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ROWAN PENNINK
LEADING NWMT POINTS
HEADING INTO STAFFORD 150 |
When
the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour rolls into Stafford
Speedway on August 4th for the Stafford 150,
Stafford SK Modified® regular Rowan Pennink finds
himself at the top of the NWMT points standings.
Pennink’s ninth place finish this past weekend at
New Hampshire was good enough to move him to the top
of the standings as Timmy Solomito got caught up in
a wreck and finished 29th. Pennink has occupied the
top spot of the NWMT standings once before at the
midway point of the 2011 season and his points
position has both himself and the #3 Cape Cod Copper
/ Boehler Racing Enterprises team excited.
“It’s definitely good to have the points lead
halfway through the season and we want to end up
with the points lead after the last races at
Stafford and Thompson,” said Pennink. “Hopefully
we’ll be bringing another solid car to Stafford and
we’ll be trying to win and if we can’t win then get
a solid top-5 finish. You’ve always got your eyes on
the points but we just want to worry about putting
together solid finishes and keep on chugging along
here midway through the season. It’s definitely
awesome to be part of the 3 team and to be leading
the points with them. They’ve been leading the
points and won plenty of championships before but I
don’t think they’ve been in this position in a long
time so everyone on the team is excited and I’m
excited as well. Hopefully we can keep on having a
strong season like we’ve had in the first half.”
During Pennink’s short time as the driver of the #3
Cape Cod Copper machine, in 5 starts at Stafford he
has recorded 4 top-6 finishes, with the only blemish
a 25th place finish last August when an engine issue
forced an early retirement. With his past success in
both the Whelen Modified Tour and the SK Modified®
division at Stafford, Pennink is looking forward to
another top-6 finish and a victory would not only be
a career first at Stafford for Pennink, but would
serve as a launching point for their pursuit of the
championship in the second half of the NWMT season.
“I think we should have a pretty good car,” said
Pennink. “We’re bringing a different car than we ran
in the Sizzler and we’ve been working on some
different stuff with the setups, so hopefully we
have some room for improvement and we can have a
good run. We try every week to get better and better
and if we didn’t think the newer car was better we’d
bring the older car back. A win would mean a ton.
I’ve never won a Tour race at Stafford and we’ve
been close a lot of times. The 3 team has been
putting some really solid cars under me and one of
these days a Stafford win is going to come to us and
if we could win this race, it would be great for our
points situation and it would be awesome for the
whole team.”
In order to be the first car to take the checkered
flag and win the Stafford 150, Pennink and the NWMT
teams will have to devise a strategy much different
than what they’ve been used to in the past for
Stafford events. A new rule for the Stafford 150
will be that teams will only be allowed to change
one tire per pit stop. Another new wrinkle for the
Tour teams will be a group qualifying session. The
qualifying order for the group qualifying session
will be set from the first practice that runs from
4-4:30pm and each group will have 5 minutes to lay
down qualifying laps with the starting lineup
determined by the fastest lap set by each car.
“The race is a little shorter than the Sizzler and
they’re doing some different stuff with pitting and
changing tires,” said Pennink. “You’re only going to
be allowed to change one tire each time you come
down pit road so there’s going to be some different
strategies for sure and we’ll have to figure out
what we’re going to do.”
Pennink’s ninth place finish at New Hampshire
extended his streak of finishing each 2017 NWMT race
in the top-10 and he is the only driver that has
finished each race in the top-10 thus far. With two
consecutive SK Modified® championships to his name,
Pennink is hoping to take the lessons learned during
those championship chases and apply it to his
pursuit of the 2017 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour
championship.
“We’ve been putting a bunch of solid runs together
so we have some good momentum,” said Pennink. “We
just want to stay out of trouble and see if we can’t
win the race at Stafford. The way we won the 2 SK
championships was to go out and try to win every
race and if we can’t win then take what we can get.
If we have a top-5 car, then take the top-5 and if
it’s a top-10 car, then take the top-10 finish. As
long as we stay out of trouble, that’s what won
those 2 championships for us and if we can use the
same theory on the tour, hopefully that will give us
a chance to win the championship at the end of the
year.”
In addition to the Stafford 150, Pennink is also in
search of his first SK Modified® victory of the 2017
season. After a slow start for the 2-time defending
SK Modified® track champion #99 Independent Wheel
team, Pennink has reeled off five consecutive top-7
finishes, including a season best finish of third in
the NAPA SK 5k on July 7th.
“These tires are a different from what we had last
season and there’s a real tough field of drivers at
Stafford,” said Pennink. “We’ve been gaining on it,
we’re trying different things each week, and that
seems to be getting us closer and closer. Hopefully
in the coming weeks we can get our first win of the
season with the 99 team. It’s tough. There’s a whole
bunch of cars that are capable of winning each week
and when a team gets hot and on a roll, it’s tough
to beat them. We’ve been there with the 99 team
before and now we’re trying to catch up a little
bit. Things can change at any time for any one in
racing and Stafford starts to change during the
summer and there’s a whole bunch of things that can
happen to change momentum. We’re looking to finish
up the season strong.”
Tickets for the August 4 Stafford 150 are available
and on sale now at the Stafford Speedway Box Office.
Tickets are priced at $35.00 for adult general
admission tickets, $5.00 for children ages 6-14, and
children ages 5 and under are admitted free of
charge when accompanied by an adult. Reserved seat
tickets are $37.00 for all ages. All ticket prices
include 10% CT Admission Tax. Stafford Motor
Speedway offers plenty of free parking along with
overnight parking available for self contained
Recreational Vehicles. Stafford’s five NASCAR Whelen
All-American Series divisions will join the NASCAR
Whelen Modified Tour cars in feature action.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor
Speedway track office at 860-684-2783
or visit us on the web at
www.staffordspeedway.com. |
Source:
Scott Running /
Stafford Motor Speedway
Posted:
July 18, 2017 |
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