The MRolfeDesigns Pro Late Models made the trip to New York and the Watkins Glen International road course tonight, to take on a road course for the first time in division history. The 25-minute timed event would see 22 drivers bring out their late models in attempt to make some right hand turns during their week 9 event. David Krikorian kicked things off by taking the pole for the race, with a time of 1:14.633 seconds in open qualifying which would be over 8-tenths of a second faster than second place qualifier, Kevin J Myers.
As the pace car pulled off, Krikorian led the field to the green flag and down into turn 1 for the first time. He would get the early jump and ran his preferred line into the corner as the other 21 drivers all followed him in. All drivers would make it through the first turn clean, and Bill Martin would come out in 2nd followed by Myers in 3rd. Behind them, Ty Majeski, Anthony Celentano and Jeff Ramsdell were setting up a race long battle, while Jacob Linkiewicz and Kenny Lindsley were following close behind.
The top three drivers would begin to pull away in the early laps, while the early battle was on from 4th to 9th as they all ran nose to tail. Martin’s 2nd place run would end early however as he had overheating issues in the first couple of laps forcing him to head to the pits early on to remove some tape. On the same lap, Celentano would move past Majeski and would inherit the 3rd spot as they came around the next time by.
Linkiewicz and Lindsley battled on lap 4 before the two drivers would get together going down the front stretch and got into the inside wall. But the two drivers would continue on after only getting passed by Matt Rolfe in the scuffle. Rolfe would let the two drivers past him in the next couple of laps, but Lindsley would get loose as he went by and down into turn 1 and would get into the wall once again, ending his race early on.
Back to the battle for 3rd, Celentano put a gap between himself and Majeski, with Ramsdell right there as well. The gap would close as the run went on though, and the three of them would again find themselves nose to tail as they caught some lapped traffic. A bad timed lap car in the bus stop would see the three cars get a little dicey, but they would all continue on. The next lap around, Majeski was able to pull up beside Celentano in the last couple of corners, but that would also open the hole for Ramsdell to take over the spot and put the pressure on for 3rd. Celentano would lead the three drivers down into turn one, but got into the corner a little too hard and ended up spinning as he chased his car up the track. He would fall back to 7th with the spin but recovered for a 6th place finish.
As the run went on, Krikorian had checked out up front, and pulled out to a 21 second lead as he came around to take the checkered flag on lap 20 during the 25-minute timed event. Krikorian’s win would be the second win on a road course this week, as well as his second PLM victory of the season. Myers settled into the 2nd spot early on and would finish in the same spot. Ramsdell finished 3rd after slipping by the spinning car of Celentano, and held off Majeski in the final laps who finished 4th. Linkiewicz would round out the top 5 after recovering from his early contact.
With Majeski’s 4th place finish, and Lindsley finding trouble earlier in the race, Majeski now takes over the points lead by 13 points, despite having run two less races than the other drivers up front in the points. But as drop weeks come into effect as the season winds down, the points could shuffle all throughout the top 10.
- David Krikorian
- Kevin J Myers
- Jeff Ramsdell
- Ty Majeski
- Jacob Linkiewicz
- Anthony Celentano
- Huston Hamer
- Matt Rolfe
- Stan Bragg
- Mike Belanger
- Brandon Wilkinson
- Dale Owen
- James Linkiewicz
- Bill Martin
- Matthew Eddy
- Darren Daves
- Andrew Leigh
- Scott Dunlap
- Ken Belanger
- Todd Sipe
- Kenny Lindsley
- Jonathan Mawhinney
Next week the series heads to South Boston for their second round of Twin 75’s and their week 10 events.
For the full results and points, click HERE.