The 4th Turn: April 24, 2025
~ By Tom Boggie
Anyone who has been following sports for any amount of time has heard the term “elusive win.” It’s a victory that a competitor has been chasing for a long time, and usually comes with the word FINALLY attached to it.
As in, Dale Earnhardt FINALLY won the Daytona 500 on his 20th try, or Rory McIlroy FINALLY won the Master earlier this month on his 15th try (what do you mean, who is Rory McIlroy? Geez, you probably don’t know who Alex Ovechkin is either).
And last Friday night, LJ Lombardo FINALLY got his elusive first modified win at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, taking the checkered flag in the season-opening Super DIRT Series 60th Anniversary Special at the historic Malta track.
“It took a hell of a lot of time for me to figure this place out,” said the 29-year-old Lombardo in victory lane after his win, which was worth $7,500.
When you come right down to it, it didn’t really take that long, in terms of laps run. Until last Friday, Lombardo was 0-for-37 in a modified at Albany-Saratoga. Heck, there are drivers who go 0-for-37 in the span of two seasons. But those 37 starts by Lombardo were spread out over nine seasons.
Lombardo joined the Friday night crew at Albany-Saratoga in 2016, running a total of 16 races. His best finish was a third, behind Ken Tremont Jr and Keith Flach, on June 3. In those 16 starts, he had three top five-finishes.
After that season, he switched his Saturday base of operations from Orange County Speedway to Lebanon Valley, and his appearances at Albany-Saratoga became very rare. He only raced twice at Malta in 2017, and two more times in 2020, the Covid season.
He became a regular part of the Albany-Saratoga crowd again in 2021 and finished second to Jeremy Pitts in the second race of the season. But he had only one other top 10 finish in the next seven races, and in June decided to focus on the Valley, where he finished the season with three wins.
After last Friday’s racing card was over, I tracked Lombardo down in the pits and asked him about his history at Malta.
“This is such a technical track,” he said. “I grew up racing at Middletown and then went to Lebanon Valley, and it’s easy to develop bad habits when you’re running the high banks. When we ran here in 2021, it made me better at the other tracks I raced at. 2021 was my best year, even though I didn’t get a win here. When you race here, it makes you a better driver. It’s like running a Super DIRT Series race every Friday night.”
Lombardo, who lives in Danbury, CT, made a huge career decision during the offseason prior to the 2024 campaign, giving up his duties as a driver to become a mentor and crew chief for a couple of young Connecticut drivers, including Brady Cordova, whose father Dave heads the Cordova racing team.
Lombardo did run in a handful of races during the spring and summer of 2024, and at the end of the year, he and Dave Cordova decided to put together a package for Eastern States Weekend at Orange County, with Lombardo running both a big block and a small block. He finished in the top 10 in both races, which lit a fire under the Cordova team, and they decided to come back with a big block, running a limited schedule, in 2025. Last Friday was the team’s season debut for its new Bicknell chassis.
“Stepping away helped me last year. It gave me some time to figure out some of the technological stuff,” said Lombardo, who now has 17 career modified wins (13 at Lebanon Valley, three at Orange County).
“I’m not coming here fulltime this year. The only track where we’re going to race for points is Orange County. I’m sure Dave will want to run more races after what we did tonight, but we want to pick and choose and run at a lot of different race tracks this year. My main focus is working with the Cordova kids (Brady and his brother Cody).”
MORE FROM MALTA
I’ll bet that Chris Jakubiak also let out a big “FINALLY” after his flag-to-flag victory in the sportsman feature last Friday.
Jakubiak burst onto the area dirt track racing scene in 2021, racing a car he bought from Norm Hansell in the limited sportsman division at Malta. He won his first feature in just his third try, and later in the season, won three races in a row.
He moved up to sportsman the next year and recorded his first win in that division on Aug. 12, but he went winless at Malta until his victory last Friday.
Did you notice Tim Hartman Jr. getting pushed off the track following his fourth-place finish in the sportsman feature last Friday? I texted him the next morning for details, and he responded, “I think it just popped out of gear aggressively after the checkered. But it sounded like the driveline came apart. I wasn’t taking any chances with it being a new car so I just shut it down.”
The defending big block point champion, Peter Britten, had a disappointing night. He only completed three laps of the 60-lap feature before pulling out with a motor issue, the first car off the track in 28th position.
Although Lombardo’s victory was his first career win at Malta, it was his second career Super DIRT Series win. He won the King of the Spring race at the Valley in 2022, collecting the top prize of $13,500.
Friday night’s card at Albany-Saratoga will include the first race of the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Series, which will be called The Flying Farmer 31 as a tribute to the late Jason Herrington. Bonuses have been flying in all week. Four States Enterprises has put together a bonus package that includes a $200-to-win Dash for Cash, $101 bonuses to the leaders on laps 1, 11 and 21 and $101 bonuses to the 11th and 21st-place finishers. John Ray & Sons has kicked in $100 bonuses to the top five finishers and also to the last five finishers who are still running at the end of the 31-lap feature. Meltz Lumber will be awarding $251 to the halfway leader, handicapper John Casterella has added $1,000 to the winner’s share of the purse and heat race winners will receive $101 bonuses through sponsorship by Herrington Farms and Peckham Motorsports.
DOESN’T SOUND GOOD
On Saturday morning, I watched the replay of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Rockingham and watched Stewart Friesen destroy his truck after getting hit from behind by Tanner Gray and slamming the wall. When Friesen was interviewed by a member of the FOX crew when he came out of the infield care center, he said, “I love racing these things. But with all the headaches we’ve had the last two weeks (he also was involved in a wreck at Bristol the previous week), maybe it’s not worth it anymore.”
I’m sure he was in a better mood Wednesday night, when he won the rain-delayed Jack Johnson tribute night race at Fonda. So far this season, he’s entered 10 modified races and won six.
AROUND THE TRACKS
Former modified driver Jeff Trombley became the winningest driver in the history of the Capital Region Sprint Association with a victory last weekend at Outlaw Speedway.
Lebanon Valley is scheduled to hold its first 358 modified point race of the season Saturday, but the forecast is again calling for rain. If there is another rainout Saturday, there will be a practice session on Tuesday, April 29, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
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