WEST HAVEN, Vt. – Kenny Tremont Jr. did it again.
The West Sand Lake, N.Y., driver made it four consecutive victories at Devil’s Bowl Speedway on Sunday, taking the Rutland Regional Medical Center Hometown Heores” event in a wild 30-lap run. His win topped a card that included visits to Victory Lane by Adam Piper, Josh Bussino, P.J. Bleau, and Samantha Mulready.
Tremont, started in 18th place, needed some luck to win the Pepsi Sportsman Modified feature, and he received it. When Adam Pierson – the only driver to truly keep pace with Tremont so far in 2019 – tangled with Brent Warren, Tremont capitalized. When several front-runners – including Tim LaDuc and the three racing Hammonds – Walt, Walter, and Allan – each encountered their own separate problems, Tremont capitalized.
And when leader Joey Roberts, a rookie, opened the bottom lane with four laps to go, Tremont capitalized. The nine-time champion exited his car in the winner’s circle with a smile that suggested that he couldn’t believe the outcome of the race.
Roberts inherited the lead when Walter Hammond’s throttle stuck wide open on a restart, sending his car flying through a tire barrier in Turn 1. Hammond, who was uninjured, partially cleared the speedway’s northern property line and crossed into the town of Benson. Roberts led 18 laps before succumbing to Tremont and held on for the runner-up finish. Pierson recovered from his early run-in for third, Bobby Hackel was fourth, and Marty Kelly III was solid in fifth. Frank Hoard III was sixth ahead of Alex Bell, James Fadden, Justin Comes, and Jeff Washburn.
Tremont is now one victory shy of matching his personal-best streak of five consecutive wins at Devil’s Bowl, which he achieved in 2007; the all-time Modified track record of 11-straight wins was set in 1968-69 by the late Vince Quenneville Sr.
Adam Piper earned his first win of the year in the 25-lap O’Reilly Auto Parts Limited Sportsman race. Piper blew an engine on Wednesday at the Independence Day special event but rebounded big time for the second win of his career. He and Marty Hutchins had an intense dogfight in heavy lapped traffic in the final stages of the race, only to be stalled by a late caution flag.
Piper broke away at the restart and James Hanson slipped past Hutchins to finish second. Hutchins settled for third with Johnny Bruno fourth, Larry Gallipo fifth, and Anthony Warren sixth. Matt Bilodeau came back from a spin to finish seventh, followed by Dave Snow, Mike Ryan, and Mike Parodi.
The Super Stocks ran a special two-segment race with the overall finish based on low-total segment scoring points. Josh Bussino found himself in the catbird seat in the first segment when leader Chris Murray tangled with a lapped car and flipped over just short of the finish line. Bussino won that round to collect one scoring point, with Mark Norris taking two points, Kevin Elliott three, Scott FitzGerald four, and Garrett Given five.
The second segment was all Garrett Given, and he appeared to have the overall victory in hand before two late caution flags bunched the field up and gave Bussino his opportunity. With both Given and Scott FitzGerald scoring six total points, Bussino needed to get through traffic in order to score five points; he completed the pass right at the finish line to steal the overall win.
The final overall rundown shows Bussino winning with five points (first, fourth), Given second with six points (fifth, first), Scott FitzGerald third with six points (fourth, second), Andrew FitzGerald fourth with 11 points (eighth, third), and Curtis Condon fifth with 13 points (seventh, sixth).
P.J. Bleau scored his second Mini Stock win of the season during his limited-schedule campaign. Bleau and early leader Jake Barrows had a good battle up front before Bleau was able to get away. Barrows took second, and Craig Kirby was third for the fourth-straight race. Shawn Moquin finished fourth and Tim Simonds erased some hard luck with a fifth-place finish.
Samantha Mulready scored a popular career-first win in the Friend Construction 500cc Mini Sprint division. Driving hard on the outside lane, the Cambridge, N.Y., racer used extreme patience as leader Shawn McPhee took up his share of real estate on the track. After multiple attempts at taking the lead, Mulready was able to pull the trigger in the final corner and win a drag race to the checkered flag. McPhee was second by a hair, followed by Evan Roberts, Cody O’Brien and John McPhee Jr.