{"id":14297,"date":"2012-10-05T20:04:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T20:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=14297"},"modified":"2012-10-05T20:04:22","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T20:04:22","slug":"decker-bags-pole-position-start-in-quest-for-fifth-straight-win-in-gander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/front-page-news\/decker-bags-pole-position-start-in-quest-for-fifth-straight-win-in-gander\/","title":{"rendered":"Decker Bags Pole Position Start In Quest For Fifth Straight Win In Gander"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"SYRACUSE, NY \u2013 Oct. 5, 2012 \u2013 Billy Decker of Unadilla, N.Y., will begin his quest for an unprecedented fifth consecutive victory in the Gander Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150 from the pole position after registering the fastest lap in Friday afternoon\u2019s qualifying during NAPA Auto Parts Super DIRT Week XLI at the New York State Fairgrounds.<\/p>\n

The 47-year-old master of the Syracuse Mile clicked off a circuit of 31.702 seconds early in the 64-car session and it held up to the finish. He bested fellow DIRTcar circuit veteran Danny Johnson of Rochester, N.Y., by 0.187 of a second to earn Gander Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150 fast-time honors for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same car \u2013 same everything \u2013 from last year,\u201d said Decker, who established a new consecutive-win record for the 358-Modified event when he drove the Gypsum Racing Bicknell\/Kevlar combination to the checkered flag in 2011. \u201cThis is all a product of being prepared. It shows the depth of this team and the work and dedication that goes into preparing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronnie Johnson of Duanesburg, N.Y., was third-fastest at 31.918 seconds, followed by three drivers hailing from Watertown, N.Y. \u2013 Tim McCreadie (32.026), Billy Dunn (32.057) and Tim Fuller (32.061). The six fastest qualifiers locked into starting positions in the first three rows of Saturday\u2019s Gander Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150.<\/p>\n

Decker\u2019s 358-Modified lap was over one second quicker than the 32.997-second tour he turned in his big-block Modified on Thursday to earn the pole position for Sunday\u2019s VP Small Engine Fuels 200.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe track was a little better than yesterday,\u201d said Decker, who has won the 358-Modified headliner of NAPA Auto Parts Super DIRT Week a record six times in 19 career starts. \u201cThere\u2019s a little less water in the bottom of one, and turn three is not quite as rough. You\u2019d probably have seen better speeds yesterday, but, typical of a clay racetrack, the speeds slow after a while \u2013 and yesterday there was considerably more practice on it (before big-block time trials) than there was today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decker, who felt he left \u201cmaybe a smidgen\u201d on the track in his qualifying effort, will enter Friday night\u2019s Twin 20-lap heat races and Saturday\u2019s 150-mile test with plenty of confidence. He said he\u2019s not thinking about his streak of 358-Modified victories at Syracuse, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new one tomorrow,\u201d said Decker. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re looking at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danny Johnson, who has two Gander Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150 wins in 22 career starts, also likes his chances for success behind the wheel of Mike Payne\u2019s Morrison-powered Bicknell car. The 52-year-old star knows his machine still had some speed in reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pretty good lap but it could\u2019ve been better,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cIt\u2019s like I tell the guys \u2013 when you drive it into turn one and don\u2019t lift, that\u2019s a hairy situation. You have to have confidence to do that, and I wasn\u2019t confident enough in my car to do that yet. This car is great, but I only made about three laps (of practice) in it because we were spending all of our time working on brake problems and other stuff with the big-block.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remainder of the Gander Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150 starting field will be determined by the finishes of Friday night\u2019s Twin 20-lap heat races.<\/p>\n

For the latest news and updates about NAPA Auto Parts Super DIRT Week and DIRTcar Racing, visit www.SuperDirtWeekOnline.com<\/a>, \u201clike\u201d the Super DIRT Week and DIRTcar Racing Facebook pages or follow the Twitter feeds @SuperDIRTWeek and @DIRTcarNE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mountain 358-Modified Championship 150 SYRACUSE, NY \u2013 Oct. 5, 2012 \u2013 Billy Decker of Unadilla, N.Y., will begin his quest for an unprecedented fifth consecutive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-super-dirtcar-series"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14297"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14299,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14297\/revisions\/14299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}