LOUDON, N.H. — After rain was forecasted for Sunday’s originally scheduled date, Mother Nature brought down plenty of sunshine on the hallowed grounds of New Hampshire Motor Speedway Saturday afternoon.
The Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour got a strong start to the 2026 season under the April rays with Brandon Barker and Connor Souza both building a +6 handicap in heat race qualifying to join the front row.
After Barker showed the way early it was young-gun Connor Souza who took over and launched away with the lead. As Souza began to pull away, the best race on track saw Jonathan Bouvrette trying to dig underneath Justin Prescott for seventh-place lap after lap.
In a heartbreaking turn of events, Brandon Barker’s hot rod went cold underneath the crossed flags signaling the halfway point, bringing his battered machine behind the wall during the competition caution just one lap later.
Gabe Brown kept Souza honest on the restart but Brown soon had to face Jake Johnson, Jesse Switser and Mark Jenison for an all-out 24-lap run for the top-five positions. Almost a year to the day after Connor Souza started 30th to come home 9th, he proved that New Hampshire Motor Speedway is his favorite playground, taking down his first Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour win by nearly 2½-seconds over 2025 Thompson Speedway Late Model champion Jake ‘The Jet’ Johnson and ACT ace Jesse Switser.
Nearly four-a-breast across the line, former Seekonk Speedway champion Mark Jenison made it to fourth over top Quebec finisher Jonathan Bouvrette. Defending Northeast Classic victor Gabe Brown took sixth followed by Justin Prescott, rookie Holdyn Sullivan, Alexendre ‘Fireball’ Tardif and Jacob Burns rounding out the top ten.
The Pro All Stars Series (PASS) Super Late Models kicked off feature racing for the 6th annual Northeast Classic following qualifying action. Gabe Brown and Mike Hopkins immediately began a stronghold battle for the front, side-by-side around the Magic Mile with ‘The Outlaw’ Eddie MacDonald and DJ Shaw waiting in the wings. By the lap 30 competition caution, Shaw had made his way into second around Hopkins to set up the final 20-lap dash.
Brown kept his foot to the floor but Shaw played the long game, slowly but surely reeling in Brown before a burned-out alternator ended Brown’s run under the two-to-go twin sticks from the flagman. A green-white-checker finish pitted DJ Shaw against Eddie MacDonald with Shaw taking the advantage in a last lap scramble to win the PASS portion of the Northeast Classic with Eddie Mac in second and Alexendre Tardif third.
Ronnie Williams and Jon McKennedy brought the Modified Racing Series to green for their 50-lap Northeast Classic showdown. The first caution of the afternoon came out on lap 10 for Todd Owen’s dust-up just off turn four. Patrick Emerling launched to the front under the restart green, swapping places with McKennedy in each corner with Jacob Perry and Ronnie Williams content to ride in third and fourth.
After a four-car pileup on lap 30, Emerling would maintain the lead until lap 37 with Williams motoring underneath in turn four. The two would swap again and this time Patrick Emerling maintained speed to take the Open Modified portion of the Northeast Classic over Ronnie Williams and Jacob Perry.
Jason Woodard and Jarrod Soucy brough the R&R Race Parts NH Open Street Stocks to green with Woodard quickly taking the point with a rearview mirror full of Ryan Waterman. Deeper in the pack, Jimmy Renfrew Jr. and Thompson Icebreaker winner Ryan Lineham drove up from the tail of the field with Renfrew leading by the halfway point. As the two hot-shoes ran away, the best on-track battle was between Waterman and Adam Gray for third but, in the end, Jimmy Renfrew Jr. would prevail over Ryan Lineham a whopping 8-seconds back. Adam Gray rounded out the podium.
Burt Ouellette took off with a full head of steam in the Pro Truck Challenge 20-lap feature with Thompson Icebreaker victor Randy Burr mired back in heavy traffic. Burr continued to make steady gains as fellow top runner Jason Paquette motored around to chase down Ouellette. A clean and green run to the end saw Burt Ouellette nail down the win over Paquette and Todd Taylor hung on to round out the podium.
