Pete Hamilton was one of the more prominent drivers to hit the big time after racing at Norwood Arena and won the 1970 Daytona 500. (Credit: NASCAR photo.)
TRACK TALK
By Lou Modestino
The 2017 racing season is set to begin next weekend, Saturday and Sunday, April 1-2, with the running of the 43rd Annual Icebreaker at the Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in Connecticut. The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour 150 will headline the event with qualifying on Saturday and the feature events go off on Sunday. With the unification of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tours, North and South, the NWMT opener this year kicked off the 2017 racing season two weeks ago at Myrtle Beach, SC. Long Island’s Tim Solomito won that event and that makes him a favorite going into Thompson’s Icebreaker. Les Hinkley of Connecticut drove the Brady Bunch entry out of Stoughton to a ninth place finish in that opening event. Crew chief Brian Brady revealed that his team will compete in another Modified race next weekend at Concord, NC with Hinkley at the wheel.
On the Icebreaker under card are the Sunoco Modifieds, Late Models, Limited Sportsman, Mini Stocks, PASS Super Late Models, NEMA Midgets, New England Street Stock Tour, Mr. Rooter Pro Trucks, Lite Modifieds and Vintage Outlaw Modifieds. Post time each day is at 1 p.m.
The Icebreaker will be the start of a very long season of some 35 Modified events among four different tours. They are the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Valenti Modified Racing Series, Tri-Track Series and the newest sanctioning body called the Modified Racing Series. Those Tour-Type races will be held just about every weekend starting in May and the Modified Tour action won’t end until the last weekend in October at the Waterford Speedbowl in Connecticut which will host the final 2017 Tri Track Series event. With all of that Modified racing this spring, summer and fall, it’s obvious that any rain will result in rescheduling and possible cancellations will result if no suitable rain dates are available.
Checking that big 2017 Tour Type Modified schedule, we see conflicting dates on Friday, July 21, between Stafford Motor Speedway in Connecticut, hosting the Modified Touring Series, and Lee USA Speedway in NH, offering a Valenti Modified Racing Series event. Another conflict between those two clubs will occur on Saturday, August 19 at Monadnock Speedway in NH, with the MTS and VMRS at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, ME. We think that both the VMRS and MTS will be battling for survival this season. Both are waging a war that only one club will be able to win.
On a sad note Pete Hamiton passed away earlier this week. Hamilton was a Newton native and later lived in Dedham and was a top Modified driver for various local teams in the 60’s including Brockton native Ray Stonkus. In the late 60’s he got a big break. Pete picked up a major driving assignment with the Richard Petty team out of Randelman, NC. He was scheduled to do 18 races that year in NASCAR’s top Grand National series now called the NASCAR Monster Cup Series. Hamilton ended up winning the Daytona 500 in 1970 in his rookie year. That was big surprise for his many New England fans.
In the following years Hamilton won two more super-speedway events for the Cotton Owens Team based in SC at the Talledega Super-Speedway. Pete Hamilton ended up leaving NASCAR’s top circuit at an early age and he settled in the Atlanta, Georgia area where he invested in real estate and started building race cars. He was very successful in that endeavor building top performing race cars with the assistance of Ray Stonkus and others. Scituate’s C.J. Robinson bought one of Hamilton’s Modified cars and his driver George Savary of Westwood burned up the local Modified circuit with that Chevy Vega Wagon body and scored many wins. Hamilton was buried in Georgia on Friday.
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