The 4th Turn: September 18, 2025
~ By Tom Boggie
Ah, yes. It’s Malta Massive Weekend. Two nights of racing. Two nights of Mike Warren touting “A shower of small block power” (or is it big block power? I never remember). Two nights of four-wide salutes, Malta Massive Weekend championship belts, fraying nerves as curfew approaches. Who could ask for more?
I’ll get to more on that later. First, some recapping from last week.
Mike Mahaney is on top of the world. To say that the 2025 racing season has been memorable is an understatement. He became a father for the first time, won the second modified championship of his career at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, hit double-digit wins for just the second time in his career and last Friday, picked up $4,300 for winning the John Grady Memorial Night feature at Malta.
Since his son Emjay was born, he’s also learned a valuable lesson. He doesn’t have to be Superman anymore.
“My crew has been doing all the work on the cars,” he said after his win last Friday. “They deserve all the credit. They’ve stepped up tremendously, and it’s given me time to take care of my wife and my son. I don’t have to be the mechanic anymore. I can just be the driver, and everything has gotten better.”
Like I said earlier, Mahaney’s win last Friday was the 10th time overall he’s been in victory lane this season. The only year that he had more wins was in 2015, when he finished the year with 14 victories while following an Afton-Thunder Mountain-Utica-Rome schedule every week.
Of the 43 laps Mahaney ran in the feature last Friday, he said that 42 of them were perfect. “One time I caught the right rear (against the cushion) in three and it felt like I could have gone over, but it bounced back down,” he said.
While Mahaney came away with his 78th career win last Friday, David Schilling had another close-but-no-cigar night.
The 29-year-old Schilling started fourth and finished fourth, but for a while, he was right in the mix with Mahaney and Peter Britten for the win.
When the only caution of the 43-lapper came out on lap 25, Schilling used the restart to take the No. 2 spot away from Britten. But he couldn’t find the grip he needed on the bottom, eventually lost the runner-up spot to Britten on lap 35, and then also fell victim to another late charge by Matt DeLorenzo, finishing fourth.
“That’s the story of my career,” said Schilling after the race, referring to another good run without a win. “But we’re leaps and bounds ahead of where we were about a month ago. I just have to get better to compete with these professional guys.”
“After the yellow, the bottom was good and I was able to get by Britten, but there really wasn’t anywhere I felt really good, so I began searching around,” he added. “I tried to run Mahaney down and thought I was getting closer, but in the last 10 laps, I was just hanging on.”
Although Schilling doesn’t have a modified win at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, he’s been to victory lane at Malta before. Early in his career, in 2011, the second year of the asphalt experiment at Malta, he was racing an INEX Legends car during the one season that the track had a NASCAR sanction. Although Matt Pappa dominated the INEX division that year, recording nine wins in 13 starts, Schilling was able to pick up a win on July 22.
He made the move to modifieds in 2015, running a small block at Lebanon Valley, and has been a regular at Albany-Saratoga for the last two seasons. In his 10 seasons in a modified (it’s actually seven, because he didn’t do any dirt track racing from 2016-2018), he’s won three features; the first at Thunder Mountain in 2020, the second at Fonda Speedway in 2022 and the last one in 2023 at All Tech.
He’s finished second two times at Malta this season, behind Demetrios Drellos on May 2 and behind Mahaney in a DiCarlo 358 Shootout Series race on June 20. He also had a runner-up finish last season, crossing the finish line behind Jack Lehner on June 21.
You had to feel good for Craig Wholey when he won the sportsman feature last Friday night. That was Wholey’s first career sportsman win, and came just five weeks after he broke his back in a bad wreck in the third turn.
“We weren’t even going to come here tonight. We were going to wait until next week,” he said after the win. “Five weeks ago, I barrel-rolled and broke my back and to get a win in my first race back, it’s insane.”
Wholey picked up four limited sportsman wins in 2022 before moving up to the regular sportsman division in 2023. He had two top-five finishes in 2023, and was one of the top contenders in the division in 2024, but couldn’t come away with a win. In fact, he had six runner-up finishes in 2024. On three of those occasions, he followed track champion Tim Hartman Jr. across the finish line. He also had second-place finishes to Joey Scarborough, Brendan Gibbons and Michael Ballestero.
After winning the pro stock feature last week, Rich Crane gave the fans his plans for this Saturday’s DIRTcar Pro Stock Series race at Malta.
“This is a new car that Nick Stone built for me over the summer and it’s so much fun to drive,” he said. “I think I’ll have to put my brother (Chris Crane Sr.) in it next week, and I’ll take the old girl out.”
It was good to see the B&H Auto No. 64 late model pacing the field for the vintage modified races at Malta last week. Jay Bleser drove the Camaro at Malta before he and car owner Mike Budka Sr. decided to move up to modifieds, and Joe Budka brought his late father’s No. 64 over to his old stomping ground on Friday.
When I asked him if he was going to actually compete in it, he said, “If I do anything to it, I can’t get parts anymore, so no. But I couldn’t bring it over and not get it back on the track.”
Budka probably wanted a chance to get back on the track, as well. The last time he competed at Malta was in a budget sportsman in 2012, chalking up his final win at Malta on June 29.
Kenny Marshall shared the flagstand with Richie Petersen last Friday night. Marshall, who celebrated his 74th birthday last Saturday, spent his 50th season as a flagger at Airborne Park this season and received a Dedication to Racing Award from track owner Mike Bruno.
When you play with fire, sometimes you’re going to get burned. Last Friday, fans listened to an emotional Tyler Irwin talk about getting his first career street stock win during the victory lane interview on the front straightaway. But how many of those fans left the track knowing that Irwin was disqualified for failing tech after the race, giving the win to Josh Bussino? The DQ moved Derek Van Veghten up to second, the best finish of his career.
A.J. Munger, son of former Champlain Valley Racing Association star Gene Munger, made his modified debut at Malta last Friday, started sixth and finished 12th. Munger is a regular in the sportsman/modified division at Devil’s Bowl, with two career wins under his belt.
AROUND THE TRACKS
Bonuses are already rolling in for Malta Massive Weekend. Andy’s Speed Shop has put up a $500 bonus for the modified driver who has the fastest overall average time for three hot-lap sessions on Friday. Also on Friday, Croteau and Sons Service Center is putting up a $200 bonus to the street stock winner.
On Saturday, the limited sportsman winner will receive a $1,000 bonus in honor of Amy Lee Jennings, courtesy of Scott Jennings and the Mesothelioma Warrior Alliance.
The racing card on Friday includes 358 modifieds, the DIRTcar Sportsman Fall Championship Series, street stocks and four-cylinders. Saturday’s schedule will feature limited sportsman, the DIRTcar Pro Stock Series and the 100-lap Super DIRTcar Series. Rain date is Sunday.
The Sportsman Fall Championship race on Friday will also serve as the final points race in the Capital District Racing Association (CDRA) Series. Hartman Jr. has to finish 27th or better to lock up the title.
It was good to see a photo of Stewart Friesen getting around the pits on crutches last weekend at the Fonda 200 Weekend. Malta Massive Weekend won’t seem the same without him.
Rather than compete at Malta last Friday, Drellos ran a United Super Late Model Series race at Outlaw Speedway in Dundee. Drellos started 17th, but got up to third before slipping back and settling for fifth, which paid $1,200. He also won the Hard Charger Award. I expect to see Drellos back at Malta for Malta Massive Weekend, trying to repeat his Super DIRTcar Series win from 2019.
Saturday night was Quenneville Night at Devil’s Bowl Speedway. Vince Quenneville Jr. recorded his first win of the year in the sportsman/modified feature, Jason Quenneville won the limited sportsman feature (also his first win) and Quinn Quenneville triumphed in the 500cc mini-sprint feature (yes, also his first win of the year). The Bowl will conclude its season on Saturday, with Joey Scarborough holding a 42-point lead over Josh Sunn in the battle for the sportsman/modified crown.
Here’s a reminder for race fans. Don’t forget Ron Hedger’s Racing Memories program at the Saratoga Auto Museum on Saturday, Nov. 29. This year’s program will include a discussion on the early dirt-track days at Albany-Saratoga Speedway, featuring Ken Tremont Jr., Dave Leckonby, Don Scarborough and Don Ackner.
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