least most) of the regular divisions on the schedule, however they ran features only. This allowed the fans to see more racing that counts versus meaningless heat races. They also had an announced schedule of events, and although they fell a little behind, they still finished the night of racing just after 9:00 PM.
One of the reasons for the early finish was that the first 86 laps of the 100 lap modified tour race went without a caution! Those 86 laps were full of action and although Ed Flemke Jr. built up a nice lead, Tony Hirschman was coming. I think Hirschman would have caught him without a caution, but I don’t know about getting by. Besides Hirschman, the other driving putting on a show for the fans was Teddy Christopher. Teddy didn’t even have a ride 2 days before the race as the owner of his racecars had them confiscated by the feds due to alledged mob connections. Teddy picked up a ride in the red #86. Teddy started 9′th and quickly moved to about 5′th, however something happened to his car and he fell way out of the top 10. However, whatever was wrong fixed it self and Teddy was on a charge, making it up to 3′rd by the lap 86 caution. When the green flag waved with just over 10 to go after the caution, Hirschman tried to put a move on Flemke, but Teddy spoiled the day for Hirschman and made a great move to get by for second. With about 3 or so laps to go, Teddy got along slide Flemke and they ran side-by-side for a couple of laps before Teddy finally went by for the win. Flemke wasn’t too happy as he though Teddy pusched him up out of the grove to finally get by, but it seemed like just racing to me. What a show! When Teddy was interviewed in victory lane, he said he’d like to thank the crew, but he didn’t know there names. What a great race and I am so glad I made it to the show.
My race view stats after Jennerstown:
Races: 14
Tracks: 11 (8 new) (145 lifetime)
States: 10 (2 new) (34 + DC lifetime)