MALTA, N.Y. – On some nights, it just doesn’t make sense to overanalyze a situation.
Ronnie Johnson is a perfect example. After seemingly being in a slump recently at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, Johnson got his first win of the season in Friday night’s 35-lap modified feature.
“This is a tough, grueling sport,” said Johnson in victory lane. “You have to just keep clawing and digging at it. I’ve got great sponsors, and a heck of a race team, and they’ve stood behind me all year.”
Since the season began, Johnson has had only one top-five finish, that coming in the second event of the season on May 17. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time before he got his first win. It looked like he was in position to accomplish that last week, when his run of bad luck put him fifth on the starting grid for the modified feature. Thirty-five laps later, he finished fourth.
So when he lined up eighth Friday night, there really wasn’t much reason for optimism.
But this time, everything went his way.
While Johnson and Peter Britten, who had started 10th, were searching for the fastest line around the speedway early in the feature, up front, Jackie Brown Jr. and Don Ronca were waging a heated battle for the lead. The two cars touched going down the backstretch on lap six, which got Ronca out of shape and allowed Brown to take the lead and put Britten into third, behind Rich Ronca.
On a restart two laps later, Johnson got past Britten for third and four laps later, Johnson went around the outside of Rich Ronca for second. This was the old Ronnie Johnson everyone had been waiting to see.
Britten avoided disaster on lap 14, when he lost control of his car and slid off the inside of the second turn. He was able to gather the car back in, but fell from second to seventh.
Two laps later, Johnson rocketed by Brown and had the lead.
From there, it was just a matter of handling restarts. First, Johnson had to hold off Matt DeLorenzo, and following another restart on lap 26, Johnson had Rocky Warner clinging right to his rear bumper.
It didn’t matter if Warner ran high or low. Johnson refused to give up an inch of track, and came away with the victory.
“Small blocks have been fast here all year, and when I saw Rocky beside me, I knew I was going to have my hands full,” said Johnson.
All he could pinpoint that was really different Friday was his shock package.
“Tonight we put Dennis Palmatier’s shocks on [Palmatier is the Northeast modified specialist for Integra shocks) and he helped us with the setup. I think we hit on something with the shocks,” Johnson said.
Warner had to settle for second for the second time this season in the Jake Spraker-owned 1J.
“Ronnie was using the whole race track,” said Warner. “It was a veteran against a rookie. He made it so I couldn’t get a direct line to get by him.”
Completing the top five were Britten, Keith Flach and DeLorenzo.
Other winners on Friday included Jason Gray (Sportsman), Bill August (Limited Sportsman), Scott Towslee (Pro Stocks), Randy Miller (Street Stocks) and Will Hull (USAC-DMA Midgets).