Woody Pitkat has high standards for himself. Every time he sets down inside a racecar, he wants to meet his own expectations, if not exceed them. So, having goals of finishing inside the top-10 on a consistent basis in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour may sound like a lofty goal for a driver with less than a dozen Tour races under his belt, Pitkat is different than most drivers.
With two-straight top-10 finishes in his two most recent WMT starts behind the wheel of Don King’s Ramar-Hall/Genesis Shocks machines, Pitkat wanted nothing more than to score a third.
It wasn’t as easy as he would’ve liked, but Pitkat was able to run inside the top-10 for much of the early part of the WMT event at Chemung Speedrome (NY) before late-race contact sent him for a spin. From there, Pitkat dug deep and swiftly moved through the pack for a 10th-place finish at Chemung.
“That was the biggest thing that Don wanted, with either me or (teammate) Doug (Coby) – he said he wanted to see our car in the top-10 and anything better than that was a bonus. The last three races that I’ve run, they’ve all been at tracks that I’m never been to before or only had been to once, and I finished in the top-10 all three times. That’s a pretty big deal and hopefully that opened some eyes.”
Pitkat, having never been to Chemung before, turned heads in the #28 car
Woody Scores a Top-Ten... The Hard Way
Pitkat Charges Back After Early Setback at Chemung
as he was able to qualify well in time trials, putting him in a solid spot in the heat race before starting the event ninth. He worked to the front of the field quickly, but all chances of a good finish seemed to disappear with contact from a veteran driver in the closing stages of the event.
“I was getting a good run off two to get underneath Eddie and get up to the side of him, but he’d just slam the door on me. By the third or fourth time of him doing it, I just said that I was going to send it in there and make eight tires turn better than four. It was about 40 laps to go and I ended up getting spun and collected some other guys.”
Undaunted, Pitkat kept digging in the final laps to work all the way from the back of the field to 10th at the checkered flag.
“You’re already frustrated because of that, but we were able to battle back and get what we could. We came all the way back up from the rear to finish 10th.”
Pitkat will now prepare for a big triple-header weekend ahead on October 10th through 12th at Stafford Motor Speedway (CT). He will be out for victory in the SK Modified and Late Model features at his hometown track, as well as hoping for a solid showing in his first NASCAR Camping World Series East event of the 2008 season in a car prepared by former series champ Mike Olsen.
