Cabral Thrills In NEMA Fast Win at Oswego
OSWEGO, NY — Randy Cabral is a one man thrill show. He didn’t disappoint the fans at Oswego Speedway on Sunday night with his demonstration of driving skills and speed on the way to his fifth win of the season.
Cabral of Kingston, MA tracked down Mendon, MA driver John Zych and passed him on the final turn to win the 25 lap NEMA midget feature, part of the Race Of Champions Weekend at Oswego. The midgets had waited over 24 hours to run their event, after being rained out on Saturday. They ran an abbreviated program without heats and only one round of practice.
Zych himself had reeled in early leader Michael Barnes of Mexico, NY and wrestled the lead away on lap 15. Barnes had been the leader since the drop of the green flag and had opened a sizeable lead on a track he is very familiar with.
Zych was clicking off laps in the mid 16’s and turned in the fastest lap of the race at nearly 137 miles per hour. Once in the lead, he set sail and was looking for his second win of the season. He was held up momentarily while attempting to put Bethany Stoehr of Bridgewater, MA down a lap. The car got loose when he went high to pass and lost a lot of ground to now second place runner Cabral. Cabral was able to almost pull up alongside Zych.
Once Zych cleared the lapped car, he again opened up by 6 lengths. But on the white flag lap he encountered traffic again, this time a group of 3 cars running together just in front of him. Hesitating only a split second to decide how to handle them was all Cabral needed to charge underneath in turn 3. They raced side by side out of 4 and Cabral beat him to the line by one-tenth of a second.
To show how hard he raced all 25 laps, Zych appeared to lose an engine on the cool down lap, dropping heavy fluid on the track in a cloud of steam and smoke. He was forced to stop the car in turn two and missed the post-race podium celebration on the frontstretch.
Barnes finished third, followed by veteran driver Doug Cleveland of Sudbury, MA, who recorded his best finish of the year. Last year’s Oswego winner Seth Carlson of Brimfield, MA, Raynham’s Paul Scally, Lakeville’s Avery Stoehr and Pennsylvania’s Ian Cumens followed as the rest of the cars on the lead lap.
The race went caution free and took just over 7 minutes to complete.
The win pads Cabral’s point lead in his quest to win a fifth NEMA championship. Two races remain on the schedule.
Brothers Scott and Ryan Bigelow of East Hampton, CT were the dominate cars in the NEMA Lites portion of the night. They raced into first and second spot early and stayed there to the end, even after a late race restart.
The only caution was on lap 17 when Danny Cugini of Marshfield, MA slowed on the track and was unable to make it back to the infield pit area. Even with the caution and single file restart the race was over in less than 9 minutes.
There was a great battle for third between Matt Swanson of Acton, MA and double-duty driver Randy Cabral. Cabral challenged on the inside and the outside, even using lapped traffic as a pick, but young Swanson held him off. Canada’s Logan Rayvals came on strong from the back in the late stages, but could only advance to fifth. NJ drivers Ryan Krachun, Calvin Carroll and Anthony Payne finished sixth, seventh and eighth, with Deerfield, NH’s Dennis O’Brien and Marshfield’s Megan Cugini rounding out the top 10.
Krachun remains the point leader leaving Oswego, with one more event for the NEMA Lites in 2014.
The next race on the NEMA schedule is Waterford on the weekend of October 4 and 5. That’s the last one for the Lites. The midgets wrap up their season on October 18 and 19 at Thompson’s World Series weekend.
Sources: Pete Falconi/NEMA PR