Buonomo Repeats as NEMA Seekonk D.A.V. Champion

Seekonk, MA: For the second straight year Mark Buonomo of Waltham, MA drove the Seymour Family #29 to victory in the prestigious D. Anthony Venditti Memorial at Seekonk Speedway on Sunday afternoon. Buonomo, who has run sparingly with the Northeastern Midget Association during the 2005 season, took the lead from reigning NEMA champion Ben Seitz late in the race to score the win.

The talented driver put an exclamation point where there may have once been a question mark. Buonomo is a capable, confident, winning racer.

"I had to work hard for this one," said an excited Buonomo. ?I knew I had a good racecar and I thought I could get by Ben. I knew my chances were going to be better when we got into lapped traffic. You are not going to be to just drive by him."

The tradition-laden D. Anthony Venditti Memorial saw the NEMA Midgets pace the field in four-wide formation and take the initial green flag from Steve Grant who stood trackside. Unfortunately, the excitement of the time-honored start was marred by an incident that involved top runners Joey Payne and rookie standout Mike Keeler.

Pole sitter Lee Bundy failed to come up to speed, leaving cars scrambling. When the caution flew, both Payne and Keeler headed to the pits for repairs. Both returned to the event. After an additional attempt at the complete start, Adam Cantor launched to the lead from his third starting position only to
lose the top spot a single lap later to Seitz. Buonomo followed through to take over second position on lap two.

During the green flag run Seitz entered lap traffic allowing Buonomo to close up. Meanwhile, Payne and Keeler were on the move. After restarting in the 21st and 22nd positions respectively on lap 2, Payne had already moved his way into the top-ten by lap 10 while Keeler had wheeled his way to 11th.

The first in a pair of scary incidents occurred on lap 12 when contact was made between Greg Stoehr and Larry Cheetham in turn three. Stoehr ended up making hard contact with the outside retaining wall while the Cheetham machine came to rest on its side. Randy Cabral, making his debut in the Bertrand Motorsports #47, spun to avoid the wreck as it unfolded. Both Stoehr and Cheetham were uninjured.

Just prior to the wreck, Buonomo had worked his way around Seitz to take over the lead. The pass was negated when the caution flew on lap 12. On the restart, Seitz led Buonomo, Cantor, Jeff Horn, and Shane Hammond inside the top five. Payne was already sixth followed by Mike Ordway, Jr., Chris Perley, Keeler, and Andy Schlatz inside the top ten.

A single lap of racing went on the new lap counter at Seekonk Speedway when the second and scariest incident of the day brought out the caution. Cabral’s machine broke loose rocketing up the banking and began barrel rolling along the outside wall in turns one and two.

"My ankle is a little sore but my feelings are hurt worse than I am," said Cabral after the race. "I really don’t know what happened with the car, it happened so fast. I do know that is the worse wreck I have ever had. The car hit the ground really hard and it just kept slamming the ground. I feel horrible for Tim and Gil (Bertrand)."

The restart on lap 13 added yet more excitement to the race. Some jostling up front found Horn, who had been running third, falling back. With Seitz leading and Buonomo chasing once again, Horn was scrambling to get back inside the top five.

Hammond was the man on the move once back to green. The young driver took over sixth position and set his sites on the top five. Hammond patiently stalked Perley and was able to complete the pass on lap 20. At the front of the pack, Buonomo was glued to the back of leader Seitz.

With only two laps to go, Buonomo used lapped cars to his advantage and took the lead from Seitz. They leaders took different lines around the slower cars. With the crowd on their feet, Buonomo came out on top.

"I just kind of rode for most of the race," said Buonomo. "I saved the tires and the racecar for the end of the race. I wanted to have something when it was my chance to make a challenge. I saw the opportunity and lapped traffic and took it. This is a great win."

After leading the most laps, Seitz had to settle for second over Payne, who put on a great show coming back from the early race incident.

"We would have liked to win," said Seitz’s car owner Peter Valari, "but Mark had a great car. We had a great day."

In the big picture, Seitz was able to gain a precious three points over Payne in the heated point race for the 2005 season championship chase.

Cantor and Hammond rounded out the top-five. Horn, Perley, Keeler, Ordway and Barry Kittredge, making only his third start of the season, completed the top-ten. A very tired Chris Perley, who drove all night after winning the ISMA race in Mansfield, OH on Saturday night, earned the Hard-Charger award.

Two races remain on the 2005 Northeastern Midget Association schedule including this weekend's Finale at the Waterford Speedbowl. These two races promise excitement as Ben Seitz leads Joey Payne by only 13 points in the quest for the 2005 season championship.

Qualifying for Waterford’s Finale will be Saturday, October 8th with feature racing on Sunday. Log on to www.speedbowl.com for more scheduling and pricing information.