2024 NY-Penn IMCA Modified Series Awards Banquet

The NY-Penn IMCA Modified Series wrapped up the 2024 racing season with our annual Awards Banquet. The Banquet honored several drivers, sponsors, and staff members throughout the night, but also granted everyone in attendance with treats, prizes, gifts, great food, and a fun time.

The Banquet was held at the Kings in Towanda PA and the food was prepared by Jim King himself along with his team. The Series recognized many awards including Top 10 in Points, the Evan Canfield Best Appearing Car Award Presented by MR Grafix, The Sean Lias Driver of the Year Award, Crew Chief of the Year Award, Rookie of the Year, and The Billy Maynard Sportsmanship of the Year award.

Several great sponsors offered many items up for door prizes and every single person went home with a couple of gifts and souvenirs. Close Racing Supply had hoodies and sweatshirts, Allstar Performance and several T-shirts, there were banners, stickers and decals, koozies, fuel jugs, all kinds of things. There were also 5 free 2025 registration certificates for 5 random, lucky drivers. The 5 drivers that received them were Brad Delamater, Gary Roberts, Shawn Bruce, Rodney Morgan, and Tyler Stoddard.

The top 10 points finishers were awarded. 1st Rodney Morgan, 2nd Tyler Stoddard, 3rd Brandon Smith, 4th, JW Lamphere, 5th Brad Delamater, 6th Tyler Belcher, 7th Keith Lamphere, 8th Shawn Bruce, 9th Jakub Ingham, and 10th Logan Terry.

We got together as a group and with permission of the family we have now created the Evan Canfield Best Appearing Car presented by M.R. Grafix. Evan was our media/photographer and a great friend to us all for the first few years of the tour. We sadly lost him this summer unexpectedly and wanted to honor a great guy! The winner of the Evan Canfield Memorial Best Appearing Car presented by M.R. Grafix Award was Jakub Ingham and his #943 car.

Brandon Smith was awarded the Sean Lias Memorial Driver of the Year. We usually look at determination, hard work, and how well you handle yourself when things just don’t go the way you want at times. With a 5 year hiatus from the sport, Brandon Smith impressed us all with his ability to run up front in a car he never sat in until Woodhull.

Next we gave out our Crew Chief of the year award, Shawn Stalker, the crew chief for both MTHead Racing (the Stoddards) and his brother at Stalker Racing (David), making sure not one but THREE cars are ready to hit the track every race and at the track is a tough task but he does it. His efforts were the ones that stood out along side many other crew chiefs.

We then handed out our first ever rookie of the year which was voted on by all officials. Brad Delamater, took home that award. Brad struggled his first few times in the car but once he got the hang of one of these monsters, he was extremely competitive and also had a win this season at the Sean Lias Memorial race at Penn Can Speedway.

Jakub Ingham took home the Billy Maynard Sportsmanship Award and the Evan Canfield Memorial Best Appearing Car Award presented by MR Grafix. Jakub had a tough season but he stood out the most when it came to what my dad seen as fit for sportsmanship. Though he faced much adversity, he still stood tall and lived with the words of BillyMaynard, “there is no quit.”

We also celebrated a couple birthdays for a couple very special people, Pam Vanetten and Brock Mathews.

The Series as a whole discussed some rule changes and plans for the upcoming 2025 NY-Penn IMCA Modified Series and weekly IMCA racing in the area. As of right now, it looks like Thunder Mountain Raceway has agreed to run the IMCA Modified’s bi-weekly. It is also possible that we will be running bi-weekly at Woodhull Raceway bi-weekly as well.

The Series and drivers discussed a few rules for next season as well. It was agreed that the Series would have 1 throw-away race. For example, if there are a total of 13 Series races next season, only 12 would grant you points while your worst finishing Series race would be dropped. This gives teams the option to skip a week if needed for any reason without being affected in points.

Another topic of discussion was how the redraw will work next season. It was decided that the Series would use a “bracket” style redraw system. The Series also decided as a whole to go single file after halfway.

We have had a wonderful season, our best yet. There is so much positivity heading into the off season and none of this would be possible without the drivers, crews, Series staff, sponsors and supporters. Thank you to everyone for such a great year and we cannot wait to see what 2025 brings!

SPECIAL SPONSOR THANKS

Close Racing Supply is our fourth year title sponsor, hands out great special awards for our memorial races and takes care of our drivers to help get them to the next race. Joel and his crew are top notch when it comes to helping!

Insinger Performance is the official fuel supplier of the NYPENN IMCA Modified Series, 50 cents per gallon of racing fuel purchased and 10 cents per gallon of methanol bought going into banquet funding.

M.R. Grafix is our main go to on all signage. M.R. Grafix is the official sign company of the series and also where we get all decals printed for you. Matt also sponsors the best appearing car award at the banquet.

Midosa USA Ltd is the fourth year heat race sponsor that helps pay you $100 to win a heat race.

Velocita-USA is another long time returning sponsor. They give away 4 50% off of a team firesuit certificates through the season, 1 at the Billy Maynard Memorial race and then the top 3 in points receive them. This year, Michelle Courcy of the Northeast branch donated a pair of gloves at Skyline to help one lucky driver save his hands and look stylish doing so!

PEM Racing Gears & Drivetrain has been a huge supporter of the series, every third place finisher at each race receives a certificate for a free set of LIGHTWEIGHT quick change gears. The champion of the series receives one for $250 off of a rearend.

Wilwood Disc Brakes hands out two certificates per race that helps drivers save $50 on any purchase of $100 or more.

Allstar Performance helps the drivers out a ton and awards them on their allstar performances through the season. With having 4 memorial races they award the one who wins the most of the drivers who can split the memorial races. The drivers who wins three or more pockets $500, the driver or drivers who win two of them gets $250 bonus. The rest goes to the drivers spread out.

MD3/Five Star Bodies came on board last year to help reward the driver who leads the most laps per race, the champion also receives $250 off of products.

FastShafts came back on board this year to help reward the driver who has led the most laps all season long.

Joe Wilcox Performance Automatics is in his second season of helping drivers out with $100 off of a rebuild certificate per race. Joe is a very experienced rebuilder of many types of transmissions and usually goes the extra mile to help you get back on track in the middle of the season.

Spalding Performance is a new sponsor this year. Jared is a UNOH graduate and is very knowledgeable when you need to ask for help. Jared has sponsored two gift certificates per race for shock rebuilds.