ALAN BARKER OPENS SKYLINE RACEWAY SEASON WITH A FEATURE WIN
The Skyline Raceway opened their 28th consecutive season of racing action last Saturday night with five divisions of racing action taking to the fast 3/8 mile. Alan Barker picked up right where he left off in 2014 as the turbo Blue Finale winner from 2014 won his second consecutive feature event in the Modified Sportsman feature event. Montexuma, NY’s Dave Marcuccilli invaded Skyline as is regular Saturday night track is not yet open an came away with the feature win in the 602 Sportsman division in only his second Skyline appearance. Defending track champion Chris Fleming picked up the feature win in the IMCA Modifieds while Buck Mills Sr. became the first winner in Skyline’s new Stock Car class. Defending Four Cylinder champion Eric Rowley opened his title defense with a feature win.
The 25 lap Doug’s Trash Removal Sportsman Modified feature came to the green flag with former track champions Jim “Rocky” Rothwell and Kevin Jordan pacing the field to the green flag. Rothwell quickly made the move to the lead with defending champion Nick Nye making the move from third to drop in behind Rothwell. With the 25 lap feature running off without a caution flag, the battle at the head of the field quickly heated up as eventual winner Barker drove the Gary Card owned Card’s Used Cars #2x into contention from fourth. The top three drivers put on a show for the Skyline fans as they swapped positions on every lap with Barker working his patented outside groove. Known as the “High Side Hustler”, Barker lived up to that nickname as he used the he groove of the speedway to pressure Rothwell. Alan was able to get his nose out front a couple of times, but Rothwell was able to come back on the low side of the speedway. Barker was finally able to make the winning pass on the 22nd lap as he was able to get enough of an advantage on Rothwell to drop down in front of Rocky. Barker led the final three laps to score the win over Rothwell, Nye, Mark Weaver, and Kevin Jordan.
In the 602 Sportsman division, Geoff Powell and Anthony Stockman paced the field to the green flag with Stockan grabbing the race lead. Behind him, third starting Gary Card Jr. and sixth starting Dave Marcuccilli were on the move as they raced up to second and third respectively. The entire complexion of the race changed on the tenth circuit when Stockman got turned around on the restart, knocking him out of contention. On the ensuing restart, Marcuccilli was able to drive past Card and move into the lead which he would never give up. As Marcuccilli raced on to victory, the battle behind was a good one as Pat Jordan challenged Card for th runner-up position. Jordan was able to slip past Card late for the runner-up position with Card finishing third. Sportsman rookie Tommy Paige drove to a strong fourth place finish with Tyler Ward finishing fifth.
The IMCA Modified feature saw a little bit of yellow fever early on for some minor incidents that kept the field bunched up. Some entertaining racing between the cautions saw eventual winner Chris Fleming battling hard with Will Ward for the race lead. After several laps of hard racing, Fleming was able to establish himself as the race leader. As Fleming drove on to score the feature win, Keith Lamphere and moved in to challenge Ward, working his way past to score the runner-up finish with Ward coming home third. Bob Maynard finished fourth with Jeff Cardinale finishing fifth in his return to racing after sitting out the 2014 season.
Buck Mills Sr. put his name in the record books as the first winner in the new Stock Car class at Skyline. Mills battled Grayson Albanese for the majority of the 20 lap feature to earn the victory with Albanese finishing second. Cyrus Homer finished third with newcomer Jason Thomas fourth. Randy Kelly completed the top five.
Eric Rowley started his title defense in the Four Cylinder class with a feature win. Rowley drove past Leon Brockway on a lap twelve restart and drove away from Tyler Dennison to score the win. Brockway came home with a third place finish ahead of Matt Gibson and Kenzie Gibson.
Racing continues each and every Saturday night at the Skyline Raceway. This Saturday night will find another big five division racing card as the Sportsman Modifieds, 602 Sportsman, IMCA Modifieds, Stock Cars, and Four Cylinder Stocks will all be in action. All of the racing action gets underway promptly at 6:30 PM. For all the latest information keep watching this publication or log onto
www.skylineracewayny.com. The raceday weather hotline is 607-849-6600.
