October 10&11,2009      Grand Finale' at Waterford Speedbowl. The pit party was a blast! We took some nice pictures, great conversations with fans, passed out lots of candy and pictures! Pictures are in the photo section! The two little girls were too funny having their faces signed by Gregory!  They were really fans!    We would like to take this time to thank everyone who comes to the races and supports not only us but the speedway!  From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for all the kind words of support not only for racing, but for the personnal  support to us for Janoah.                        

Oct.10, 2009 Waterford Speedbowl Finale' NEATV Trucks  Dan finished 9th. His truck had problems. It was just one of those days. The truck was pushing so bad that coming out of turn 2 Dan was headed for the wall. Two feet from the wall, the tire grabbed and turned. Dan saved that one. We just couldn't catch a break! Dan finished 7th in points for the year!


 
Oct.10, 2009 Waterford Speedbowl Finale' NEATV Trucks, Gregory 8th. No power steering. He drove the entire feature race without it. The crew had to change the steering gear box after the heat race. Greg was leading the entire time and with 2 to go, the steering was so erratic that he had to give up the lead and finished 4th. Even during practice there was a bad vibration in the rear. The crew didn't have another to change so they took the chance. The vibration got worse but held together to run the feature.There were  alot of different  problems and if it wasn't one thing it was another! Gregory finished 2nd in points and had a great year of racing regardless! 

Sept.19.2009 Waterford NEATV Trucks Dan 4th  Greg 3rd. Finally got both trucks handling and running very strong. They both had to work their way up from the back of the pack. Greg started last with Dan in front of him. They both had good battles and finished
strong. Excellent job boys!



Sept.12,2009 Grand re-opening at East Hampton Auto Parts (NAPA)!  Greg and Dad hauled the 85 truck to the new store to display. Ed & Anita have been waiting for this time, and it was a pleasure to have been a part of the re-opening. The new store is such an improvement and a shopping pleasure, more than just parts, experienced and good people!  GOOD LUCK!




        Sept. 05,2009 Waterford NEATV Trucks. Dan 8th  Greg 5th








Sept 02, 2009 Waterford NEATV Trucks. Greg started on pole and Dan started 5th. Greg led first few laps as the 8 truck literally blew past the entire field. He was using an SK motor out powering the rest. Waterford let his win stand, they let him use the motor. Anyway, Greg had a tough battle to hold onto 4th, as the pic shows, it was a 3 truck wide finish. Greg beat the 94 and 83 by only 1/2 fender. Dan had a bad night finishing 11 as he said there was no power. We found the next day at the shop that he had broken a rocker stud and was running on 7 cylinders. Both trucks fixed and hopefully ready for this Saturday race.  Gregory is 4th in points at this point!
                                        

August 1,2009 Waterford Truck Division NEATV. Dan is happy to be back to racing after a stressful few months! Janoah is finally home safe and sound in Momma's arms! Dan dedicated his race to Janoah, now that he is home from the hospital and healing! (Matt was a confused,Janoah wasn't in the hospital! Dan would never go racing and leave his son!) 

 

Instead of individual heat laps, they decided to have one heat race with all the trucks, Dan's truck was pushing during turns  in practice and in the heat. They adjusted caster which seemed to help alot. During the heat race, Gregory, 85 was running ahead of the field until there was a spin,  Dan, 25 was pushing his truck in turn 2, truck slide up, he tried to correct it and in doing that, and over corrected it, lost it and ended in a full spin. The yellow came out and in the restart, Greg 85 had a puff of smoke which got worse, he immediatley drove off the track. When Greg Sr. & I ran back to the hauler he was on fire. I grabbed the fire extinguisher, a few guys were there to help. We got the fire out and found the tranny oil had leaked on the pipes which caused the fire. Dan finished 11th. Richie was his spotter. Sorry, Dan I  missed  your heat race ; ( I can't be in two places)  although I did  run back, after  I helped put out your brothers fire and you were coming off the  I  track. I tried!





Greg started 11th for the race and Dan started 9th, Greg had to start in the back due to the fact he didn't finish his heat race. He worked his way up to 6th place and just ran out of time trying to catch up to the leaders. Dan was racing the 87, his truck does not have the type of motor he needs to get to the front to be competitive. Now that he has been racing he is ready for a faster truck!




It was great to have Richie in the pits to be able to help in time of need again!  There was alot going on, trying to get Greg's 85 back on the track after the heat, and we were the first feature, so there wasn't much time!  Thanks to: Pat, Gary, and one of the crew men (sorry didn't catch your name) of the 07 late model team helped after the fire of the 85.
Then, Dan's 25 overheated at the same time  trying to take tire temps, pressures, A BIG SHOUT OUT to BROTHER Rich handling the stress of everything happening at once! Plus, being a spotter!
 
 
      
 August 1,2009 Waterford Truck Division NEATV. Dan is happy to be back to racing after a stressful few months! Janoah is finally home safe and sound in Momma's arms! Dan dedicated his race to Janoah, now that he is home from the hospital and healing! (Matt was a confused,Janoah wasn't in the hospital! Dan would never go racing and leave his son!)  Allen Coates won the race, he decided to give his trophy to Janoah tonight because Dan had dedicated the race for Janoah. Thank-you, Alan for such a sweet gesture

Picture courtesy of Heather @Overtime Racing

July 24, Stafford, All during the week the boys made adjustments to try to get more horsepower. During practice and heat the car wasn't dialed in. He started 14th out of 20 cars ended up 10th.





July 17, Stafford, this night was a great night of good clean racing for all divisions. Greg started 16 out of 20 cars after the heat race and rear start from handicapping system ( now that he has started to the rear for 3 races he can start where his heat finishes result). There was 21 cars but the 05 blew his motor during the heats. Greg had a good night finishing 9th. He was able to reduce his time by 1/10 second. Needs more power which are working on.
                                  


July 10, Stafford. Full moon atmosphere but not full moon. Every division tonight was plagued with wrecks galore. The 2 leaders were taken out just before 1/2 way. Drivers were very impatient. Greg started 21 out of 22 (handicapping). No heat races for the Limited Lates tonight. By the  end,  Greg finished 8th with only 12 cars finishing the race. He avoided 4 big wrecks as the entire feild was tight and patience was nil.                               




July 03, Stafford Motor Speedway, First return to Stafford with the Limited Late Model. We had made a change to the cam and re- timmed it. Practice was terrible, low power and very poor handeling. We changed carb jets, retimmed and made chassis 
adjustments. Started the race 17 out of 22 and finished 13. Ed Gertch has helped us alot in detecting the EVIL in this car and
found bad rear steer in the chassis. We are correcting the problem and will return. Thanks go out to Eddie!



June 27th Waterford Speedbowl : Greg dedicated this race to Dan. Dan was not able to race, he has been
in Boston with Janoah and LIsette. Janoah is having heart surgery 6-29-09. This dedication was for all three of them. However, the race did not go as well as Gregory wanted it to go.  Gregory started in third position, he was fighting to protect his postition and all of a sudden lost all power. He sputtered and chugged all the way for a lap thinking it would clear up, it was so bad he didn't think he would make it to the infield.  When the yellow did come out for something else, he was able to drive it to our pit but it was too bad and too late to try to fix and get him back to the race. He was disappointed not to race but I think he felt bad for dedicating the race  
                                         and not being able to race it for his brother and family.Watch it on youtube!!!:  
                                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpj_BKB6gaw

                                          During the 1st practice Greg got a flat in a brand new tire, hey that's racing!
Gregory's qualifying went really well, truck ran excellent. He came in 4th. There was only 1/10th of a second between the top 4   trucks. No indication what was about to happen





June 13th Monadnock, New Hampshire Gregory 8th, Dan 9th.  Greg qualified on pole and lead the first half of the race when the truck lost power.  Dan had only raced at Monadock a few times and did a great job hitting his marks. We found that the fuel line in the fuel cell had broke near the top and was pumping air with the fuel.

Gregory's heat race :  Second in his heat race.

Dan's heat race: Fourth in his heat race.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                   
June 10th,2009 Waterford Speedbowl  Wacky Wednesday  Dan 8th, Gregory DNS
Dan started on the outside pole postion, went three wide  a few times and held his line.  He had the truck sideways several times due to the  looseness,  but really did a heck of a job hanging on to it.  Dan was having a battle of his own at the end of the race to cause him to cross the finish line sideways!



Here is the problem that caused Gregory not to start the race. Two push  rods broke through the rockers during practice, Rich, John , Gregory and Greg were working feverishly to get it done to make it for the race. Apparently, the valve cover gasket came
dislodged when they put it back on. When Gregory was in the warm up lap on the track it spewed oil on the headers which caught on fire. By the time they had fixed that the race went green to checker an was over. A bad night for Gregory.



May 16,2009 Monadnock Speedway, Dan 9th Gregory 4th
Greg started the heat race inside 3rd row, 5th position, Dan started at the back. Gregory was fighting for the lead with truck #14. He ended up blowing the rear end, twisted the axle shaft breaking the spool, possibility damage from previous  infield spin? After the heat race the crew worked feverishly to get the 85 back for the race. They pulled the rear end apart and found that they couldn't fix it. The 83 team was nice  enough to let us borrow a spare rear end. The team worked really, really hard and as Richie was still working on it, Gregory was in the line up waiting to go on the track. Matter of fact, Gregory was strapping in and Richie, John, Paul, and Greg, were working on the rear end. A  big thank you to the crew for working so feverishly trying so hard to get everything done. And.... A BIG SHOUT OUT to GEE PERRY, THANK YOU to him and his team, without them the 85 wouldn't have been able to race.  Thank you!
 


May 15,2009  Twin States Speedway Claremont, New Hamphire. Dan 4th Gregory 9th 
Gregory won his heat race, Dan placed 4th in his heat race. The weather was beautiful, Dennis the owner of the track, was a great host! He always comes around shakes everyones hand and thanks them for coming to race! How many track owners do that? He always spends a minute to chit chat with his patrons and drivers!  For the feature, Dan had outside pole, Greg started in the 5th position. It was a rough and tight night of racing. Greg had just passed the # 22 for second position about 1/2 way through the race. They came across a lap truck who seemed to be taking the middle position on the track. The 22 truck went to the high side and Greg stayed low to split and go around the lap truck. Unfortunately the lap truck turned low sending Greg  into a spin right in the infield. On the restart, Greg's truck started smoking due to a oil line that was punctured, while he was in the pits he was on fire again and John threw water on it (remember ~2008~ John grabbed the lemonade to put the fire out???).  He pinched the line and got him back on the track. Greg got out a few laps down and even though he was a few laps down, he raced through the field and caught up to the leaders.  Meanwhile, Dan was avoiding a 3 truck wreck, hitting his marks racing his heart out. At one point ,he was sideways, kept control of the truck. Dan had an excellent night of racing. Congrats to Dan for 4th place finish, he worked hard for this one. Greg finished 9th.


May 2, 2009 Waterford Speedbowl Waterford CT. The new truck division is called NEATV.   Gregory 4th,  Dan 7th
25-lap feature, decided to qualify with time trials.  #0 had  pole position, Gregory had 2nd position.  #84 took the lead from the #0 while the #0  remained in second, Gregory battled with the 94 truck for 3rd position but couldn't make the pass and finished fourth.  Dan placed 7th after running 6 & 7th. The rules stated that the winner of the race previous feature will start in the back of the field next event.


May 2,2009 Gregory was the contingency winner for Spectro Oil. He recieved a case of racing oil! Thank you Spectro Oil it will come in very useful! Thank-you!





May 2,2009 Dan was the recipent of Dunleavy's Roadside Service Cash Bonus!  Cash is always welcome! Thank-you!







March 28,2009 ~ Waterford  Speedbowl Truck Division. Gregory started outside pole, it was a tight race from start to finish. He finished in third place. One caution was called when a truck blew a tire and hit the wall.  Here Gregory and his Dad are putting East Hampton Auto Parts vinals and the 85 on the truck.  They had just picked them up in the morning. Gregory had three good practices. Surprisingly, being a new division, a good handful a truck racers came to race. It was a little chilly in the morning and the track was cold, by afternoon race time the track was warm, so the tire pressures  had to be adjusted, Gregory did a good job figuring that stuff out!!!!  It was a beautiful day ! It was good to see alot of the ol' Waterford racer friends that we haven't seen in a while!

March 28,2009 Waterford Speedbowl ~, A NEW Truck division has started.  Gregory had just finished his #85 Thursday night and he and his dad decided that if the weather looked ok they would go to Waterford on Friday to test. Fridays' test didn't go very well, Dad, Gregory and myself went to practice. Our crew had to work. Gregory did a lap around and had to pull in the infield, the transmission wouldn't shift.  Gregory called JR at Cottman Transmission (our tranny guy)!, Dad & Gregory took the truck right down and JR was Johnny on the spot, had it fixed very quickly in about and hour, so Gregory would be able to race on Saturday.