The 4th Turn: August 21, 2025
~ By Tom Boggie
Pull the belts tight and get comfortable. There’s a ton to break down this week.
I even had to go to the video tape.
After looking through all the notes I scribbled down Friday night at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, there were a couple of things I wanted to take a closer look at, so I shelled out $14.99 for the Dirt Track Digest TV replay. You’re welcome, George.
Let’s start with Mike Mahaney’s pass for the lead in the modified feature. The battle for the top three positions late in the race was incredible. Brian Calabrese was running the top and leading the race. Derek Bornt was hugging the inside and refusing to let Mahaney get around him on the top.
On lap 28, they caught Dylan Grogan (who was running at the tail end of the lead lap while making his modified debut in one of David Zelker’s cars) going into the third turn. That forced Bornt to get out of the throttle and move to the top, behind Mahaney. Coming out of the third turn, Mahaney went to the middle, got past Grogan and pulled even with Calabrese. Coming out of the fourth turn, Mahaney kept inching higher, which caused Calabrese to jump the cushion and Mahaney had the lead.
Now, in the blink of an eye in which all this happened, the way that the rear of Calabrese’s car jumped to the right, I thought that Mahaney had made contact, and I asked him so after the race. “I didn’t feel any contact,” Mahaney said. “It was definitely a risky move, but I thought I cleared him.”
After watching the replay a number of times, I didn’t see any contact. Calabrese hit the cushion with a lot of force, which made the car bounce just as Mahaney went by, giving the illusion of contact. But I’m agreeing with Mahaney on this one.
Also, while watching the replay, I paid close attention to lap 33. Coming down the front straightaway, the left front tire of Calabrese’s car made contact with the right rear of Don Ronca’s car, sending Calabrese into the front stretch wall. Demetrios Drellos, running the outside, had nowhere to go, and even though he jumped on the brakes and cranked the wheel to the left, he made hard contact with Calabrese’s car.
Yellow flag.
On the restart, Matt DeLorenzo, who lined up third, belted the concrete barrier in the fourth turn and popped his left front tire. He tried to keep pace going through the first turn, but brought the car to a stop in the second turn, bringing out another yellow.
Now, if you’ve ever been at Albany-Saratoga, you’ve heard track announcer Dan Martin remind fans every week that rules at Albany-Saratoga call for all double-file restarts, unless there are two consecutive cautions before a lap is completed.
So, with the Calabrese and DeLorenzo incidents, there were two cautions with no laps completed. That called for a single-file restart. But the field was aligned two-by-two for the second restart.
Why do I bring that up? Because Bornt had to restart on the outside of Mahaney, in the lane he didn’t want, and after Justin Stone rocketed past him on the restart, Bornt dropped from second to sixth in the last two laps. If he had been able to follow Mahaney on the restart and stay on the bottom, who knows where he would have finished?
I also watched the incident between Kolby Schroder and James Meehan again and still don’t have a clue how it happened. The field was under caution following the DeLorenzo flat tire, and Schroder and Meehan were near the tail end of the field. The DTD TV camera was focused on the front of the field, but then swung around to show that Schroder was sideways in the middle of the backstretch, with the front of his car pointing to the top of the track, while Meehan was perpendicular to him, with the front bumper buried into Schroder’s right rear quarter panel.
Meehan backed away, and drove away to catch up to the field. Schroder got his car running and with a shredded right rear tire, and limped to a spot between the third and fourth turns, where he came to a stop.
When the field went past, with Meehan in the rear, Schroder picked up his pace and as he was going down the frontstretch with that right rear rubber flapping, he drove into the rear of Meehan’s car. Then, going into the first turn, Schroder swung to the left and then came back to the right, hitting the left side of Meehan’s car and spinning him out.
Officials then disqualified Schroder.
MORE FROM MALTA
Bornt drove a great race Friday and even though he dropped to sixth in the final order, he wasn’t very disappointed,
“At least we’re gaining on it,” he said after the race. “Last week I finished 25th, so this is definitely encouraging. But I can guarantee that of the cars in the top 10 tonight, we are the only car that has a motor built by an 85-year-old man. This is not a $60,000 piece in this car.”
No, it isn’t. It’s a motor that was built by Ken Tremont Sr., and rebuilt over the winter.
Bornt has been racing in the premier division at Albany-Saratoga since 2020, when he moved up from sportsman late in the season. He’s racked up seven top-10 finishes since then, with his best finish a fourth on July 31 last year.
Bornt picked up one win in the sportsman division in 2018, and had a pair of victories in the limited sportsman division early in his career. In 2017, he finished the year with one win and five second-place finishes.
Mahaney took a big step toward his second career modified championship with his win last Friday and admits he likes the idea of being the track champion again. “It’s important,” he said last Friday. “I won it in 2020 and figured I would come right back and win again in 2021, but here we are, in 2025, and I haven’t won another one yet.”
I asked him how being a new father has affected him; he and wife Mandee had their first child on Aug. 6.
“More than anything else ever has,” he said. “It’s something that no one can explain to you. You have to feel it for yourself. To hold your baby boy in your arms is just an incredible feeling.”
Kim Duell chalked up his second straight pro stock victory last Friday and now trails points leader Pete Stefanski by just four points, with two point races remaining on the schedule. The last time Duell won back-to-back races was in 2017. The second win came when he beat Kenny Martin to the finish line by .003 seconds.
When I talked to Duell before last week’s card began, he said, “We’ve got this car spot on right now. I don’t even want to take it out for warmups, but Dave (crew chief Dave Madej) makes me do it. It’s so tough here. We’ve got 17 cars, and 12 of them are capable of winning.”
Duell now has 32 career pro stock wins, one behind record-holder Rob Yetman.
The highlight of Friday night’s card will be a 35-lap limited sportsman race, which will pay $3,000 to win. Promoter Lyle DeVore has made it clear that the race is open only to CURRENT limited sportsman drivers.
AN EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT
Congratulations to my longtime friend Jeff Sheely, who finished fourth in the modified feature last Saturday night at Thunder Mountain. That was an early birthday present for Sheely, who turned 69 on Monday.
When I first started covering dirt track racing for the Schenectady Gazette in 1980, Jeff and his brother Doug were sharing a late model, with Jeff racing at Albany-Saratoga on Fridays and Doug behind the wheel at Fonda on Saturdays. Jeff won one late model race at Malta, on July 18, 1980.
Forty-five years later, Jeff is still racing weekly at Thunder Mountain while Doug, who was a regular in the pro stock division at Malta in recent years, is still competing off and on with a limited sportsman at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park.
Jeff’s fourth-place run on Saturday was his best finish since coming across the finish line fifth in a feature at Afton last year. His last victory came at Thunder Mountain on Aug. 7, 2021. He has six career modified victories; three at Thunder Mountain, two at Afton and one at Glen Ridge.
I know I’ve said it before, but isn’t it about time the New York State Stock Car Association gave the Sheely brothers a Dedication to Racing Award?
AROUND THE TRACKS
If Peter Britten is looking for a new nickname, how about “The Chameleon?” Britten drove to his second win of the season last Saturday night at Canandaigua with his white-wrapped big block, and then came out with a new chassis, wrapped all in black, for Sunday’s SummerFAST race at Weedsport. He set a new track record and drove to victory in the 75-lap feature, with his first win ever at Weedsport worth $7,500. Mahaney finished fifth, with Jack Lehner 10th, after being added to the field and starting 25th.
SummerFAST continued Monday at Brewerton, with Tim Sears Jr. picking up the win. Britten won the pole, but faded to ninth, while Lehner finished eighth and Mahaney was 10th. The final two events, scheduled for Tuesday at Canandaigua and Wednesday at Fulton, were rained out.
Rich Crane, the 2023 pro stock champion at Albany-Saratoga, won the DIRTcar Pro Stock Series race at Brewerton, and said after the race that he had never driven at the track before. Another Albany-Saratoga regular, Jason Casey, also made his first visit to Brewerton, finishing second. The DIRTcar Pro Stock Series will be in the Capital Region this weekend, stopping at Lebanon Valley Speedway on Saturday and Glen Ridge on Sunday.
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