Cabral & Bertrand Clinch NEMA Titles with World Series Win
Thompson, CT – Randy Cabral clinched the driving championship for himself and the owner’s title for Tim Bertrand Sunday with a victory in the 25-lap Northeastern Midget Association feature at Thompson Speedway’s World Series. It was the third straight and the eight win of the season for the #47 team.
“A perfect way to cap it off, victory in the World Series,” said Bertrand, calling the season-long effort “the perfect package.”
Starting eighth, Cabral took the lead from Joey Payne (Angelillo #45) down the front straight away heading into lap four. Four cautions slowed the action as Cabral moved under the checkered a half-straightaway ahead of Nokie Fornoro, the latter coming from last in the Jarret #4.
Both Cabral and Bertrand were concerned when Fornoro, who had almost no practice and fell out on lap one of his qualifying heat on Saturday, lined up second on a lap 12 restart. Bobby Santos, running second, brought out the yellow spinning off turn four into the infield, collecting John Zych with him (Zych #9).
Cabral “caught a look” at the leader board. He told himself “Nokie just came from last to second, I’m done.” Bertrand was equally pessimistic. “On the restart, Nokie was right there and I said ‘he’s playing with us,’” offered Bertrand. “Than Randy started to pull away and I realized ‘hey, we are pretty good today.’”
Cabral got away on three more restarts leaving Fornoro to battle eventual third place finisher Greg Stoehr (Stoehr 26b). “If we didn’t have those cautions he was going to have a hard time,” said Fornoro. “He started getting loose and I was getting tighter. It would have been interesting in traffic.”
Adam Cantor (Cantor #7ny) and Mike Horn (Horn #P30) filled out the top five.
Coming from sixth, Payne grabbed the lead following a first lap yellow. Cabral followed him past early leader Erica Santos (Breault #44) with Bobby Santos III (Santos #98s) third.
“It looked the 45 was having motor problems,” said Cabral who had planned on taking his time going to the front. “The 45 was a lot faster in our heat (won by Payne) on Saturday. I saw the problem and decided to try and take advantage.”
Mechanical woes did in both Payne and Erica Santos.
NEMA will end its season at Twin State Speedway’s Open Wheel Sunday in Claremont, NH this weekend.
Sources: Pete Zanardi/NEMA PR