NEMA’s Cabral Eyes 3rd Straight Win at Thompson
Elusive 3rd Straight Win World Series Possibility
Thompson, CT — Sunday’s feature at Thompson Speedway’s World Series will be the 12th time over the past 15 seasons that a Northeastern Midget Association driver goes after a third straight feature win. It will be the third time this season Randy Cabral gives it a shot.
Not since Jeff Horn put together wins at Seekonk, Star and Waterford in 1993 has a driver won three straight. Over the past 215 features, there have been back-to-back winners only 11 times.
“I’m not going to get greedy,” has become Cabral’s standard reply to challenges. He has been “unbelievably lucky” this year especially in two-day events. The Bertrand Racing Team has made recovering from a tough Saturday almost commonplace.
Cabral comes to the World Series off wins at Waterford’s Finale and Seekonk’s DAV Memorial, both two-day events. The World Series is as well, NEMA qualifying on Saturday. Cabral has six career Thompson wins including this year’s July race.
“The team spends a lot of time working on the cars and we show up expecting to win,” says Cabral, who has seven checkereds and this year’s driving title all but won. “We take nothing for granted though. Every race is something different.”
Thompson is very different. “When you think about what can happen it’s already happened at Thompson,” says Cabral. There have been 69 NEMA events at Thompson starting with Dutch Schaefer’s win on April 24, 1960.
Tim Bertrand has 73 points on Bob Santos Jr. atop the owners standings. While 247 separate Cabral and Joey Payne in the driver standings, there’s only 50 between third and sixth – Bobby Santos III, Adam Cantor, Greg Stoehr and Erica Santos.
Since 1994, Cabral and Russ Stoehr have gone after a third straight four times. The list also includes Mike Seymour, Joey Coy, Howie Bumpus and Ben Seitz – an impressive group.
When Cabral missed a third straight back in ’06, Bobby Santos III was the winner at Stafford. This year Payne and Stoehr were the winners, both times at Monadnock. Santos, Stoehr and Payne have all made history at Thompson. Stoehr beat brother Russ in a barnburner way back in 1993. Payne gave car owner Gene Angelillo his 100th win in 2000, beating teammate Drew Fornoro in the process.
Coming off an impressive run from the back at the DAV, Nokie Fornoro is another with long whiskers at Thompson. He has four Thompson wins, the last in ’05.
The World Series traditionally draws a strong NEMA field.
Sources: Pete Zanardi/NEMA PR