Woody in his office
The Late Model 100-lapper, nor the ASA Southern Mod race, ended at Pitkat hoped, but the young star is ready to get back to the track next weekend for another busy North and South weekend.
“We started on the outside with Late Model like we have for the last five weeks,” added Pitkat. “I figured it was a 100-lap race so I thought everyone would use their head, but someone decided on lap five that they wanted to go three-wide like there were only 10 laps to go. He bounced off the fence, hit me and when I kept going I blew a tire in turn one and hit the fence. We got back out there and got some points and finished 20th.
“I guess the rear end broke at Friendship. We time trialed third and redrew fourth. I guess we just blew a rear end. We broke the rear end and came in under a pace lap. David (Hill, Pitkat’s Crew Chief) said it looked like the bolts fell out of it, so he was trying to put it back in and put on the bolts, but he couldn’t get it to go back in.
“Then the SK race (at Stafford Friday night) was pretty much a crazy night just like Thursday. The last three races at Stafford have been just pretty much crazy. You just have to try and survive and be there at the end. It was the same thing Friday night.
“I think I started probably seventeenth. We started on the bottom and we had a pretty good car. We got up to tenth and then on the next restart, Teddy (Christopher) spun me out. I thought it was his fault, but it turns out that Frank (Ruocco) ran into the back of him. Then the car was real, real loose and we had to make an adjustment. It was a little too tight after that, but it was drivable. Then I got spun again. I got a flat tire with ten laps to go. I came in to change the tire and we started thirteenth. I got up towards the front, gave Bo Gunning the bottom shot move and finished second.
Woody had a fast #79 before bad luck struck at Friendship in the ASA Southern Mod Tour race. (51 Photo)
Then, to cap off the weekend, Pitkat traveled out of Connecticut to Elkin, North Carolina’s Friendship Speedway to compete in the ASA Southern Modified Tour event with the Hillbilly Racing #79 team. Early mechanical trouble sidelined Pitkat at Friendship, but the young racer still was able to score two runner-up finishes on a busy weekend of racing in the North and South.
“On Thursday night, I started thirteenth, but the car was better than it had been all year. The handling was great. We got up to like fifth and there was a lot of havoc going on. I was just watching it. I worked my way up and late in the race I restarted second behind Keith (Rocco). We had some pretty good battles. It was hard racing. We pretty much had equal cars at that point. We finished second, but it was a pretty good points night because the leaders wrecked out.
Back in the heyday of stock car racing, the most dedicated racers would race two, three or even four nights of a weekend, traveling hundreds of miles at times between racetracks. While those days have come and gone, there are still some racers that will race anything, anywhere on any given weekend.
Woody Pitkat certainly fits that old-school mold. On Thursday, Pitkat finished second in a heated battle for the victory in the Sunoco Modified feature at Thompson International Speedway. The next night, Pitkat was at his home track of Stafford Motor Speedway for a 100-lap Late Model feature and an SK Modified feature. Pitkat scored another second-place finish in the SK main event, but an early accident relegated Pitkat to 20th in the Late Model extra-distance show.
Pair Of Deuces Highlight Woody's Wild North & South Weekend
Thompson, Stafford & Friendship All a Part of Pitkat's Wild Weekend
“But it was pretty cool running with the Southern tour. We are probably going to come down Saturday (July 14th) and race that Franklin County (VA) race.”
With a week off from Sunoco Modified racing at Thompson this week, Pitkat will be at Stafford for double duty in the SK Modified and Late Model on Friday and will then travel to the ASA Southern Modified Tour event at Franklin County on Saturday.
