Pinkham to Bateman: "Put the racing back in the racing"

OXFORD, Me. -- David Pinkham had a great start to the 2008 season. He won at Waterford Speedbowl and his home track, Oxford Plains Speedway, and was a contender for the True Value Modified Racing Series championship. But a disagreement over a rules controversy left Pinkham and his Tom Greeley-owned team frustrated; they sat out the final two races of the year, slumping to a fifth place points finish.

This year, the team has made just two starts, coming in the two most recent TVMRS events at Lee USA Speedway and Oxford Plains. But time has done little to fix the hard feelings Pinkham has for the rulebook put together by series founder, president, and full-time competitor Jack Bateman.

Pinkham made his season debut at Lee two weeks ago, finishing seventh. At Oxford on Saturday night, he grunted out an entertaining drive from the final row of the 22-car starting grid to finish third in the Maine-ly Action Sports 100.

"That's we're supposed to do on this tour," he said, "we're supposed to be entertaining. I think that's something Jack Bateman really needs to think about if he really wants us to bring people onto this tour and put some fans in the grandstands. He's got to take some of these rules he's got and throw them away. Especially this 'A-B' rule."

The 'A-B' rule Pinkham refers to, according to the TVMRS rulebook, dictates that "if car A spins car B, car A will be put to the rear of the field and car B will be put in front of car A at the rear of the field."

"Even," Pinkham adds, "if somebody chops you and hits you and you spin them and it's not your fault. I just think it's not a good rule."

Pinkham drove without incident at Oxford on Saturday night, but was affected by the rule on multiple occasions in 2008. He thinks the deletion of the 'A-B' rule -- and others concerning competition -- would go a long way toward improving competition and bring more fans and teams to the True Value series.

"Let us race again, because that's what these fans want to see, just like they saw tonight," Pinkham said. "There's a good bunch of guys on this tour, and they've got to remember why we're here. We're here to entertain and put on a show for the fans. That's how we're going to get them back in the grandstands, and I think we've got to start thinking that way again."

Pinkham, of Buxton, Me., said he enjoyed his race at Oxford on Saturday on front of his hometown crowd, but hopes that Bateman might re-evaluate some of his procedures. "It means a lot [to run well with the True Value series], you know, we work very hard and we've got a great bunch of guys. Warren Johnson prepares an awesome car, Tom Greeley gives us what we need to run well, we're just a bunch of regular normal guys that like to race once in a while.

"But we like to race. And I think it's time we put the racing back in the racing."

(PHOTO: David Pinkham of Buxton, Me. is no fan of some of the True Value Modified Racing Series' competition procedural rules. Photo by Justin St. Louis/VMM)

McKennedy Continues TVMRS Hot Streak at Oxford

OXFORD, Me. -- It seems that each racing season one driver has everything figured out. For the True Value Modified Racing Series in 2009, that driver is Jon McKennedy.

The 22 year-old from Chelmsford, Mass. earned his third TVMRS win of the season on Saturday night at Maine's Oxford Plains Speedway after a long battle with fellow young gun Andy Seuss, building on his point lead in the series. McKennedy started from the pole position and led the first 15 laps of the Maine-ly Action Sports 100 before giving way to Rob Goodenough, then raced hard with Seuss during an 82-lap green-flag stretch, first for the second position, then later for the lead again. Seuss ran in the high lane with McKennedy on the bottom. Seuss' car was a tad better off the corners in the beginning, but McKennedy said one final, daring move between Seuss and the lapped car of Ken Barry was what made the difference.

"It was wild and fun, I'll tell you," he said. "The first 40 laps I felt like I was putting too much pressure on the tires. A few times I got a run underneath [Seuss], but he was able to burst back by me. I just kept telling myself to slow down and wait another 20 laps or so. We caught up to some traffic and I decided to go and it worked out, at the end of the race we still had some tire left. My car was a little tight at the beginning and I needed the whole race track to run off the corner. To clear him on the bottom was tough at the beginning, the car was tight and I really didn't want to push the tires too much, but I found a good opening there and I really sailed it in and it stuck and we cleared him."

Unofficially, the pair each led twice from laps 43 to 76 before McKennedy made what proved to be the winning pass.

"We knew he was going to be the car to beat, and he has been lately on the True Value tour," Seuss said of McKennedy. "To win, you've got to stay ahead of him. That's all I was doing, and I was trying not to burn it up at the same time. He obviously had a far superior car and got by us and just took off. It was a ball, we had a good side-by-side battle, but by the end he must have just been sick of running with me because he kind of pushed me up and around that lapped car. But you know, he was going forward and he needed to do that to get some clear air, so congratulations to him."

From that point on, McKennedy was long gone; the only thing that slowed him down was a caution flag for a spinning Kevin Iannarelli on lap 97, erasing the quarter-track lead McKennedy built over Ascutney racer Dwight Jarvis, who passed Seuss, of Hampstead, N.H., for second place on lap 87. David Pinkham of Buxton, Me. slipped under Seuss five laps after Jarvis for third place. Eddie Dachenhausen of Danbury, Conn. finished fifth.

"This is our third win, we're leading the points. I feel like we should have won a few more races, but we just had some mechanical failures that took us out," said McKennedy, who also has victories at Twin State and Seekonk this season, and was in contention late at Monadnock and Thunder Road before trouble. "I can't say enough [about the team], the car's been running great. I think the biggest thing is we have a notebook this year, you know, we raced all these tracks last year and some the year before, so we know what we need as far as suspension and stuff like that when we get to the track and it's showing this year. We unload and nine out of ten times it's fast."

OFFICIAL RESULTS -- Maine-ly Action Sports 100
True Value Modified Racing Series -- Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Me.
Saturday, July 18, 2009

Pos.-Driver-Hometown

1. Jon McKennedy, Chelmsford, Mass.
2. Dwight Jarvis, Ascutney
3. David Pinkham, Buxton, Me.
4. Andy Seuss, Hampstead, N.H.
5. Eddie Dachenhausen, Danbury, Conn.
6. Peter Jarvis, Ascutney
7. Rowan Pennink, Huntington Valley, Penn.
8. Rob Goodenough, West Swanzey, N.H.
9. Jack Bateman, Canaan, N.H.
10. Steve Masse, Bellingham, Mass.
11. Sean Bodreau, Claremont, N.H.
12. Eddy Spiers, Beacon Falls, Conn.
13. Chris Pasteryak, Lisbon, Conn.
14. Les Hinckley, Windsor Locks, Conn.
15. Ken Barry, Preston, Conn.
16. Jacob Dore, Sanford, Me.
17. Mike Douglas, Jr., Auburn, N.H.
18. Jimmy Dolan, Bethel, Conn.
19. Joe Doucette, Framingham, Mass.
20. Kevin Iannarelli, Maynard, Mass.
21. Tony Ricci, Westbrook, Me.
22. Mike Holdridge, Madison, Conn.

(PHOTO: Jon McKennedy in victory lane at Oxford Plains Speedway. It was his third True Value Modified win of 2009; photo by Justin St. Louis/VMM)