By Tom Skibinski (Canandaigua, NY) | In what may amount to his swan song on the Northeastern sprint car circuit, Frenchman Steve Poirier was right on key after sweeping the extended three-day weekend at Land Of Legends Raceway.
The rain-delayed New York Nationals short-track extravaganza closed out Sunday afternoon and for first-ever 360 Sprint Car event winner Poirier, he probably wouldn’t mind an entire speedweek at the Ontario County Fairgrounds oval where he now owns an even half-dozen feature wins in winged competition.
His latest sprint car triumph at the hallowed half-miler rewarded ‘Fireball’ with the biggest payday ever, a whopping $5,000 top-prize for 17 minutes of work in the headline NYN 30-lap A-Main. He opened the inaugural sprint car spectacular on Friday with a ‘Twin 15’ qualifying race win before placing first in the ‘Pole Dash’ on Saturday.
“It’s really nice to be the first winner of the New Yorker at Land of Legends, a track I really appreciate,” remarked Poirier, who registered wins at LOLR in both Patriot Sprint Group and Empire Super Sprint-sanctioned events, with his first checkered flag taken in 2010. “Its far from home but I always try to make the travel here. Even with the rain the track was smooth and as good as it could be for a day show.”
The top-two finishers in each of the Twin 15s on Friday and four heat race winners on Saturday contended in the all-important ‘Pole Dash’ on day two to determine the the starting order for the front four rows in the inaugural NY Sprint Nationals. Poirier dominated the six-lap affair to earn the point, yet still had to wait one more day to show his skills as rain ultimately postponed any victory lane celebration.
Drivers faced a smooth, slick surface upon their return Sunday, magnified further after the 20-car field filed onto the track following closure of the lead-off 50-lap Sportsman feature. Despite the change in condition, the no. 28FM FM Industries-4 Seasons Foundations-Fuzion Electric-Mega Pumping/Eagle showed no side effects with Poirier behind the wheel as he sped out to a comfortable lead at the outset of the 30-lapper.
“It helps the driver when you’ve got a good piece under you,” Poirier noted. “The car was still good running on the rubber laid down even though it changed the dynamics a little bit. It was one of those weekends when you have a good car and a lot of things tend to turn out in your favor.”
Matt Tanner had other ideas as he overtook Jason Barney for second on lap four and crept closer to Poirier as the green flag laps clicked off. Barney suddenly lost a right-rear wheel entering turn four to incur the first slowdown on lap 14, and two laps later a red flag flew as the result of Shawn Donath‘s mount briefly coming to rest atop the same pink #48A sprinter that Darryl Ruggles had borrowed for the day from his daughter, Alysha Bay, Friday night’s 305 winner.
The ensuing lap 16 restart proved pivotal as Tanner pulled alongside Poirier exiting turn two and when the lead duo reached corner number three a new leader had emerged. Undaunted by Tanner’s bold maneuver, Poirier remained on the gas ahead of ESS hotshoe Paulie Colagiovanni while Billy VanInwegen joined the chase with 10 to go.
“Wasn’t sure how things would end up when I lost the lead, especially on a track that was getting harder to pass on as more rubber started to build up,” Poirier stated. “I was just staying in second, unless we get into traffic I might have a chance.”
Continuing to shadow Tanner high and low in traffic, Poirier caught the leader on the low side and in a final push to the front, forged the final lead change rounding turn one with less than three laps to go. The rest was easy as the veteran from St-Mathieu-de-Beloeil, Que. cruised home for a six car-length victory over Tanner, with Colagiovanni, VanInwegen and Jordan Thomas filling out the front-five.
“My car didn’t go on that restart, I was spinning tires, especially out of turn two,” Poirier said. “When I saw Matt I tried to push it as hard as I could into turn three but he was just faster for that lap. After a couple more laps my tires came back in, maybe I was trying to save them too much early. I had a perfect line out of turn four and maybe surprised him in one and had a lucky move there. So the luck was good for us this weekend but I think we had a really good car. It was perfect every time we hit the race track with a lot of different conditions.”
“I want to make sure to be competitive when I retire, don’t want to go out when I’m struggling. Missed a lot of races this season but have done pretty well the last month. So its nice to end this year on a high note,” added Poirier, now with 18 career Patriot Tour wins to go along with an all-time high ESS count of 74 A-Main triumphs.
Despite suffering a bent frame after contact with Roger Levesque sent his #45 Cobra Motorcoaches & Homes/X-1 rolling over during warm-ups on Saturday then electing to sit out Sunday’s finale, the show-up points awarded were just enough for Chuck Hebing to retain his LOLR 360 Sprint Classic Series title by a scant three markers over Colagiovanni. Ironically, both Hebing (245 pts) and Colagiovanni (242) competed in just four of the five mini-series A-Mains, while both their nearest chasers Tanner (217) and Jonathan Preston (210) ran all five.
“Think I burned the tires at the end,” figured runner-up Tanner, who won the first of four heats on Saturday to qualify for the pole dash in which he finished third. “Before that I knew the only way I could get by Steve was using the high side on the restart before he got his momentum back up. It worked for awhile, just ran out of laps to keep it up there when it counted.”
Patriot Sprint Tour Quick Results:
A-Main (30 laps): 1. 28fm-Steve Poirier ($5,000), 2. 90-Matt Tanner, 3. 10-Paulie Colagiovanni, 4. 56-Billy VanInwegen, 5. 79-Jordan Thomas, 6. 5b-Justin Barger, 7. 197-Ryan Harrison, 8. 7c-Dylan Swernik, 9. 98-Joe Trenca, 10. 91-Scott Holcomb, 11. 14b-Brett Wright, 12. 5-Tyler Ross, 13. 48a-Darryl Ruggles, 14. 21-William Glover, 15. 22-Jonathan Preston, 16. 35-Jared Zimbardi, 17. 2-Dave Axton, 18. 53-Shawn Donath, 19. 87-Jason Barney, 20. 66-Erik Karlsen, 00-Danny Varin(DNS), 45-Chuck Hebing(DNS), 3-Todd Gracey(DNS), 9-Josh Pieniazek(DNS), 28f-Dave Franek(DNS).
Heats (10 laps)
#1: Tanner, Holcomb, Trenca, Donath, C.Hebing, W.Glover, S.Glover, Cartier, Levesque.
#2: Swernik, Harrison, Wright, Axton, Doell, Drum, Kuhn, Richardson.
#3: Barger, Zimbardi, VanInwegen, Ross, Ruggles, K.Hebing, Moffitt, Franek.
#4: Colagiovanni, Varin, Karlsen, Gracey, Pieniazek, Trombley, Dow, Cook.
B-Main (15 laps)
#1: Ross, Gracey, Ruggles, Pieniazek, Trombley, Doell, Dow, K.Hebing, S.Glover, Franek, Cartier, Drum, Richardson, Kuhn, Levesque, Cook, Moffitt(DNS).
Pole Dash (6 laps): Poirier, Barney, Tanner, Colagiovanni, Preston, Thomas, Barger, Swernik.
DNQ: 3a-Jeff Trombley, 10c-Jeff Cook, 10h-Kelly Hebing, 16L-Roger Levesque, 23-Tyler Cartier, 36-Kyle Moffitt, 36d-Steve Doell Jr., 47-Kyle Drum, 58-Clay Dow, 67-Pete Richardson, 99k-Dan Kuhn, 121-Steve Glover.