It’s been a year-long battle for leading driver honours at Monticello Raceway. Although Bruce Aldrich, Jr. has led the pack for a good portion of the season, veteran Billy 'Zeke' Parker, Jr. would then get on a tear and take command for a while. Aldrich would then win a multitude of races and regain command.

It went that way for the past three months, but Aldrich got hot two weeks ago vaulted ahead by 17 wins. Although Parker rattled back with a four-bagger last Wednesday, Aldrich was still up by 13 wins (361 to 348) at the start of this week.

However, after a three-win afternoon on Monday and then an impressive six-win day on the muddy afternoon of November 29, Aldrich might be saying 'bye-bye Billy.' And though Parker won two races on November 29, he now finds himself trailing Aldrich by 17 wins. While it may not be an insurmountable lead, Parker has just 19 race dates to make up the difference and Aldrich will be battling him the entire way.

November 29 at the 'Mighty M' was one of the toughest racing days of the season, with the steady rain pouring down and the extremely muddy racing surface to negotiate.

Parker jumped out with a victory in the third race when he reined Bilmar Rustler home first in 1:59, and Aldrich didn’t get untracked until the fifth when he scored with Donnie Bop in 1:59.4. He then won the sixth with Richess King in 2:01. After Parker won the seventh it appeared that the ‘nip-and-tuck battle’ was to continue. After the 'Brucester' won the 10th, he then proceeded to win the remaining races on the card. He reined Real Mystical to a 1:57.1 triumph in the 10th; won the 11th with Tattoo Hall in 1:59.4; scored in the 12th with Art Glass in 1:58.3, and then in the finale behind Borilla in 2:00.

“I started slow, but finished strong,” a happy but mud-caked Aldrich said at the end of the racing program. “I had some live mounts, but let me tell you it was one of the toughest days to be driving because it was so hard to see where [you were] going. The footing was good, but the track was about as muddy as I’ve ever seen it.”

Asked if he could now say ‘bye-bye Billy,’ he shot back with “Are you kidding? Zeke is capable of winning five or six races any day, and then if he does he’d be right back in it. Parker didn’t get lucky winning over 10,000 races, you know. He’s still as good a driver as he ever was.”

(Monticello Raceway)