Stewart in town
Toolbox
By TOM HERZIG CORRESPONDENT - Published: June 25, 2009
Tony Stewart, the first and only driver to have won championships in Indy cars, Midgets, Silver Crown and Sprint cars and stock cars, is coming to Barre's Thunder Road to race tonight in the Carquest Governors Cup 150.
As a two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion and the 2009 point leader, Stewart is at the top of the racing universe as a driver and an owner. Part of what makes his racing debut at the Road special is that he's a short tracker at heart. He's not coming to Barre to sell Old Spice. He's coming to climb into Joey Polewarczyk's backup car and go racing. He'll have former Jamie Fisher crew member Rick Pigeon, a Fairfax native, along with him. Pigeon is Stewart's jack man on race days and he doubles as a mechanic on AJ Allmendinger's Petty Motorsports No. 43 earlier each week.
Polewarczyk will strap in to the Poles Automotive/NH Precision Metal No. 97, and as he says, "try to get the monkey off my back at Thunder Road."
More importantly, he's going to try and come out in one piece so as to be ready for Saturday's ACT event at White Mountain.
"It would be awesome to be racing side by side with the world's best racer," Polewarczyk said. "I had a great time racing with Kevin Harvick at Oxford last year."
Polewarczyk finished third in the Oxford 250, which Harvick eventually won after passing him for the lead.
"We'll be there early," Polewarczyk said. "I don't know what time Tony will get there, but we're going to try and get the car where it needs to be."
"We've planned it out as best we can," Joe Polewarczyk Sr. said, "and decided how to split the crew into two teams. The last time we ran the car was at the Showdown at Chaudiere (Quebec). It was fast. We've been all through the car and we had to take a lot of lead out of it. Joey weighs 120 and Stewart's 190 or so."
And then there were 10. Brent Dragon became the 10th driver to qualify for the inaugural ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway Sept. 19 by winning the Series Castrol 100 at Riverside in Quebec. Dragon was sitting in Milton with his wife, June, son Mark and crew members Steve Moore and Kenny T., all fueled up and ready to haul to Waterford, Conn., for the completion of a race when word came that it had been called off again because of rain.
"We decided to head for Ste. Croix instead," Dragon said. "I'm always at the race track early, but we were late getting there. Everyone had gone through tech and begun practice. I started last in the heat and finished third. They don't have the plus-minus handicap up there. We drew for spots 7-12. I drew 12th and had Donald Theetge and Patrick (Laperle) in the row behind me. I was fourth when the first caution came out on lap 23 and on the restart, the car in front of me shut off. I took the lead soon after that. Theetge passed me once then I got back by him."
The other nine qualifiers to date are Theetge, Laperle, Brad Leighton, Joey Pole, Eric Williams, Scott Payea, Dave Pembroke, Jean-Francois Dery and Ontario driver Sean Marshall.
Tire quality was an issue, again, at ACT's Waterford Speedbowl event. This time left side tires weren't holding up well. There's widespread agreement among the teams that ACT has dealt with the problems comprehensively and fairly, but whether or not its all behind them now remains to be seen. ACT relies on Goodyear tires, a manufacturer that Stewart has sounded off on several times in recent years.
It's still racy over in Stub Fadden country — North Haverhill, N.H. The late, great New England Racing Hall of Famer's grandson Travis Fadden carried the Late Model checkers last Saturday at White Mountain. It was the first career win for the 21 year-old rookie. He was driving his cousin Todd Aldrich's former car, the Pattens Gas/Ironman Auto Body No. 16. Aldrich started farther back in the field in a new Race Basics machine and he got tousled around. He had to ask Travis afterwards who won.
Fadden survived two late restarts after leading most of the 50-lap event under green. He had to deal with Jeremy Davis one time and former track champion Stacy Cahoon the next.
"I was just coming up on the cars in the back," Fadden said. "They were two by two. So it was either going to be deal with that or have a restart with somebody beside me."
Travis' spotter was another of Stubby's grandsons in former Busch North champion and Camping World East Series car owner Mike Olsen. Todd Aldrich's spotter was Stub's last crew chief Dave Albee.
Thunder Road races twice next week. Thursday night July 2 is the Pepsi Holiday Fireworks event post time 6:30 p.m. Sunday night it's the 50th Anniversary Holiday Celebration race with a 6 p.m. start.
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