Controversial Call Kills Pauch Jr.’s Opening Night Drive
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Controversial Call Kills Pauch Jr.’s Opening Night Drive
By: Pete MacDonald
It’s very obvious that Billy Pauch Jr. has a bad fast hot rod for New Egypt Speedway this year. The 28-yr-old Milford, NJ driver vaulted from the 19th starting spot on March 19th to finish second to Stewart Friesen by a car length.
Fast forward to the first night of point’s competition this past Saturday and Pauch Jr still hasn’t skipped a beat yet. Pauch Jr. won his heat race handily by almost six full seconds over second place finisher Willie Osmun landing him in the ever-so-important redraw. After redrawing 12th (the worst he could pull) “The Kid’s Kid” picked up where he left off on March 19th passing cars at will ending up second by lap 14 when under a caution leader Ryan Godown ran something over relegating him to the pit area with a flat tire handing the lead to Pauch Jr.
That’s when things got even stranger.
Trying to gain every inch of lead he can, on the ensuing restart Pauch Jr. went before the fire box located in Turn-4 and ended up being penalized two spots placing pole sitter Dominick Buffalino back in the lead.
“I went early but then I stopped because I knew I went a little early, you don’t ruin a guys night with a call like that, they ****** me!” Exclaimed Pauch Jr. after the race was over.
It was explained at the drivers meeting held before the night began that anybody caught jumping the restart will be assessed a two spot penalty.
After the restart Pauch Jr. would roll the top in-between turns one and two inching closer and closer to the back of Buffalino whose car seemed to get better as the race went on but Pauch Jr. would be unable to get around him allowing Buffalino to score his first career New Egypt Speedway Opening Night win!
“There’s two green markers on the wall in Turn-4, you can’t go before them, he went in Turn-3, I wasn’t even to the corner yet and he’s taking off”, Said Buffalino. “My biggest fear was they were going to give him a ******* warning and were not going to get any more yellows.”
Neal Williams would end up third come features end and was pretty stoked about it.
“That’s an awesome way to start off the year, we’re still tweaking on some things with this car but we had an awesome night and it’s a great way to start off the season”, explained Williams who also won the North East Wingless Sprint Car Feature over Lou Cicconi.
Ryan Godown would rebound after his flat to finish fourth and Danny Bouc rounded out the Top-5.
NES Notes:
13 North East Wingless Sprint Cars signed in for the nights program with 10 cars taking the green flag for the feature which Neal Williams beat Lou Cicconi by a mere six inches to get the win. The last time Lou Cicconi raced a wingless sprint car was roughly 1994 at Grandview.
Pat Wall returned to New Egypt Speedway in a big way on Saturday winning the 20-Lap
Sportsman feature. Counting Crate and Rookie Sportsman drivers there were 35 Sportsman cars in attendance.
The track while a little on the slick side was smooth from top-to-bottom and very racy.
Although Dominick Buffalino’s night ended up in Victory Lane, it started with a flat tire on his trailer in the pit area.
Billy Pauch suffered from a stuck bleeder in his right-rear tire at the beginning of the Modified feature, as a result Pauch over adjusted under the caution and when the field took off into turn one he got up into the marbles and into Turn-2 retaining wall.
New Egypt Speedway is back in action this coming week with 358 Modifieds, Crate Modifieds, The TSRS Sprint Car Series and Rookie Sportsman starting at 6PM.
I can be reached at racersguide@gmail.com or found on Twitter @PMacDonald51. Thanks for reading!
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