Part 1 of a 5 part series on the 2007 / 2008 Slot Car season at Randy’s
Raceway in Kutztown PA
The Mighty Modifieds
Rarely does the opening day winner go onto win a season championship but
this year that was exactly what happened.
Mark Williams drove to an opening
night win over Randy Haydt who by the way ended up second on the season
point championship. Week two saw Bob Amore drive a Ken Gilmore car to the
victory over a hard charging Eric Wenrich. Wenrich really started off
strong this year and was a tough runner all year. Week three and four saw
Williams get a couple of more wins bringing his season total to 3 out of 4.
The win on November 20th proved to be his last victory although he had
plenty left this year to win the points. Two other guys that were runner-up
to Williams and also had very strong seasons are Troy Bowers and Billy
Decker. Bowers was second in points for much of the season before winding
up 4th. Decker who makes the drive every week from Easton finished 5th in
points and ran his career modified segment total to 79 with 19 wins this
year. Week 5 saw young Brett Gilmore find the fast grove and pick up his
first win in a dual with his Dad Kenny Gilmore. The young Gilmore went on
to win 4 features and was as high as 2nd in points later finishing third. Week
six saw defending perennial Champion Kenny Gilmore get into victory lane for
the first of 4 in a row and 5 wins this year. Gilmore now has 43 modified
feature wins at the Berks speed plant. Brett Gilmore was 2nd to his Dad
during that run and also tied him one week. Bill Brenner had a 2nd place
finish on 12/19 which helped him solidify a top ten point season, his first
at Randy’s Raceway. Bob Amore finished 6th in points using that early
season win to help out along the way. The feature win was his 3rd career
modified win and he also became the 5th driver to break the 100 segment win
chart. Steady Scott Bender ran all but one modified show this year and
proved why he is a tough competitor with a 7th overall in points. Bender had
3 segment wins which give him 36 for his career. His top finish was on 3/4
a 3rd place. Kenny Gilmore finished 8th in points even though he missed the
first 3 shows. Gilmore now has 353 segment wins to go along with the 43
features. Crystal Bowers won 4 segments and was really strong near the end
of the season to come home 9th in points after a heated battle with Bill
Brenner out of Manhiem. Jim Levan had three top 5 runs late in the season
and wound up 11th in points. Jim also won 14 segments this season and has 42 on
his career. Eric Wenrich was 12th in points and also won 14 segments.
Bruce Heller finished 13th with 1 segment win and was really fast after
picking up a ride in a Troy Bowers built car late in the season. Janet
Light finished 14th followed by Travis McArthur, Bryanna Light and Steven
Light. Eric Beard came home 18th in points and was a regular runner the
last 4 weeks of this season. Veteran Sam Heller was 19th even though he was
not a regular in the modified division this year. Heller won 6 segments
bringing his career total to 91 to go along with his 5 feature wins. Alex
Amore rounded out the top 20 and we hope to see him more next season as anew
Dad. We had 41 racers this year and where real happy to see Shane and
Sheldon Hiester, Phil Levering, Big T, Rich Pigeon and Rich Schmidt making
some shows this year. Look for Jerri Leininger, Gary Lookingbill and Mike
Wentzel to come in and be regulars next season. It was also great to have
Ted and Lincoln VanPelt and Mike Fenton in the field this year. Good luck
to everybody next season we hope to make the 8th season the best yet
MODIFIED CAREER MODIFIED CAREER
FEATURE WINNERS SEGMENT WINNERS
K. Gilmore – 43 K. Gilmore – 353
M. Williams – 15 M. Williams – 242
D. Richards – 10 D. Richards – 163
Little T – 6 R. Haydt – 130
B. Gilmore – 5 B. Amore – 108
R. Pigeon – 5 R. Pigeon – 94
S. Heller – 5 S. Heller – 91
B. Zelano Sr. – 4 B. Gilmore – 91
B. Amore – 3 B. Decker – 79
Big T – 3 B. Zelano Sr. – 60
R. Haydt – 2 Little T – 55
S. Bender – 2 J. Levan – 42
D. Decker – 1 S. Bender – 36
B. Zelano Jr. – 1 Big T – 31
J. Levan – 1 B. Zelano Jr. – 23
T. Bowers – 21
B. Brenner – 15
C. Pigeon – 11
K. Arnold – 11
