Junior achievement
Youngest stock car racer at Merrittville has racked up seat time since he was age four
Tucker Wood is not your average 12-year-old.
This season he was the youngest driver competing in a regular racing division at Merrittville Speedway.
While technically a rookie, as this is the Stevensville Public School student’s first year competing in the Mod Lites division, he is anything but a novice when it comes to knowing his way around a dirt track.
Indeed, the son of Brett and Terri Wood of Stevensville was sitting behind the wheel of a racer before he was sitting behind a desk in a classroom.
Wood remembered when his son first caught the racing bug. Tucker was four and watching kart racing online with his father.
“I asked him, ‘Would you like to try that?’” Wood said. “His eyes lit up.”
A quick study, it didn’t take long for Tucker to begin collecting checkered flags. In only six years racing karts, he won two points championships at Merrittville as well as one on the New York state circuit.
Wood, who raced in the Sportsman class in the early 2000s before daughter Maci, 13, and Tucker were born, wasn’t worried when his son wanted to move up from karts at such a young age.
“Tucker is not your average 12-year-old,” the father said. “He’s very mature for his age.
“Because he’s been driving since he was four, in karts, he’s used to speed.”
All of that “seat time” in six seasons in karts and last year getting used to a Mod Lite by praticising as often as he could at New Humberstone Speedway sets Tucker apart from rookies with far less experience.
“Cars going right around him won’t spook him, but maybe someone who’s 16 and doesn’t have the seat time, who comes into a division like this, might get a little frightened,” Wood said.
“Tucker makes good decisions, and I’m comfortable with him driving.”
Tucker credits the adjustment to racing Mod Lites to practice runs at Humberstone rather than the years spent behind the wheel of karts.
“There is such a big difference between karts and Mod Lites,” he said. “All the seat time at Humberstone taught me a lot about the car, more than I would ever have known.”
Tucker, whose last season on the karting circuit was 2015, said the decision to devote last year to getting used to a Mod Lites racer on a practice track was the right one.
“It’s so important because you don’t want to be out there without experience,” the seventh-grader said. “It could be potentially dangerous, not only to myself, but to other people around me.
“You have to know everything about your car first, so seat time is awesome.”
Tucker said it was harder to learn Mod Lites than it was to unlearn karts.
“It’s definitely a step up in many ways from a go kart,” he said. “You have more horsepower, you have a suspension, a manual transmission. “Basically, more speed overall.” Cornering was also different because he had to learn how to counter steer in order to take the car sideways into turns.
“That was another big one for me,” he said. “In the go kart, it was always making left-hand turns and that was it.”
Tucker, currently seventh out of 18 drivers in the points race, won’t be following his top rookie honours in the division by competing for a Mod Lites championship next season.
His car has already been sold and will be replaced in the hauler by the one that Gregg Rauscher used to win the Novice Sportsman points championship at Merrittville this season.
Rauscher intends to race 8-cylinders on asphalt beginning next season.
One more win
The engine in Tony Kelly’s Volkswagen is starting to “hurt a bit,” but it was his competitors in the Mini Stocks division who felt the brunt of the pain Saturday night.
Kelly, of Niagara Falls, raced to his eighth victory of the season in Merrittville’s 4-cylinder division.
“This car has been amazing, but the engine is actually starting to hurt a bit,” he said in victory lane. “I don’t know if it will make it to next week.”
Kelly, the division points leader, lamented that the sponsors for the No. 12 don’t include an engine manufacturer.
“I’ll just pick up one from the bone yard and go from there.”
Kelly, who started the 15-lap feature ninth in a 13-car field, was followed across the finish line by Austyn Westroh, Niagara-on-the-Lake; Cole Hardy, Welland; Alex Riley, Thorold; and Tom Neale, St. Catharines.
An inside job
There where two good lanes on Merrittville’s clay racing surface by the time the 358 Modifieds wrapped Saturday night’s six-division program, and Chad Brachmann wasn’t about to steer out of his comfort zone.
The Sanborn, N.Y., racer stuck to the bottom for the 37-lap, $3,700-to-win Harry Sittler Memorial, while Gary Lindberg of Ridgeway used the top of the track to set the pace for all but the final 12 circuits. Those belonged to Brachmann, who raced to his fifth victory of the season and extended his lead in the race for the points championship.
“There were two good lanes and the bottom was working for us tonight,” he said in victory lane. “I stayed focused in running my own lane and wasn’t worried about where anyone else was.”
Pete Bicknell and Mat Williamson, both of St. Catharines, and Ryan Susice, of Ransomville, N.Y., rounded out the top five.
A family affair
Two father-and-son sets raced in the 20-lap Hoosier Stocks feature, and youth was almost served in both cases.
Only Jim Lampman’s fifth-place finish, just ahead of son Donny, prevented the older generation from getting schooled.
“It’s starting to get scary out there. The kid almost kicked my butt,” Lampman, beaming like a proud papa, said with a laugh.
Tanner Podwinski placed 13th, three sports head of his father Bill.
Brad Sheehan of St. Catharines led a top four of Rob Murray, St. Catharines; Dave Bailey, Hagersville; and Kyle Pelrine, Smithville; to the checkered flag for his first Merrittville victory since 2013.
A ready ride
Jamie Gilbert says his first victory of the year in Mod Lites was clinched long before he got to the track as a fill-in driver.
“Ray Sliter and Rob Misener had the car dialed in.
“I just showed up and drove,” said the Welland driver, who was making only his second start of the season.
Jeffrey May, Mount Hope, Ont., near Hamilton, Steven Beckett, Fonthill; Brent Begolo, Thorold; and Chris Watson, Niagara Falls; also finished in the top five.
Before Saturday night’s features Beckett was honoured as the track’s driver of the week.
Begolo fared much better two races later winning a Sportsman feature for the third time this season.
Rounding out the top five were Rob Knapp, Niagara Falls; Chris Storm, Thorold; James Michael Friesen, St. Catharines; and Chris Bellamy, Hamilton.
Smithville’s Gord McIntosh, who competes in the Novice Sportsman class, also visited victory lane for the third time in 2017.
Notes: McIntosh’s No. 72 did double duty Saturday night. After the eight-lap main event in the novice class, Friesen was behind the wheel for the 25-lap Sportsman feature.