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(Stafford Springs, CT)—Heading into the 2025 season at Stafford Motor Speedway, Late Model driver Paul Varricchio, Jr. and his #39 Tavern On The Trax team have their sights set high. Varricchio is coming off his best ever season at Stafford, having recorded his first 2 career Late Model feature victories and finishing second in the standings behind Kevin Gambacorta.
“The outlook for 2025 is to win every race possible and win the Stafford Speedway Late Model championship,” said Varricchio. “That’s our goal and with our team and car I feel like we got this. We just have to maintain our cool throughout the season and go from there. It’s no good if the driver is falling out of his tree every week and this year we’re not going to look at points because that really killed us last year. Thanks to all my sponsors Tavern On The Trax, O/C Tavern, VR Wraps, Fireman Al’s Hot Dogs Plus, Kobos Landscaping, The Drain Doctor, BFR, East Coast Machine, all the contingency sponsors iRacing, Manley, Paradiso Insurance, Leaf Racewear, and New England Racing Fuel, Sunoco, and thanks to everyone who helps out with the #39 Late Model. Also I’d like to thank the track as well as all my fellow competitors. There’s drivers who I talk to and those who I don’t talk to, but without all of them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do every Friday night.”
The 2024 Late Model season was truly a breakout year for Varricchio and his team. Varricchio came into the 2024 season with 10 career top-5 finishes spread out over 12 seasons of Late Model racing. Varricchio more than doubled that total alone in 2024 with 13 top-5 finishes and his 18 top-10 finishes matched his career best total from the 2018 season to go along with his first two feature wins. Varricchio credits his success to a new car that he was fine tuning on during the 2023 season to prepare for 2024 along with a new level of confidence.
“We bought a new car from BFR in 2023 and we started to see some progress after we put it out on track,” said Varricchio. “We started seeing some good finishes so we were basically building our car up during 2023 for the 2024 season and we were only making small adjustments on the car from week to week, it wasn’t like we were throwing everything we had it. I knew we had the caliber of car and crew that I could do something with. We had a great motor program with Pete from East Coast Machine, and any time we needed something, he was always right there to help us out and take care of any issues that we had. It was a big leap for us and a lot of that just came down to confidence. I was confident in the car and I was confident in the crew and we had the opposite of what happens to most drivers and teams with a new car. Normally it’s new car, new problems, but for us it was new car, let’s go. The highlight of everything last season was watching the fruits of our labor being successful on the track.”
Varricchio’s two victories brought out both the highest and lowest of emotions. While he and his team were ecstatic about notching their first win, Varricchio was left feeling bittersweet as he was happy to be a winner at Stafford, but sad about the fact that he couldn’t share the moment with his late father, who had been Varricchio’s biggest supporter.
“The emotions that night ran from very happy to sad,” said Varricchio. “I built a lot of my racing career along with my Dad and he was my number one supporter. Racing was our thing where we were more friends working together than father and son, so it was hard with my Dad not being there in victory lane. But it was great to see my son, my family, and all the crew in victory lane enjoying themselves and having a lot of fun. We had an awesome time in victory lane.”
While Varricchio and his crew have their sights set on winning races and the 2025 championship, they know it will be a tough climb to the top of the Late Model mountain. All 9 feature winners from the 2024 season are returning as are the top-15 drivers from the 2024 standings. Varricchio will also have to contend with several brand new BFR cars on the track as he now has higher goals in mind than in previous years.
“It’s going to be real tough out there this season,” said Varriccho. “I know BFR put together a few new cars over the winter so there’s going to be a host of new BFR cars to contend with this season and I’ll have to relearn how to race against all those guys. The bar for myself back in the day was to get a top-5 finish. That evolved into getting top-3 finishes and now the bar is set on winning races and getting top-3 finishes. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to win races and finish in the top-3. The bar is set higher for us for sure and the competition is going to be as tough as ever, we just need to make sure we stay on top of things and we’re not lacking anything anywhere.”
Varricchio’s first opportunity to notch a feature win in 2025 will be the 53rd Annual NAPA Spring Sizzler®, set for April 26-27. The NAPA Spring Sizzler® kicks off on Saturday, April 26, with feature events for the Late Model, Limited Late Model, and Street Stock divisions, along with SK Light qualifying duel races that will set the field for an extra-distance 30-lap feature event on Sunday, April 27.
Order 53rd Annual NAPA Spring Sizzler® Tickets
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Sunday, April 27, will play host to the 53rd Annual NAPA Auto Parts Spring Sizzler®. Filling out Sunday’s racing card will be qualifying and feature racing for the SK Modified® division, the 30-lap SK Light Modified feature, plus the NAPA Pit Party.
For more information, visit staffordspeedway.com, follow Stafford Speedway on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or contact the track office at 860-684-2783.
