At the Mighty M on Tuesday, December 18 Bruce Aldrich, Jr.
scored his second consecutive five-bagger. The previous day he also won five
races.
Aldrich’s first victory on Monday came behind Kelly Roland’s
Camwiser ($4.80) in 2:00.4 and win number two came in the fifth race with
S & P Racing’s, No Gin ($12.00) in 1:57.4. Aldrich came right back
and won the sixth with Mr. Delite (12.60) in a 1:59.2 clocking. Oddly,
Aldrich’s victories with No Gin and Mr Delite came after they started
from the eight-hole.
He then won the ninth race with Norman Bradbury’s , J’s Foxy
Express, ($9.90) in 2:01 and Aldrich’s final victory for the afternoon
was behind Paul Feisher’s , Multiple Choice ($4.40) in 1:58.4.
Aldrich also had four seconds and one third place finish to
go along with his five driving victories on Tuesday.
“I feel real comfortable here at Monticello and I think I
know this track as good as anyone ,” a mud-caked Bruce Aldrich Jr. said after
his five-win afternoon competing over the muddy racing surface.
“But I had a lot of power today and got lucky a couple of times, too.”
When Aldrich wasn’t winning races that afternoon, Jimmy
Marohn Jr. was. The talented youngster, who is poised to win his
first Monticello Raceway driving title, added four more wins to his
seasonal total here.
Two of Marohn’s wins came from the Dan Gill barn. With
Marohn’s driving prowess Gill is currently in a three-way tie for leading
trainer honors with Gary Messenger and Peter Pellegrino, each with 113
winners.
Billy “Zeke” Parker Jr. missed the first three months of the
season after prostate cancer surgery and spotted Marohn some 70 wins
before he got his season underway and little by little he worked his way to
challenge Marohn. A week ago Zeke was just six wins behind Marohn but the
youngster has had a hot- hand of late and now leads the veteran winner of
18 driving title here, by 13 wins.
“Whenever you get even close to Billy (in wins over a year)
you’ve accomplished a whole lot,” Marohn said. “He didn’t get
lucky to win (almost) 11,000 races. And if I win the (driving) title
beating him I’ll feel I really accomplished something.”
