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GOODALE
GOLDEN AT 'THE LAST GREAT COLOSSEUM'
Ebersole Scores NWSMT Victory at ‘The World’s Fastest Half
Mile’
by
Polly Reid |
 Eric
Goodale of Riverhead, NY in the Edgar Goodale owned,
GAF Roofing/RBSCorp.com sponsored Chevrolet may not
have gold shoes like Usain Bolt but the Riverhead,
NY driver was golden as he bested a field of thirty-
seven, remaining convincingly stout on a late race
caution pulling away from Todd Szegedy who had
dominated the first half, to cross the line for the
NWMT/NWSMT Bush’s Beans 150 victory at Bristol Motor
Speedway.
Coors Light Pole award winner Todd Szegedy who had
set a new track record earlier in the day finished
second, Donny Lia third, Patrick Emerling fourth and
Doug Coby fifth.
“I’ve been coming here watching all sorts of racing
since I was 8 years old with my family,” said
Goodale. “Ever since I learned that we were going to
race here at Bristol, it’s been a bucket list of
mine to get it done here and we can definitely cut
that off the bucket list.”
“We’ve been fast every year since we’ve started
coming here,” said Goodale. “Somehow it always
manages to escape us. I love this place, it’s wide
open, it’s my kind of driving style, you don’t touch
the brake pedal, you’ve got to play throttle
control, that’s what we’re good at.”
The Bush’s Beans 150 went green as schedule at
6:05pm with Szegedy, Justin Bonsignore, Ron Silk,
Ryan Preece and Donny Lia the top five. Goodale
rolled off the grid 13th.
 Four cautions in the first fifty laps kept the
action close. Goodale had made it into the top ten
by lap 20 and was up to fifth by lap 45. Meanwhile,
upfront, Szegedy fended off threats from Bonsignore
and Preece on each restart. However, as the number
of restarts increased, Bonsignore was clearly in
position to be the biggest threat until lap 55 when
coming around turn four, Bonsignore in second
suddenly shot into the outside wall after something
let go, his night done. A chain reaction involving
five other cars unfolded further back that littered
turn four and the front stretch bringing out the red
flag.
As clean up continued, mother nature decided to open
up the water works and the red flag that started on
lap 55 at 6:44 pm for the incident was now waving
for a weather delay.
Cars were brought down and lined up in the pits as
teams scrambled to put on rain covers over the cars
while the parade of air titan’s and blowers took
front and center stage on the high banked half mile
oval working their magic.
In order to make the scheduled TV time for the
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, the call was made
to run the modifieds after the truck race. In this
position before, the teams patiently waited their
turn to finish the final 95 laps.
The teams were finally back on the track five hours
later, ready to race. Todd Szegedy of Ridgefield, CT
in the 15-40 Construction modified at the point with
Donny Lia of Jericho, NY in the Sypher Construction/Bardahl
sponsored modified second, Eric Goodale third, Jimmy
Blewett and Chase Dowling the top five, a NASCAR
official announced over the radio that the race
would end at lap 100.
With only forty laps left at the green, it was go
time, except between the downpour of the rain, the
truck race and the event now being run late at night
instead of during the heat of the early evening, the
conditions and circumstances had changed
drastically. What worked at 6:30pm for the setup
wasn’t working so much at 11:30pm.
 Szegedy who dominated earlier was loose at the
green, his car typical of what was happening through
the field. One exception, Eric Goodale. Goodale
shadowed Szegedy until lap 69, Goodale made his move
low into turn one to become the new leader on lap
70. Goodale, Szegedy and Lia quickly made it a three
car break away running nose to tail.
The field was shown the yellow for the scheduled
competition break at lap 75. All teams made their
way to the pits for tires, fuel and adjustments as
needed coming back out in the order they came in.
Goodale brought the field to green on lap 82 with
Szegedy, Lia, Blewett, Bobby Santos and Doug Coby
the top six, it was Szegedy powering on the outside
to become the new leader. Goodale battled back
taking the top spot back when the caution waved on
lap 86 for a single car spin in turn four.
“I knew coming into the rain delay that we were the
best car on the track, before the rain came,” said
Goodale. “When you have two hours, three hours to
think about what you’re going to do next, sometimes
you can think about it too much. I knew I had a good
car so I wanted to make sure that I did everything I
could to get out front. Restarts are definitely not
my strong point, so I hated that I had to have three
or four of them there at the end but, my car was
just that good that even if I made a mistake we
would have been alright.”
Goodale nailed the lap 90 restart only to be reined
in again on lap 95, just five to go when Blewett of
Howell, NJ in the Starrett sponsored modified spun
in turn one. Then it was down to the Bush’s Beans
100 winner being determined in a two lap shootout.
 Up on wheel, Goodale was not to be denied, the Long
Island driver dialed in the restart keeping the
field in his rearview mirror to score his second
career win, his first since June 28, 2014 at
Riverhead Raceway.
“In
my whole entire modified career, this is definitely
the biggest one for me,” said Goodale. “This is
going to be hard to top, that’s for sure. But we
have a few races left this year and we’ve been
gaining a lot of momentum here in the last few races
– hopefully this will help us get over the hurdle.”
Completing the top ten was Ryan Preece sixth, Bobby
Santos seventh, Ron Silk eighth, Kyle Ebersole ninth
and Jeff Goodale tenth.
“He raced me pretty hard,” said Goodale about his
battle with Szegedy. “That one restart where he
passed me, that was a blessing in disguise because I
just stumbled on the throttle in one and two and he
was able to get a run on me and I was thinking the
whole next lap and a half, you idiot, you just blew
it. We were able to get him back, we did have the
better car tonight- he definitely made me work for
it tonight.”
“The car obviously changed after the sun went down,”
said Szegedy. “Generally I like the night racing but
I couldn’t get through the corners as fast as I
would have liked to when it was hotter. I felt like
I lost side grip and could only go through the
corners so fast. I drove it to the absolute maximum,
I feel good about that, I feel like I left nothing
on the table. Eric, hats off to those guys, they had
a better car, no question about it. Eric drove a
great race, nice and clean and I drove as hard as I
possibly could drive and that’s all I can do, second
place.”
“It was definitely a good night,” said Lia about his
podium finish. “I just wanted to survive, I’ve been
sick all week, bronchitis, I was just happy to get
through the end really. I thank the guys, they gave
me a race car that I think earlier today we had
everybody covered. The changes we made didn’t seem
to really work for us today, we still came out of
here with a third place finish, I’m happy with that.
The 58 nailed it, that was awesome for them. They
really made some good changes, they came out and had
everyone covered. They had the best car and they won
the race, I know what that feels like.”
Kyle Ebersole of Hummelstown, PA in the Bob Ebersole
owned, Ebersole Excavating sponsored Ford scored the
NWSMT win of the Bush’s Beans 100. Ebersole started
19th, worked his way into the top ten edging out
Andy Seuss to claim his third career win.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said Ebersole about winning
the NWSMT portion of the race. “We were really good
here last year and came with the same set up and
track was a lot different as the day went on. We
made a lot of adjustments – the first part of the
race we kept pitting and pitting making adjustments
then by the end we were in the top ten and passed
Andy (Seuss) on the last restart. It’s pretty cool
to win the southern portion, it’s a fast track- it
was really fun today.”
His third career NWSMT win, it has been two years
since Ebersole has visited victory lane. “It’s
pretty cool to win again. It’s been a pretty rough
year, I’ve finished one race so far this year out of
a whole season, we didn’t even start one race
because we had an issue in practice, so, to get a
win, finally, is definitely a boost for the end of
the season.”
The Bush’s Beans 150 will be televised on NBCSN on
Friday August 26th at 9pm ET.
Next for the NWMT is the Riverhead 200 at Riverhead
Raceway on August 27th while the NWSMT heads to East
Carolina Speedway on September 3rd for the Visit
Martin County 150.
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Source:
Polly Reid / TheChromeHorn.com
Posted:
August 18, 2016 |
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