Wacky Wednesday Week Two Nearly Copies Season Opener
When the dust settled Wednesday night at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl, it was very close to being a carbon copy of the season opener two weeks before. 2021 Wednesday Legend Car Champion and Legend Car Fall Classic winner Jacob Burns wheeled the Nick Lascuola Racing number 40 to victory lane for the second week in a row, the first week being driven by Luke Lebrun. Dave Yardley and Milania Shilosky started off the year strong going two-for-two in the Super X-Cars and Bandoleros. While Cameron Liebal won the season opener driving the number 70 Saturn X-Car, Pete Zaikarite won week two, driving the number 07 Acura Integra.
After moving up to Late Model competition, Jacob Burns and his familiar number 13 INEX Legend Car have yet to hit the track. Burns started near the back of the field due to it being his first race of the season. He quickly worked his way though the field, taking the lead away from Wade Oemcke on lap 5 of the 25 lap event. With a considerable lead, a caution would bunch the field up on lap 12. This set the stage for what would quickly become a mess, when chain reaction contact on the restart collected Shileigh Martinez, Isaiah Newcomb, Riley Paul, and Oemcke. Newcomb and Paul were able to continue after the incident was cleared and the drivers were checked out. When the green flag flew, Zachary Martinez paced the field for a few laps until Burns was able to overtake him and gap the field to win. While this was going on, Brody Monahan benefitted from the lap 12 incident running third, and was putting heavy pressure on Zachary Martinez for second place. Numerous attacks were made, but with six laps left contact between the two sent Monahan into an intense battle for 3rd with Newcomb where he was able to hang on to a podium finish.
The Super X-Cars went green to checkered two weeks in a row and both races were won by division veteran Dave Yardley. He took his 8th place starting position, and greatly benefitted from a lap 1 incident involving Will Rheaume that had stacked up the field clearing four cars on the back straight. Mitch Bombard led the field to green, but it was Sean Skinner taking over the lead on lap 6. He held on to the lead for 8 laps after creating a considerable gap over second place, until Yardley reeled Skinner in and used the high line to make the pass on lap 14. With the top two cars broken away from the pack, third through eighth were under a blanket for the entire race and it was Ben Pollard scoring his first career podium finish.
It was an exciting and aggressive start to the X-Car race, with Wade Robbins leading the first three circuits until Dylan Cabral made an outside pass, where he would stay until lap 14. During the first dozen laps, numerous accounts of minor contact shuffled up the top 10 with many cars recovering from full sideways slides. A caution for a spin on lap 14 would prove pivotal, where on the restart a massive incident would take out rookie prospects Ryan Magliano, Chris Palmer, and others. After cleanup, the rest of the race went off without a hitch and late arrival to the Speedbowl Pete Zaikarite took his first win of the season even after missing practice.
Milania Shilosky maintains a near perfect season in the Bandoleros, leading 39 of 40 total laps to win back to back races.
(Photo courtesy of PRVL Creative Media)
