BARRE, Vt. — While Mother Nature gave it her all to wash out the Preston’s Kia Independence Day Spectacular, the Thunder Road faithful showed up in droves and moved her rain showers to the side with four divisions of racing action.
The Maplefields/Irving Late Models got feature action started with a Lap 16 bang as a loose Kyle Streeter collected Brandon Lanphear and Marcel Gravel against the turn one wall.
Only Gravel was able to return for a few more laps before parking his ride permanently for the evening. Up front it was Cody Blake who fire-stormed from the front and never looked back to take his first win of the season over Bryan Wall Jr. and Brandon Gray.
Rookie Karsen Murphy finally got a good car underneath him to lead the Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tiger feature to green but quickly earned an education. Kevin Streeter rode the high-side to the lead and motored through in the green-to-checkered feature but eyes were what was riding his rear bumper. Robert Gordon stormed through the top ten to stalk Streeter through the final stages but couldn’t pull enough fire out of the fuel cell to take second with Ty Delphia having a top run in third.
Another Rookie got his start at the head of the rk Miles Street Stock feature with Jaiden Del Toro leading Eric MacLaughlin across the line. All-time leader Tommy ‘Thunder’ Smith quickly took over the top spot but flames out the side-pipe with a sputtering engine took him out of contention on lap 7.
Paul Rocheleau inherited the lead and kept his foot to the firewall to take the Preston’s Kia trophy dash with Nate Brien and Flyin Fred Fleury rounding out the podium.
The Burnett Scrap Metals Road Warriors rounded out the rain-delayed show just prior to the Northstar Fireworks display. Jed Whitcomb took over the story right from the start, taking his Preston’s Kia machine right to the winner’s circle for career win number one on the Barre highbanks with Derrick Mann and Brandon Premont rounding out the top three.
