The 4th Turn: July 3, 2025
~ By Tom Boggie
How many times have you seen a late yellow flag cost a driver a win? A guy can drive a great race, hit all his marks, weave his way through traffic, only to have a yellow come out, bunch up the field and give the second-place car, which had no shot at the win until the caution, come up and steal the win?
Well, that didn’t happen last Friday at Albany-Saratoga Speedway. A late caution actually helped Felix Roy record his first career big block win at Malta.
Roy had started fifth, needed 20 laps to get the lead away from James Meehan and then tried to shake clear of the second-place car of Peter Britten.
When Matt DeLorenzo brought out the only caution of the 35-lap feature on lap 29, Britten pulled up alongside Roy and was hoping to come away with his first win of the season. But Roy got a great jump on the restart and maintained the lead the rest of the way.
“When that caution came out, it allowed me to cool the tires a little bit,” said Roy, who gave his right rear a long look in victory lane. “I was worried when I saw Peter Britten out there. I knew I just had to stay calm on top.”
“That caution needed to come out sooner or not at all,” said Britten, who had his best run of the 2025 season at Malta. “I think I was a little faster than he was during the green.”
The win was also Roy’s first for crew chief Chris Reckner this season. During the winter, Reckner agreed to house and maintain Roy’s big block at Elmo’s Speed and Supply so that Roy could race weekly at Malta without worrying about hauling the big block to the track from his home in Napierville, Quebec, every week.
I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical about the new partnership, especially after Roy had just two top-10 finishes in the first six big block races of the season. But Reckner had a huge smile on his face in victory lane on Friday night.
“It’s awesome working with these guys,” said Reckner. “This car is completely different from his own (358) car. We have our own shock deal for it, and I’ll tell you, he can really wheel a car. It’s been a blast.”
“The guys did an amazing job with the car tonight,” said Roy. “I could go to the bottom, go to the top, really go anywhere I wanted. The car was perfect.”
Last Friday marked the third time he has been in victory lane at Malta this season, as he’s won two of the three races in the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Shootout Series.
Britten, the defending modified point champion, tried to find some solace in the runner-up finish.
When I mentioned that he has been struggling this season, he answered, “That’s putting it politely. We just haven’t been good so far.
“Frustrating really isn’t the right word, but it’s a relief to have a good run for a change. Maybe this will give us a shot in the arm.”
MORE FROM MALTA
Well, we’ve turned another page on the calendar, and are now into July, and Britten and Marc Johnson are still winless at Albany-Saratoga. Do you have any idea how rare that is? The last time that happened was 2020, the Covid year, Marc Johnson had five seconds that season, with four of them coming behind Stewart Friesen, who won six of the 13 modified races season. Britten’s best finish was a third, and that came in the first race of the season.
Britten and Johnson were also winless in 2012, the first season that Howie Commander and Lyle DeVore were in charge at Albany-Saratoga, but I don’t count that season because Britten was racing at Brewerton on Friday nights. He only made two appearances at Malta during the 2012 season, once before Brewerton opened and later for Brett Hearn’s Big Show Super DIRTcar Series races.
How about that run by Rich Scagliotta last Friday? The veteran from New Jersey finished fourth in the big block modified feature, marking just the fifth time he’s ever finished in the top five at Malta. His best career finish at Malta was a third, behind Ken Tremont Jr. and Hearn, on June 14, 2013. Later that year, he picked up a fifth. His next top-five came on July 10, 2015, when he finished fifth overall, but was moved up to fourth when Hearn, who finished second, was DQed for having an illegal driveshaft.
Three years later, Scagliotta matched his career-best with another third, finishing behind Britten and Hearn on May 11, 2018. Dating back to 1999, the 62-year-old Scagliotta has won two modified races in 577 career starts. Both wins came during the 2011 season, one at Brewerton and one at Canandaigua.
Last Friday was Next Generation Roofing Night at Malta, and two of the Next Generation-sponsored sportsman cars, driven by Next Generation owner Chad Gregory and Derrick McGrew Jr., finished first and second in the second heat.
Todd Ryan took a wild ride in the third modified heat. Britten and Ryan made contact going down the backstretch, with Ryan going off the racing surface and into the grass. He did a complete 360 spin and wound up with the front end in the trees off the third turn.
Jordan Modiano was in a jubilant mood after recording his third career pro stock win. “I got lucky,” he said. “We have the best pro stock drivers anywhere here. This is absolutely awesome.”
Modiano, who started on the pole, traded paint with Kim Duell and Chris Stalker when they came out of the fourth turn on a restart on lap 14, but kept the lead and held off Duell at the finish line.
Albany-Saratoga will be holding “60s Night, as well as “Honoring the Military” on Friday night. The modifieds will be running 60 laps for $6,060 to win as a tribute to the 60th anniversary of the speedway. I don’t expect to see Demetrios Drellos at Malta Friday. The Rush Late Model Series has races in West Virginia on Thursday and Friday, and Drellos is leading the Rookie of the Year points and is second in the overall point standings.
REST IN PEACE
The staff and management of Albany-Saratoga Speedway would like to send their condolences out to the family and acquaintances of Jerry Kearns, who suffered a heart attack last Friday at Albany-Saratoga Speedway and passed away at the age of 79. Jerry and his brother Terry began working on and building cars in the 1980s and were best known for their affiliation with Don Ackner, who won a number of Champlain Valley Racing Association championships in the Kearns’ No. 97. The Kearns brothers also put George Morse, Dave Manny, Matt Quinn and most recently, Kris Vernold, behind the wheel of their cars. Jerry Kearns will truly be missed.
AROUND THE TRACKS
Stewart Friesen is on a typical summer tear. He won Monday night’s Super DIRTcar Series race at Mohawk International, taking home $7,500, and came back with a win in the Firecracker 50 at Fonda on Wednesday, putting another $7,776 into the Friesen bank account. Friesen has competed in 22 dirt track modified races so far this season, and has won 13 of them. He’s finished in the top five 16 times, and in the top 10 in 20 out of 22. His only finishes outside the top 10 came in a Short Track Super Series race at Port Royal and a Super DIRTcar Series event at Big Diamond.
If we’re going to talk about hot, how about Mike Mahaney? Mahaney drove to his second DIRTcar 358 Series win on Wednesday night in the Pabst Shootout at Can-Am, earning $5,000. In four series races so far this season, Mahaney had finished third at Airborne Park, second at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park, fourth at Fulton and first at Can-Am. He also won a DiCarlo Shootout Series race at Malta on June 20.
Congratulations also have to go out to Guy Sheldon, who won last Saturday night’s JC Flach Memorial race at Lebanon Valley. The last time Sheldon won a big block race at the Valley was 18 years ago, in 2007. He did win a small block race six years ago, on June 8, 2019, which, ironically, also came on JC Flach Memorial Night.
More congratulations, this time to Tim Hartman Sr., who received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York State Stock Car Association last Saturday at Lebanon Valley. You know what that means, Tim? That you’ve been around for a LONG time.
Where were all the cars last week at the Valley? There were only 11 pro stocks and 11 sportsman in the pits.
Joey Scarborough continues to have one of the best seasons of his career, as he won the Firecracker 44 at Devil’s Bowl Speedway last Saturday, after starting 16th, to take home the top prize of $2,000. McGrew Jr. finished second. That was Scarborough’s third win of the year at the Bowl.
The 358 modifieds won’t be competing at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park Sunday because the DIRTcar 358 Series has a race scheduled at Weedsport. Glen Ridge will be running a couple of double features to make up for rainouts earlier in the season.
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