STAFFORD SPRINGS, Conn. – David Arute scored his third win of the season at Stafford Motor Speedway, in the Senator’s Cup 50-lap SK Modified event on Friday.
Troy Talman took the lead from Dan Wesson on the first lap with Wesson slotting into second. Michael Christopher, Jr. was wheel-to-wheel with Andrew Molleur for third place with Bryan Narducci and Michael Gervais, Jr. wheel-to-wheel behind them for fifth place.
Wesson went back by Talman on lap five to move back into the race lead. Christopher followed him by Talman to move into second and Narducci was third. The caution and red flags came out with 6 laps complete for Keith Rocco, who took a hard hit into the turn 1 wall along with Gervais and Dylan Kopec, who spun to avoid hitting Rocco and Gervais.
Wesson took the lead back under green but Narducci moved to the lead on lap 7. Ronnie Williams was now wheel-to-wheel with Wesson and he took second on lap 8.
Christopher was now alongside Wesson for third and he took the spot on lap 11. Marcello Rufrano tried to follow Christopher by Wesson, but Wesson shut the door on that move and maintained fourth place. The caution came back out with 14 laps complete for Stephen Kopcik, who got into the wall and came to a stop in the middle of turns 1 and 2.
Christopher nearly went 3-wide with Narducci and Williams for the lead on the restart but backed out of the move as Narducci took the lead with Christopher taking second to drop Williams back to third. Rufrano came up to fourth with Arute taking fifth to drop Wesson back to sixth.
Williams was starting to apply heavy pressure to Narducci for the lead on lap 20 while Arute was all over the back bumper of Rufrano looking to move into fourth place.
Arute made the move to get by Rufrano on lap 22 while Williams was still trying to make a pass on Narducci. Williams was able to finally complete a pass to move into the lead on lap 23 but Narducci came right back on lap 24 to retake the lead.
The shuffling didn’t end there as Williams made a move back to the inside of Narducci on lap 25 and he took the lead by a nose at the line one lap later. The caution came back out with 26 laps complete for Wesson, who spun in turn 4.
Williams took the lead back under green with Christopher, Narducci, Arute, and Rufrano lined up behind him. The caution came back out with 29 laps complete for spins in turn 1 by Nick Halkowicz and Brian Sullivan.
Christopher took the lead on the restart with Arute moving up to second. Williams fell back to third with Narducci in fourth and Todd Owen now in fifth.
Arute was working Christopher over looking to take over the lead. Arute was able to get to the inside of Christopher on lap 34, and he took the lead on lap 35. Williams was still in third with Narducci fourth and Owen in fifth. With 10 laps to go, Arute was still in command.
Arute led Williams to the checkered flag to pick up his third win of the season, with Williams coming home second. Christopher finished third with Narducci and Owen rounding out the top five.
Also scoring feature wins on the night were Kevin Gambacorta in the late model feature, Joey Ferrigno for the first time in 4 years in the SK Light feature, Gary Patnode in the limited late model feature, and Travis Hydar in the street stock feature.