Cabral Wins at Thompson, Clinches Championship
THOMPSON, CT — Randy Cabral didn’t need to win on Sunday to notch another NEMA championship, but you wouldn’t have guessed it the way he raced through the field and took the lead in the 25 lap feature at Thompson’s World Series. It was his sixth win of 2014. He also added to his record 10 wins at the Connecticut oval, while winning his fifth championship in 7 years.
Cabral, of Kingston, MA. led a Bertrand Motorsports assault, with his teammates finishing second and fifth.
Cabral could have clinched the championship with a decent finish in qualifying, but heats for the midgets were cancelled on Saturday due to a lengthy rain delay. NEMA started Sunday with a 20 minute warm-up session.
It only took Cabral 8 laps to run down and pass early leader John Zych of Mendon, MA. Zych stayed within a few car lengths of Cabral. When the caution came out on lap 14 for a spin by Jim SantaMaria of Burlington, CT, it allowed Zych the opportunity to restart alongside Cabral.
Zych regained the lead until another caution 3 laps later. This one for a slowing Bethany Stoehr of Bridgewater, MA, who had a solid top 5 run going until the car broke. On the restart, Zych’s car bobbled and shot to the infield entering turn 1. He slid back up onto the track in the middle of traffic. Everyone was able to get by, but Zych was done due to steering problems, retiring to pit road.
Cabral then opened a comfortable lead, but that was negated by the final caution on lap 21 for an incident involving Scott Bigelow of E. Hampton, CT that landed him against the inside retaining wall just out of turn 4.
The single file restart put second place driver and Cabral teammate for the day Cole Carter right on Cabral’s bumper. Carter stayed with Cabral through the first and second turn, but Randy turned up the heat on the backstretch and cruised to victory.
Carter finished second, followed by Danny Cugini of Marshfield, MA in third, Jim Chambers of Atkinson, NH fourth and Cabral teammate Todd Bertrand fifth.
Cabral wins his fifth NEMA championship in 7 seasons, all of which accomplished by driving equipment owned by Tim Bertrand. After starting the season with 2 DNF’s, he rarely finished out of the top 3, picking up 5 wins.
He had been point battling another consistent finisher, Avery Stoehr of Lakeville, MA. Stoehr had never finished out of the top 10 all season until Sunday, 7 of those were top 5 and got 2 wins along the way.
Champion Cabral and NEMA Lite champion Ryan Krachun of Neshanic Station, NJ will be honored at the annual awards banquet on November 22 in Marlborough, MA.
Sources: Pete Falconi/NEMA PR