BARRE, Vt. — Beautiful skies and full crowds greeted the traveling band of American-Canadian Tour faithful for their second visit of the year to Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl.
The NEFCU+VSECU Labor Day Classic saw thirty-one cars enter the pit gate and qualify for starting position in the annual 200-lap holiday weekend event. ACT Rookie of the Year hopeful and current Thunder Road track championship point leader Kaiden Fisher earned the pole alongside former top rookie Erick Sands with both drivers taking a ‘plus four’ in the Plus/Minus handicap system.
Fisher would immediately fall back to the rear with a caution prior to the first completed lap with fellow rookie Cole Littlewood. Another quick spin caution re-racked the field once more out of the gate before the field settled in on the lap five restart. Marcel Gravel and Erick Sands battled hard on the return to green but it was the Thunder Road ace Gravel that put the power down on the outside groove. Soon after, two-time track champion Scott Dragon also rounded the ACT regular and set his sights on Gravel.
Dragon took the lead away on lap 20 as Sands, D.J. Shaw, Gabe Brown and Alexendre Tardif found themselves among plenty of Thunder Road weekly warriors across the top 10. Peyton Lanphear’s stalled ride at the bottom of turn three drew out the caution on lap 47 with several lead lap cars jumping pit side for new right side tires. Dragon and Gravel kept things interesting up front, fighting side-by-side for the lead with Shaw following Dragon closely on Thunder Road’s notorious outside lane.
Alexendre ‘Fireball’ Tardif came to a halt on lap 72 to reopen the pits as Tardif and Fisher both among those taking tires and fuel under caution. A lap 80 caution for the spinning Jesse Laquerre brought similar results as Gabe Brown, Derek Gluchacki and Laquerre grabbing their allotment of fuel and tires. All the while, Dragon kept pace ahead of Shaw, Gravel and Sands at the front.
Rain drops began to fall to call out the lap 111 caution as the field waited pit side to conserve fuel. After watching the radar and the skies, the field returned to the highbanks with Dragon and Shaw battling for the lead. Rain would again fall on lap 118 and with a bleak radar officials opted to officially end the event.
Dragon walked away with his first American-Canadian Tour victory since 2003 and earned the first ACT victory for the Todd Rueda-owned, CDR Concrete Team. D.J. Shaw held on for second with Erick Sands taking the final podium spot in third. Marcel Gravel and Brandon Lanphear took fourth and fifth respectively.
Justin Prescott nabbed sixth, leading rookie Kasey Beattie took seventh with Stephen Donahue taking eighth. Jason Corliss grabbed ninth and Kaiden Fisher powered back from shotgun on the field to take 10th.