BARRE, Vt. — Double features were on the menu Thursday at Thunder Road International Speedbowl for Community College of Vermont Night at The Road.
Double features for some meant strategy was thrown to the wayside with the foot to the firewall, to others it was patience, a strong brake pedal and eyes up. To all, it was the ultimate test of man, machine and teamwork on the Barre highbanks.
The Maplefields/Irving Oil Late Models were just some of the Superstars showcased on Community College of Vermont Double Feature night, starting off with a green-to-checkered affair in their first of two 50-lap feature events. Highlighted by a mid-pack scuffle between Cooper Bouchard and Kaiden Fisher, with Fisher careening through the infield grass, Bryan Wall Jr. proved his Memorial Day Classic win was no fluke en route to victory lane with point leader Jason Corliss and Chris Roberts rounding out the first podium.
Feature two saw a change in lead stars out front with Thunder Road’s two most recent Flying Tiger champions leading the Late Model fray in Brandon Gray and Kyle Streeter. The Rookie front row saw Gray get the jump but Streeter held close. Mechanical woes ended the night with crushing blows to Scott Dragon, Phil Scott and Trevor Jaques in three separate incidents. Through it all, Gray persevered, coming from his own mechanically-interruptions in feature #1 to claim his first Late Model victory followed by Christopher Pelkey and Streeter.
The Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tigers had a rough start to double feature action with a lap six pile-up involving Matt Ballard, Rich Lowrey and Cam Gadue in turn one before returning to good, hard racing. Logan Powers led from the start to take down his first career Flying Tiger win over multi-time champion Jason Woodard and Chris Laforest. The Tigers kept true to form for feature two with Travis Patnoe looking to have a career day before Ballard reeled him in. Ballard, with Cooper French and Lowrey in tow, moved into the lead on lap 23 and never looked back coming from a wrecked pile at the end of last season to a victory lane piece! French and Lowrey rounded out the second podium.
The rk Miles Street Stocks had the hardest night of all four Thunder Road divisions on Community College of Vermont Night. Feature #1 seemed to be in the hands of Jason Kirby but three caution spells made for a hard pull on the Road Warrior alum, as it did for point leader Dean Switser Jr. Switser got caught in a rolling road block and ended his day with a hard lick into the turn one wall. Patrick Tibbetts made the most of the caution periods to climb up to the winner’s circle for his first checkered flag of the season with ‘Flyin’ Fred Fleury and rookie Hayden Bushey joining the podium.
Feature two was no nicer to the Crunch Bunch with a big backstretch pile-up ending the day for championship hopeful Nate Brien and last week’s first-time winner Tyler Wheatley on lap 10. The redeeming qualities came back in full with a head-to-head battle between young Walker Fitch and Derek Farnham on the return to green. The two fought hard at the front until Farnham overtook the youngster to lead lap 19 and kept pace for the Community College of Vermont win with Kyle MacAskill rounding out the podium in third.
The Burnett Scrap Metals Road Warriors put on two lightning-fast twenty lap shows on Community College of Vermont Night. Derrick Mann ran away with the first CCV Trophy Dash over Mike Slingerland and Cayden Green and looked poised to do so again in feature two. Mann and Neal Foster fought door handle-to-door handle in their final 20-lap race with Foster getting the better for his first win of the season and Green again taking third.
