Saturday: A Special Appearance By...

MandyB · Stafford's Turn 1 "Princess"

Saturday: A Special Appearance By...

openwheelracer · Admin/Mod/Eyewitness

The guest apperance has been cancelled Mandy. From Jason Christlys New London Day article:

Malave's run ends

• A phone call to NASCAR put an end to Jeff Malave's plans to run the Waterford Speedbowl Saturday.

The Manchester driver, who has concentrated his season at Thompson and Stafford Motor Speedway, believed he had an outside shot at catching Donny Reuvers for the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series Division IV championship until he got a break-down of the best-case points scenario from Daytona.

Bottom line: Mavale is out of time.

The deadline is Sunday and with Stafford finished for the year with it's Friday night program, Malave is left with only two races to close the gap on Reuvers (1,072-1,052). However, even if Malave wins at Thompson Thursday and Waterford Saturday and collects the 20-point bonus for car count in both cases, the best Malave could do is tie Reuvers. And Reuvers, who runs Late Models at two tracks in the Midwest, would earn the championship on the first tiebreakers, with eight wins to Malave's possible five.

The top 16 finishes are counted towards the championship and the Malave's worst finish is 60 points. A victory could only get him a maximum of 70 points.

“It's disappointing,” Malave said. “But you know what? The guy who's winning had a lot of success and we unfortunately didn't have a good showing at Stafford.”

While Malave is the points leader at Thompson, he has just four top fives at Stafford.

The poor finishes at Stafford Friday nights also derailed Malave's mid-summer plans to run Saturdays at Waterford. The Speedbowl has consistently had 21-plus cars, which would guarantee him the 20-point car count bonus.

This is the first year of NASCAR's new scoring system, which rewards drivers for running at multiple tracks.

“It was actually cool to be that close to it,” said Malave, who will run Thompson Thursday and attempt to qualify for Friday's NASCAR Whelen Modified race at New Hampshire International Speedway. “We all had a lot of fun with it.

“It brings it back to the days it used to be ... driving everywhere and chasing points.”

WhelenModifiedTour · WMT Moderator

That is to bad for Malave . But hey , he and his crew did their best , and gained alot of attention for Stafford , Thompson , and Waterford in the media rings.

I hope to see Jeff get the funding , amd/or offered a good ride to compete full time on the Whelen Modified Tour .

openwheelracer · Admin/Mod/Eyewitness

The rumor mill has Malave running the full WMT schedule next year, combining his exsisting WMT team with the SK team he drives for at Thompson, and backing from his Stafford SK owners also.

WhelenModifiedTour · WMT Moderator

I for one would like to see it . I see alot of new talent coming to the WMT soon.

MandyB · Stafford's Turn 1 "Princess"

That would be nice. I hope he makes a name for himself racing in the Tour.