DeLorenzo Continues His Late Season Hot Streak at Fonda FONDA, NY – After a four week break for the annual Fonda Fair the Fonda Speedway was back in action on Saturday evening with Matt DeLorenzo continuing his late season hot streak by winning his sixth Modified feature event of the 2009 season and the 25th of his career at the Track of Champions. It was also DeLorenzo’s fourth Modified feature win in the last five feature events held at Fonda in the BBL Companies sponsored Teo car. “It definitely helped to start near the front tonight,” DeLorenzo said in victory lane after starting third on the grid for the event. “I felt a little bit under the weather tonight but the car was good even though it did start to get real loose at the end of the race.” During the drivers meeting early in the evening Dave Camara spoke to the 29 Modified drivers on hand about an idea that he thought of and that was to pass the helmet around in the grandstand during intermission to try and collect some money to offset the medical costs after Jack Johnson’s accident a few weeks ago. Johnson was a mentor to Camara when Dave got into racing and it was out of respect that Camara and all of the other Modified drivers took up a collection to help out one of their fellow drivers who has done so much for the sport of stock car racing and for Fonda Speedway as well during his racing career. A draw for an inversion number determined the starting field for the Modified feature event putting Craig Hanson and Tony Pepicelli on the front row with Hanson taking the lead at the drop of the green flag. DeLorenzo followed Hanson through to take away the second position on the start and by lap two was pressuring Hanson for the lead. With DeLorenzo ducking low in every turn trying to take the lead during laps three and four Hanson kept his car wound up on the outside and was able to maintain the top spot until lap five when DeLorenzo took over the point on the inside of turn three. By lap seven DeLorenzo held a straightaway advantage over Hanson with DeLorenzo running laps a half second faster than Hanson at that point. With DeLorenzo out to a big lead and in lap traffic by lap 10 the best race on the track was for the third position between Ronnie Johnson and Dave Camara who were side by side for a couple of laps before Camara took over the spot on lap 12. 2009 Modified Track Champion Bobby Varin was also able to get by Johnson for the fourth position with Camara catching Hanson in lap traffic with 10 laps to go in the race. At that point DeLorenzo was a half track ahead and on his way to a dominating win while Camara and Varin caught up to Hanson for the second spot with five laps to go. When the checkered flag flew to complete the event DeLorenzo cruised to an easy win over Camara, Varin, Hanson, and Ryan Odasz. “I was just running as fast as I could because you never know who is behind you,” DeLorenzo said after lapping up to the ninth place car. MODIFIED QUALIFYING – 29 total cars – 5 qualify HEAT 1 – Ryan Odasz, Dave Camara, Tony Pepicelli, Brian Weaver, Mike Ward HEAT 2 – Bobby Varin, Ronnie Johnson, Craig Hanson, Danny Varin, Alton Palmer HEAT 3 – Pat Ward, Matt DeLorenzo, A.J. Romano, Josh Hohenforst, John Marsh Sr. MODIFIED CONSOLATION – 9 qualify – Bob Henry Jr., David Towns, Jim Davis, Eric Nelson, Elmo Reckner, Todd Morey, Ancel Collins, Robert Perry, Ronnie Holmes PALMER SERVICE/CLIFFORD HAY TRUCKING/SNAPPLE MODIFIED FEATURE – 30-LAPS – MATT DELORENZO, Dave Camara, Bobby Varin, Craig Hanson, Ryan Odasz, Ronnie Johnson, Pat Ward, A.J. Romano, Danny Varin, Alton Palmer, Brian Weaver, Bob Henry Jr., John Marsh Sr., Elmo Reckner, Ronnie Holmes, Jim Davis, Eric Nelson, Todd Morey, Ancel Collins, Josh Hohenforst, Robert Perry, Mike Ward, Tony Pepicelli, David Towns, Howard Gage, Corey Gilligan