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For
the first time, none of the the 5 defending Saturday division champions returned to
defend their title. SK Champion Ed Reed Jr
took the year off; Late Model Champion Corey
Hutchings made only a few appearances but did win this season's Pepsi 300 LM
event; Keith Rocco would run at Stafford
Motor Speedway in an SK Modified; Mini Stock Champ
Glenn Colvin turned his attentions to
his #7 SK Modified while Saturday Legend Car champ Mike
Pepe also remained absent from weekly competition.
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Ron
Yuhas Jr, driving his father Ron Sr's familiar #6 green machine, led the point
race for all but one week heading into the Finale race. He also had a
division leading 4 wins for the season and 3 previous career Finale wins. But
in this year's season-ending 100 lapper, Yuhas was
involved in an accident and finished the race deep in the field while Robbie
Summers Jr - running his first full SK season at the Speedbowl after
years on the NASCAR Modified Tour and entering the race just 2 pts behind
Yuhas - finished in the top 5. Summers, by
virtue of a rule allowing competitors to drop their worst 2 finishes during
the season, won the points championship over Yuhas after the final points
were tallied. The "drop two rule" was abandoned during the
following off season after only one year.
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Mark
St. Hilaire won the 2005 Late Model points championship without
winning a feature event. He joins a unique list of winless point
champions that also includes Joe Tiezzi
(1971 Modified), Art Moran Jr (1983 Late
Model), Dickie "Doo" Ceravolo
(1988 SK Modified) and Billy Guyette
(1993 Sunday Mini Stocks). During the Finale 100 lapper, Mark's
championship hopes were put in severe jeopardy when he blew his motor during
the feature. Fortunately for him, his closest points challenger -
4-time track champion Allen Coates - was not able to make up the difference
before the checkereds flew giving St. Hiliare his first ever track
championship despite not winning a feature during the season for the first
time since 1998.
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Tony
Hirschman Jr set fast time during qualifying for both NASCAR
Whelen Modified Tour events. Although neither time broke Chuck
Hossfeld's track record set the year before, it was the fourth time Tony won
the Bud Pole Award for a NASCAR Modified Tour event at the Speedbowl.
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Despite
terrible luck at his home track during his first few years on NASCAR Busch
East tour, popular local driver Matt Kobyluck
built upon his 2004 3rd place finish by winning the Town Fair Tire 150 event
in late July. Kobyluck is 13th on the Speedbowl's Late Model career
win list with the 13 victories he earned from 1993-1997 as a weekly
competitor.
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Norm
Root Jr made up for the disastrous end to his '04 championship
run by capturing the 2005 Sportsman title in his pumpkin orange colored #80.
He also won a division best 4 feature events, which was double his previous
season high. Mini
Stock career wins leader Dan Darnstaedt,
who has run full seasons in both the 4 and 8-cylinder stock divisions over his
career, finally scored his first Sportsman win on June 4th. He
finished the season tied with Root for the division wins lead after taking 3
of 4 feature events later in the season. Dan has over 30 overall
feature wins at the Waterford Speedbowl.
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The
Mini Stocks saw the emergence of 2 second generation drivers as young guns Ken
Cassidy Jr and Joe Godbout III
both won 4 feature events which, along with veteran Phil
Evans 4 wins, led the division. Cassidy Jr also broke Jeff Miller's division lap
time record with his time trial qualifying time of 17.575 during the Pepsi
300. Amazingly,
his time was faster then Joe Curioso III's
new Sportsman track record of 17.645 set the same day. One time Late Model Rookie of the Year Danny
Field, who moved to the Mini Stocks years earlier, won his first
track championship by 12 points over Richard Brooks.
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Teenager
Jeffrey Paul earned the most overall
victories at the track with 11. Paul brought his #91 Legend Car to
victory lane 5 times on Saturday and 2 more on Wild N Wacky Wednesday - the
mid-week series where he also won 4 more times in the X-Modified
division. Paul added the Saturday Legend Car track championship to his
impressive overall season. Both Wednesday and Saturday series had
several young guns emerge as feature winners - in additional to Paul, Jason
Palmer and Mark &
Chris Bakaj also took home first place trophies during the year.
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Dennis
Botticello became the first competitor to run a dominant ACT
(American Canadian Tour) race car among the traditional G-car late
models. ACT cars had been track legal since the 2003 season with few
competitors having moderate success. Dennis appeared mid-season and
promptly broke the late model division lap record qualifying for
the Pepsi 300 with a 15.446 time trial effort. Later in the season, in
a span of just 15 days, he won 3 of 4 late model events, eventually
finishing 2nd in division wins for the season. His red #03 had no
sponsor decals on the car.
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Women
On Wheels returned as a regular point division for the first time
in over a decade when they were
added as two semi-regular Wednesday night divisions. Female
competitors in both 4 and 8 cylinder enduro type cars produced 7 different
winners with Sherry Williams (WOW Super
X) and Lisa Vogelsong (WOW X-car)
grabbing the point championships.
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The
D'Addario family dominated the late season races in the X-car division -
collectively winning 6 of the last 7 features. Curt
D'Addario Sr and Curt D'Addario Jr
(3 each) tied for the most wins in the division with Brad
Vogelsong. However, Brad finished 2nd in his family as wife
Lisa won 3 WOW X-car features plus 1 WOW Super X-car feature.
