Pete Stefanski wins the DirtCar Pro Stock Series at Drummond (21st July 2025 BLOG)

This weeks BLOG begins on Wednesday the 16th of July, when the DIRTcar 358 Modified Series was visiting my part of the world, for two back to back races.

On Wednesday the location was at the Cornwall Motor Speedway, and the next night it would be across the International Bridge at the Mohawk International Raceway.

It was a scorching hot day at Cornwall, and I was at the track by mid afternoon.

There was a good turn out of Modifieds, that were joined by Sportsman and Late Models.

The Late Model feature was the first of the night , and this was won by local driver, Brian McDonald.

Brian’s been racing Modifieds for many years , but has recently taken up Late Models to add to his resume. I saw him win at the Merrittville Speedway last month.

On this occasion he had both cars at the track so was on double duty , jumping straight into his Modified for the feature that followed.

Early leaders in the Modified feature, were Ryan Stabler and Erick Rudolph.

Mike Mahaney then got passed Rudolph and had Tim Fuller on his tail.

Fuller soon homed in on Mahaney and gave us some good side by side action , until Tim got the better of Mike .

So at the checkers it went to Tim Fuller .

Rudolph held on to 3rd place to complete the podium

The Sportsman feature ended the night and provided another win for Shane Pecore.

That was it for day one, and the 358 tour was ready to move on.

The weather forecast for day two didn’t look good , and I woke Thursday morning to read a post from the M.I.R canceling the show.

I’d heard the heavy overnight rain at my house, which is located less than a mile from the track. More rain expected throughout the day .

It was a good call by MIR to cancel , as it rained on and off all afternoon.

By Friday the stormy weather had moved away , and it was hot a sunny again. I was all set for a relaxing drive down to the Can Am Speedway at Lafargeville NY .

I left home early and made a detour down to the nearby water front at Clayton .

Look what I saw moored at the public dock. It must be nice to be wealthy !

I killed about an hour sitting in the sun by the water front, before making the 15 minute drive to the track .

Can Am were putting on their annual ‘Christmas in July’ night, with a regular program of 358 Modifieds, Sportsman, Limited Sportsman, Crate Sprints and Thunder Cars (Mini Stocks). As well as this, the Eastern Ontario Vintage Modifieds were paying a visit.

Not a good recipe for me, as I was hoping for an early finish . I had plans for road trip the next day so didn’t want to be too late .

There were more ‘togs ‘ in attendance than usual , with the Brewerton Speedway being ‘off’ for the night.

Joining me were , Quentin Young, Dylan Terry, Brian Nacewicz, Don Simpson and Joe Johnson.

For most of the night, I was the only ‘tog’ shooting from turn one and two , so was in the right place at the right time to capture a spectacular rollover by Haily Brownell in the Limited Sportsman.

Luckily she was OK , but the car was a bit worse for wear.

This was the first of many wrecks that slowed the evening down.

The first of the nights features was for the Vintage.

As normal with these guys, they have two feature winners, depending on the age /class of the car , Randy Gaudet won the 70’s and Greg Hale got the 60’s class.

The Limited Sportsman feature followed this and gave 11 year old Mason Rogers a popular win.

Next up, it was the Crate Sprints Cars.

This gave Josh Verne Jr another win.

It was then time for the headline event, the 358 Modifieds feature. The race I was there to see.

We had a surprise winner in this one . It was the first time I’d seen Scott Webb get a feature win.

He was chased across the line by Ryan Bartlett and Can Am expert Billy Dunn.

By the time we’d done the Victory Lane pics , it was nearly 11-00 pm . A bit later than what I’d hoped for , and still there was the Sportsman and Thunder Car features left to run.

With my plans in place for the road trip on Saturday , I made my exit and missed Richard Murtaugh taking the Sportsman checkers.

I got lucky, there were no delays at the 1000 Island border and I was home before 1-00 am.

My plan for Saturday was a trip up to Autodrome Drummond in Quebec.

They were staging a 75 lap ‘Sail Panel’ race for Modifieds and a DirtCar Series for the Pro Stocks. As well as this, there were Sportsman, and a whole bunch of other divisions, taking part throughout the day.

I left home around lunch time and had a nice easy drive around Autoroute 30 and 20 up to Drummondville. There was a lot less traffic than I expected and after a couple of stops along the way , I was there by 4-0opm . I had plenty of time to wander the pits for some chatting.

Felix Roy was busy attaching the sail panels to his car.

I also caught up with Aussie Modified driver, Zak McDonald from Nimbin, New South Wales, who I met for the first time at Brockville last week . He was making his North American Modified debut.

He was driving the Steve Bernier back up car.

There was a good turn out of Pro Stocks in the pits, including a few from the USA .

Long distance competitor , Brian Carter , the CEO of DirtCar was there with his orange #6.

His car is maintained in Watertown NY and he told me he’d been at the Eldora Speedway in Ohio (on business) the day before and had flown from there to Massena NY. He then drove the rest of the way to Drummondville.

Once racing got under way, I took my usual spot on the middle , between turns 3 and 4.

After the heat races, and features for the minor divisions were over, the main events began.

First up was the 75 lap Modified feature.

For most of the race , it was dominated and eventually won by Samuel Charland .

There were a few moments soon after caution restarts ,when it looked like Mario Clair and Sebastien Cougeon could catch him, but Charland always seemed to have the edge.

At the end of the 75 laps it was Charland who took the checkers from Cougeon and Clair.

The 50 lapper for the DirtCar Pro Stock Series was next and was led from the green flag to lap 49, by Bastien Caron.

It was a great race to watch as the action was happening behind him, as the main contenders dueled to catch and chase him.

With the help of a few cautions , veteran New York Pro Stocker , Pete Stefanski worked his way to second, and as the laps wound down, he towards Caron’s back bumper.

After a few laps of failed attempts to pass, he finaly got by with one lap to go. It was very exiting for the fans and a great win for Stefanski.

It was said in the interview afterwards , it was 11 years ago that he last won in Drummond

Marc Lalonde joined Stefanski and Caron on the podium .

It was still early (before 10-00 pm) but I chose to hit the road and get on my way , before the SPORTSMAN race. I missed seeing Martin Lessard taking the checkers.

The early get away enabled me to beat the ‘exiting’ traffic and be home before 12.30 am .

Sunday happened to be a day that my local Cornwall Motor Speedway chose to take off, but a ‘rain re-scheduled’ show was taking place at the Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh .

There were no Modifieds on the program and the Sportsman were the headline division. I’d thought about going there but the weather looked a bit iffy, so made the decision to stay at home . This turned out to be a good move, as rain descended on the track mid afternoon, and message from Kyle Coryea , my Plattsburgh tog buddy, told me it too, got cancelled.

So I had a relaxing day on Sunday catching up with stuff I’ve neglected.

Monday (the 21st) was a nice summers evening, not too hot , and just right for a mosquito free , Dock Syde Cruise at Morrisburg.

R.I.P Bobby Chalmers

The racing fraternity were shocked and saddened this week when we learned that Bobby Chalmers had passed away . Bobby was the man behind the RACE PRO WEEKLY web site. It’s one of the best racing sites on the net, and over the years they have used many of my pictures . In fact , way back in time, before my website Rick @ the Races was launched, my BLOG was posted on that site on a regular basis.

Bobby was a great media guy and it was always a pleasure chatting, with him when ever we met up.

He will be sadly missed. My Sympathies go out to his family and friends.

Here’s Bobby at Fulton last year (second from the left) with our gang of ‘togs’