MALTA, N.Y. — Don Ronca and Mike Mahaney both enjoyed their first DIRTcar modified feature wins of the season Friday night at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway. But other than that, their situations were entirely different.
The 66-year old Ronca, who won his first modified feature at the three-eighths-mile oval in 1986, advanced from fifth with his patented run around the extreme outside to claim the big block finale over Jessey Mueller, Neil Stratton, Todd Ryan and Josh Masterson.
Polesitter Kris Vernold led through a pair of early cautions, but once everyone calmed down and got lap two in the books, the remainder of the 35-lapper ran non-stop. Ronca and Neil Stratton repeatedly swapped positions just behind the leaders through lap 14, when Ronca went to the extreme outside and drove from fourth to the lead in two laps.
Ronca immediately built a comfortable lead and the crowd turned its attention to Mueller, who had started right behind Ronca but hadn’t advanced as quickly. His car got better lap by lap, however, and by lap 30 he was on Stratton for second. He finally prevailed with a couple of laps remaining but was disappointed when the checkers flew for Ronca.
“When I passed Neil, I thought I’d won it,” offered Mueller. “We had a good car but I got a bad restart and went backwards for a while. Then we kept getting better and better and I thought I won it, not knowing that Donnie was long gone ahead of us.”
“We’ve been good all year but had nothing to show for it until tonight,” declared the elated Ronca. “I had no idea if anyone was coming so I just kept digging. We’ve probably got the oldest motor here but it just keeps going and it’s perfect for these dry slick track conditions.”
Ronnie Johnson led a second five that included the 17th-starting Mahaney, Jack Speshock, Vernold and Marc Johnson.
Mahaney started on the pole for the 358 feature with David Schilling alongside and once again getting the race going was difficult. Four cars ended in a heap in turn four before ever getting to the flagstand on the original start, then a car stalled on the frontstretch once the green reappeared.
The resulting restart saw Schilling wack Mahaney in the door coming to green, drawing a no-start and a single-file attempt that saw Mahaney drive off to his first win of the season. Schilling held on for second ahead of Ronnie Johnson, Stratton, New Englander James Fadden, Ryan Dolbear, Matt DeLorenzo and Chris Curtis.
In the support classes, division kingpin Tim Hartman notched the Sportsman victory while Pete Stefanski made his weekly tow across the Empire State from Buffalo worthwhile with a win in the Pro Stock finale.
