HAYDT SWEEPS MAHONING RoC RACES FOR THE YEAR.. WINS THIS ONE WITH A HEAVY HEART

BY JR KENNERUP

Lehighton, Pa. Just a little over three months ago Tyler Haydt was in the right place at the right time to win his first ever Modified feature. As he won the opening race of the Central Region for the Race of Champions Modified Tour by making the winning pass on the final turn. This past Sunday afternoon Tyler had the brother of his cousin who was killed in an automobile accident two weeks earlier do all of his drawing for him. Call it fate or call it luck but both draws found Tyler on the pole and he won his heat with ease. He then duplicated his performance with a flawless drive to win the 75 lap Race of Champions Modified Tour at the Mahoning Valley Speedway late Sunday afternoon.

Outside pole setter Kevin Graver, Jr. hung with Tyler the entire race but didn’t have enough to make the pass for the lead and settled for second. Zane Zeiner came from seventh to finish a fast closing third while young Matt Hirschman impressed many with a stout run from 17th to fourth while JR Kent came from ninth to finish fifth.

“ Two Fridays’ ago my cousin Asher Boyer, 16 got killed in an automobile accident “ said Tyler. “ His little brother Abel had no one to hang out with anymore so he wanted to start going to the races. I brought Abel along today and he drew my numbers. We walked through the gate and he drew six which put me on the pole for the third heat race. Then I took him out to the front stretch for the feature redraw and he loved it and then he pulled the pole for me. He thinks someone was looking down helping him out when he drew those numbers for me and I do too. “

“ It feels great especially here to win both RoC races “ said Tyler. “ This is I think really one of the tough tracks for the RoC guys. A lot of the guys have a hard time getting use to this track as it is not like the other ones we run at. I was fortunate that this is where I ran all those years in a Four Cylinder and Late Model. It is benefiting us now moving up to this class. “

“ I didn’t think the race was necessarily mine “ answered Tyler after knowing he would start first. “ I thought we had a real good chance in winning and if we would have started in the back I thought we had as good as a chance as anybody to win from the back. We kind of had someone watching down over us today and it worked out for us. “

“ We kind of anticipated but we didn’t expect it to end up this late in the day “ answered Tyler about the changing of the track conditions. “ So we kind of didn’t adjust enough for what we thought but we were still in the ball park at the end but was fading. “

In the closing laps of today’s feature Tyler had a little bit of déjà vu occur as the same lap car of Andy Szapacs who gave him the win in May was now just in front of him with Tyler in the lead. “ To tell you the truth I didn’t have radio the second half of the race “ stated Tyler. “ Something happened in the car harness and it broke and I didn’t have a radio so I didn’t know who was coming behind me. I knew I was falling back, the car wasn’t as good as it was before so I figured they had to be closing on me. I just tried to keep it on the bottom and protect the line and if they were faster they would have to go around me on the top, they didn’t. “

“ That win is for Asher Boyer, he’s my cousin “ said Tyler.

“ I think we needed 25 more laps “ said second place finisher Kevin Graver, Jr. “ The car was getting better and they ( his crew ) were telling me on the radio that Zane ( Zeiner ) was coming. But we were definitely getting better, I think Tyler ( Haydt ) was falling off a little bit, hey a second here in this race I’ll take it. “

The qualifying races were ran during the heat of they day which produces a slippery track the majority of the time. The feature was started with a majority of the track in the shade which produced more side by side racing. “ The track is always bad here when the sun is out “ answered Kevin about the difference in track conditions from the heat to the feature. “ Once the sun started to go down it got cooler it definitely got better. I was loose in the beginning but it really started to come around in the end. “

“ It’s a lot of luck here as the inside is premiere here on the restarts “ said third place finisher Zane Zeiner. “ We had a good car but it was just the matter of not getting a long green flag run. We got one of those there finally and worked our way up there. I’m happy for the guys as we had a new power plant in there today and it worked pretty good. “

“ I sort of setup the car for the night time “ said Zane. “ I wish it would gotten a little bit darker. But actually the car was really good, easy to drive, wish it was a hundred laps as the car was getting just better and better as the night wore on. “

Qualifying events for the 35 Modifieds in attendance saw Chuck Steuer, Anthony Sesley, Haydt, and Glenn Correll win the heat races while Jason Trinchere won the B Main.

NOTES; The much anticipated battle for the Central Region point championship never materialized between leader Eric Beers and second place Pete Brittain, who was four points behind. Beers was in Thompson, Ct. to finish the NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series race that was stopped due to the death of Tom Baldwin. Beers had a plane waiting to transport him to Mahoning as soon as the Thompson race concluded and he left Thompson at 4:20 Sunday afternoon. Halfway through the flight the small plane Beers was on ran into a severe hailstorm which forced the plane to land. With severe thunderstorms all around Beers was grounded and never made it to the track. Brittain meanwhile had his share of problems but managed to salvage an 11th place finish to win the championship. Unofficially Haydt moved from seventh to second in the final Central Region points with Zeiner finishing third, Beers dropping back to a fourth place tie with Hirshman, With Beers not being able to make it to the track Chip Santee drove the car in the B Main and with no laps on the car almost qualified but fell one spot short in the B Main. Gary Wentz drove the second Wentz Racing entry on the afternoon while Eric Kocher drove the second John Markovic owned car. Kevin Troch drove the car that Lou Strohl normally races. Brian DeFebo debuted a new car with a very sharp looking red color scheme. An opening lap accident in the feature took out strong runners CJ Jones and Rick Kirkendall. While tough racing luck in the feature sidelined the solid drives of Richard Crompton, Jr., defending race winner Scott Lescher, and Anthony Sesley. DNQ’S; Terry Zacharias, Chip Santee, Ryan Russo, Gary Wentz, Kevin Troch, Troy Bollinger, Ken Vogel, Jr., Brian DeFebo.

FINISH; Tyler Haydt, Kevin Graver, Jr., Zane Zeiner, Matt Hirschman, JR Kent, Earl Paules, Eric Kocher, Don Wagner, George Kent, John Markovic, Pete Brittain, Rick Kluth, Jason Trinchere, Bobby Jones, Wesley Swartout, Andy Szapacs, Richard Crompton, Jr., Scott Lescher, Anthony Sesley, Matt Wentz, Glenn Correll, Jim Hauser, Jr., Tim Santee, Chuck Steuer, CJ Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Rick Kirkendall.

Hoosier Racing Tire Hard Charger Award; Paules 21 spots gained

Hoosier Racing Tire Hard Luck Award; Sesley 15 spots lost

Sunoco Racing Fuels Award; DeFebo

Gater Racing News Driver Bonus Draw; Paules

Lap Leaders; Haydt ( 1 - 75 )

RoC Provisional; Paules

Next RoC Event; Sunday September 5th Wyoming County International Speedway - Perry, NY final North Region event.