Rookies Swap Points Lead as Cayer Wins Again
Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour – 8/26/12
Epping, NH — Seventeen cars lined up at Star Speedway for the seventh event of the 2012 Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour season. As practice rounds were clicked through the front wheel drive vehicles showed a definite advantage on the tight Epping, NH course. The track had lots of grip early on due to the high outside temperatures.
After practice the NEMST drivers were gathered for the drivers meeting. NEMST regular Loren Smith won the Tater’s NASCAR Merchandise cash bonus and drew the $90 chip out of the bucket. Teams were given the lineup for the two qualifying heats and made final preparations before lineups.
Emerson Cayer drew the pole for his heat with tour points runner up Danny Field right to his outside. Point leader Shawn Swallow would start fifth in the first heat along with Field and Cayer. Cayer would prevail for the heat win as a strong battle ensued behind him between Field and Swallow. Swallow took home the second place. Mike Parker worked his way through the field in the second heat passing Matt Sonnhalter and Billy Osborne before claiming the checkers. Cayer drew an inversion of 6 rows for the feature lineup.
After the inversion Cory Dentino and Loren Smith sat on the front row for the 50 lap feature of the night. The heat race winners would be regulated to a middle pack starting spot and plenty of traffic to work around. The night was long as multiple divisions had extra lap features and tempers were tense for every division. As the field made their way onto the track and under green Osborne broke out to an early race lead. NEMST points front runners Field and Swallow battled inside the top ten trying to figure out the changing nighttime track conditions. At lap 29 the spinning car of Roger Ducharme brought out the first yellow flag of the event.
The restart was called off due to front row cars not keeping pace speeds around the track and the field was forced to try again. Once the green fell cars jockeyed for position with Swallow bumping early race leader Osborne through turn 1, Osborne saved the car and kept the field under green. Two laps later Swallow blocked again into turn 3 getting turned by Smith Jr. and stopping on the inside of turn 4. The yellow waved once again at lap 31. Swallow was pushed from the track and the field was reset once again.
Cayer led the field back to green as early on hot shot Matt Sonnhalter pulled from the track with overheating problems. Parker and Kelly fought for the third position with both cars switching grooves to try and pull away from the other car. The field began to stretch out on the final 20 lap green flag run with an intense battle for fifth between NEMST regular Cris King and fast newcomer Jeff Beaule. Cayer brought the field to the checkers with Osborne, Kelly, and Parker in tow. King won the intense battle for fifth with Beaule right behind.
NEMST officials brought the top 5 finishers to tech and checked crankshafts for lightening or knife edging as well as trailing arms and struts. No violations were found among the top 5 finishers. The NEMST is back in action after the holiday weekend on September 7th at Lee USA Speedway in Lee, NH for the makeup event from the July 27th rainout. For any additional info please visit www.northeastministocktour.com or www.leeusaspeedway.com as well as our facebook and twitter pages.
Texas Roadhouse NEMST Bonus Awards
Tater’s NASCAR Merchandise Cash: Loren Smith $90
Sunoco Race Fuels Hard Charger: John Kelly
Sunoco Race Fuels Winners Challenge: Emerson Cayer
Texas Roadhouse Gas Card: Loren Smith Jr.
Racecar Engineering Gift Certificates: Emerson Cayer, Cris King, Cory Dentino, Shawn Swallow
North East Mini Stock Tour – Feature
Finish Car No Driver Hometown
1 88NH Emerson Cayer Contoocook, NH
2 55 Billy Osborne Plaistow, NH
3 60 John Kelly New London, CT
4 28 Mike Parker Bradford, VT
5 38 Cristofer King Derry, NH
6 31 Jeff Beaule Lewiston, ME
7 41 Loren Smith Allenstown, NH
8 42 Loren Smith Jr Bow, NH
9 18 Danny Field Deep River, CT
10 61 Cory Dentino Lancaster, MA
11 34 Roger Ducharme Foster, RI
12 69 Louis Maher North Brookfield, MA
13 89 Nicholas Anderson Oxford, MA
14 25 Nic Skillings Warner, NH
15 04 Shawn Swallow Stark, NH
16 33 Matt Sonnhalter E. Thetford, VT
17 5 Jeff Prindall Lisbon Falls, ME
North East Mini Stock Tour Points
Pos Car No Driver Hometown Points
1 18 Danny Field (R) Deep River, CT 492
2 04 Shawn Swallow (R) Stark, NH 484
3 88NH Emerson Cayer Contoocook, NH 464
4 60 John Kelly New London, CT 436
5 34 Roger Ducharme Foster, RI 428
6 69 Louis Maher North Brookfield, MA 416
7 38 Cristofer King Derry, NH 399
8 61 Cory Dentino (R) Lancaster, MA 365
9 41 Loren Smith Allenstown, NH 297
10 33 Matt Sonnhalter E. Thetford, VT 289
11 28 Mike Parker (R) Bradford, VT 262
12 51CT Mark Panaroni Ivoryton, CT 246
13 25 Nic Skillings (R) Warner, NH 244
14 74 Nick Maniatis (R) Hooksett, NH 243
15 90 Desmond Skillings (R) Antrim, NH 209
16 42 Loren Smith Jr Bow, NH 190
17 55 Billy Osborne Plaistow, NH 170
18 91CT Chris Williams (R) Waterford, CT 143
19 22 Alicia Thatcher (R) Pascoag, RI 142
20 07 Pete Zakarite (R) Niantic, CT 139
21 51 Mike Mason (R) Skowhegan, ME 133
22 51M Scott Michalski South Killingly, CT 109
23 21 Chad Baxter Pascoag, RI 105
24 39 Glenn Colvin (R) Clinton, CT 101
25 5 Jeff Prindall Lisbon Falls, ME 99
26 2NH Toby Wells (R) Dublin, NH 97
27 66 Mike Stebbins Winchester, NH 89
28 89 Nicholas Anderson Oxford, MA 80
29 3 Ian Brew Wood River Junction , RI 79
30 53 Glenn Thomas Groton, CT 77
31 22M Scott Farrington (R) Minot, ME 75
32 31 Jeff Beaule Lewiston, ME 75
33 87 Beth Adams (R) Winchendon, NH 73
34 06 Chris Ivory Oakdale , CT 68
35 43 Adam Manley Putney, VT 65
36 3 Joe Rogers Ludlow, VT 64
37 24 Joe Liskiwicz Preston, CT 60
38 8 Calvin Rose Turner, ME 54
39 89W Dennis Wallace Jaffrey, NH 51
40 782 Jeffrey Lee Uncasville, ct 49
41 03 Chris Thomas Waterford, CT 45
42 48 Justin King (R) Derry, NH 41
43 10CT Mitchell Bombard Willimantic, CT 40
44 12 Josh Ling Hinsdale, NH 40
45 63 Dan Morris (R) Auburn, ME 39
46 33CT Eric Bourgeois (R) East Haddam, CT 38
47 52NH Ricky Labrecque (R) Antrim, NH 37
48 77 Chris Lee Uncasville, CT 35
49 20F Rich Fournier Warwick, MA 31
50 83 Brad Caddick Richmond, RI 31
51 99 Garrett Denton Hope Valley, RI 30
52 86 Scott Limkemann East Lyme, ct 23
53 28L Bill Leonard Charlestown, RI 13
54 93 Ray Christian Taftville, CT 13
55 20 Wayne Burroughs East Oakdale, CT 12
56 62 Sean Caron East Hampton, CT 11
57 86 Matthew Lomabardi (R) Tewksbury, ma 3
Sources: Bob Guptill/Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour PR