WALL TOWNSHIP, NJ- Geoffrey Sutton claimed his first career Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic ATQMRA powered by VP Racing Fuels Turkey Derby victory in dominating fashion this weekend at Wall Stadium Speedway.
In front of a sold-out pit area and a near capacity grandstand crowd, twenty-one ATQMRA drivers chased the dream to earn a wreath at the 46th annual prestigious motorsports event.
Riverhead Raceway INEX Legends Champion Richie Davidowitz made a statement early, setting quick time in time trials with a blistering 12.823 second lap. Buddy Sload, Geoffrey Sutton, Ryan Flores and Joey Bailey rounded out the top five, all breaking into the 12 second barrier in a rather tight field.
After the top-12 redraw, five-time ATQMRA Champion Ryan Tidman drew the pole in his Boyd Chassis. Sutton drew for the outside pole, and top-two qualifiers Davidowitz and Sload would start third and fourth.
A series of on-track incidents prompted a slow start for the 30 lap feature event. The most notable of these incidents was Turkey Derby favorite and defending race champion Buddy Sload. Sload, who set quick time over two weeks of testing, experienced a mechanical failure on the right front of his machine, ending his race before the field officially completed one lap of racing.
Geoffrey Sutton wasted no time to fight for the lead from the second starting position. Sutton drag raced Tidman down the backstretch, before clearing him off of turn four. Tidman had a big moment getting loose, where Davidowitz took advantage and jumped into second. Tidman would settle into third.
As Sutton continued to show the way ahead of Davidowitz and Kot, the leaders approached lapped traffic creating at times some hectic three and four wide moments amongst the leaders.
After a long green flag run, a halfway caution came out on lap 15 for a spin by Anthony Payne. The caution allowed the field to reset for the first single file restart of the day.
The battle up front continued to heat up, as you could have thrown a blanket over the top-6 of Sutton, Davidowitz, Kot, Bailey, Tidman and Flores.
While battling for a spot on the podium, hard racing between 2019 ATQMRA Champion Joey Bailey and the Behrents Performance Warehouse machine of Jeff Kot ensued to Kot taking a spin in the middle of turns one and two.
Big trouble would follow on the restart, when former Wall Stadium feature winner Tim Proctor went for a wild ride flipping end over end on the front stretch heading into turn 1. Tim walked away ok. However, his car sustained considerable damage from the incident.
Sutton would lead the charge and bring the field home for the remaining five laps of the race, earning his first Turkey Derby victory in dominating fashion by officially leading wire to wire. This capped off a year of three wins in Alan Mollot’s #51 Lindblad Badger, all of which where earned at the treacherous 1/5th mile inner oval.
Richie Davidowitz, Joey Bailey, 2017 Indoor Auto Racing Champion Ryan Flores, and Ryan Tidman rounded out the top five.
Kyle Taraska earned a sixth place finish in his third Turkey Derby attempt. Antony Payne and Jeff Kot recovered nicely from their early race spins to finish seventh and eighth. Steve Craig and home-track native Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ Mullen rounded out the top ten respectively.
Mullen, who fought a lot of adversity this week after blowing his motor in the final round of testing one week ago, earned a hard fought top ten to cap off his 2019 campaign.
Paul Dodorico, who also recovered from an early spin, Bobby Watkins, and Dave Gorbatuk rounded out the field of cars that were running at the end of the race.
Other notables include Tyler Ferris, finishing 14th in his ATQMRA debut and Brianna Page, finishing 18th in her first ATQMRA start in two years. Both drivers showed speed before experiencing mechanical trouble during the race.
The ATQMRA would like to thank title sponsor Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic and presenting sponsor VP Racing Fuels for their continued support of this organization.
With a full year of racing completed, Joey Bailey’s 2019 Championship season will be celebrated at the Annual ATQMRA Banquet this Sunday, December 8th 2019 at the Valley Forge Casino and Resort.
Turkey Derby XLVI Feature Results:
#51 Geoffrey Sutton
#25 Richie Davidowitz
#51B Joey Bailey
#15 Ryan Flores
#1B Ryan Tidman
#02 Kyle Taraska
#45 Anthony Payne
#95 Jeff Kot
#55C Steve Craig
#39 Ronnie Mullen
#55 Paul Dodorico
#91 Bobby Watkins
#32 Dave Gorbatuk
#33 Tyler Ferris
#98 Tim Proctor
#73 Cole Mullen
#16 Mike Glaser
#76 Brianna Page
#23 Avery Stoehr
#36 Buddy Sload
#67 Joey Payne III