Red Light Racing SK Modifieds – Slinger Speedway
📊 Race Stats at a Glance:
🏆 Winner: Chad Alcares (115 Laps Led)
🥈 2nd Place: Eric Stout (7 Laps Led)
🥉 3rd Place: Bill Benedict (2 Laps Led)
⏱️ Fastest Lap: Chad Alcares (Lap 31 – 10.575 sec)
🚦 Pole: Chad Alcares (10.439 sec)
🔁 Leaders: 4 | Lead Changes: 6
🚨 Cautions: 7 (28 Laps)
🧼 Clean Machine (0 Incidents): Rob Higgins
🔼 Hard Charger: Bruce Pearson (+11 Spots, Started 19th, Finished 8th)
“You don’t drive Slinger… you survive it.”
Well, maybe that quote applied to everyone except Chad Alcares on Thursday night, when Red Light Racing’s SK Modifieds tackled the tiny, high-banked bullring known as Slinger Speedway.
Alcares was untouchable, claiming the pole and leading 115 of the 125 laps. Eric Stout challenged him a few times, leading 7 laps of his own and putting pressure on the restarts, but ultimately had to settle for second. Bill Benedict quietly improved from 7th on the grid to complete the podium in third.
🕒 Qualifying Recap
Chad Alcares secured the pole on the RaceDayCT.com starting grid with a blistering 10.439-second lap. Eric Stout, Aho, Flowers, and Troutman filled out the rest of the top five, all within 0.11 seconds of each other, highlighting just how tight the field was heading into the feature.
🚦 Race Breakdown
We’ve seen some dominating performances already this season, and this race was no exception. Chad Alcares figured out the car, the track, and the field in impressive fashion. He won the pole, led the most laps, set the fastest lap during the race, and parked it in Victory Lane for a clean sweep of the stat sheet.
Eric Stout didn’t make it easy. The two battled side-by-side through multiple restarts, and their clean, tactical racing at the front gave fans a short track clinic. But Stout’s night almost unraveled at lap 60. While battling Jeff Aho for second, Aho got loose exiting turn 4 and spun into Stout. The pair then slid up into the outside frontstretch wall, Aho taking the harder of the two hits. The contact dropped Stout back to fifth and Aho to tenth.
Both drivers rebounded admirably. Stout climbed back to second by the end, while Aho managed to recover to sixth.
As expected, Slinger delivered chaos, 7 cautions over 28 laps made sure of that. But somehow, Rob Higgins navigated it all without a scratch, the only driver in the field to finish with 0 incident points, locking up the Clean Machine award with surgical precision.
The biggest mover of the night was Bruce Pearson, who clawed his way from 19th to 8th, gaining 11 spots and earning Hard Charger honors. Also making solid gains were Keven Alicea and Bob Higgins (each up 7 positions).
📈 Championship Update
Eric Stout extended his lead atop the standings, gaining 3 more points on second-place Ethan Troutman. Stout now holds a 35-point advantage. Jeff Aho stays third but falls to 11 points behind Troutman. Rob Higgins remains in fourth, while Chad Alcares jumps up to fifth with his dominant win.
📅 Next Up: Watkins Glen (Tour Mods)
Next week, the SK Modifieds take a breather as the series heads to Watkins Glen for a road-course showdown in the faster, higher-horsepower Tour Modifieds. It’s time to see who’s got right-turn talent, who can handle the Bus Stop, and who might take a spin at The Carousel.
🕖 Green Flag: 7:55 PM Eastern
📺 Watch Live: Virtual Grip Network
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