A Long Time In The Making
Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour presented by Twisted Tea
09/20/15 — The Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour competed in their 10th event of the season and 2nd time at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon alongside the Pro All Stars Series. 20 NEMST minis made the trek north for the final Maine event of the 2015 season leaving Thompson’s World Series the final event on the tour.
Zach Audet showed he was back and ready to race by winning his heat race and earning the right to draw the inversion chip for the feature event. Toby Wells also won his heat race by making a fast move on the outside and then cruised for the victory over the 10 lap event. Audet drew a 3 row inversion moving him back to the 5th starting position and placing 2 of the strongest cars in the field on the front row, Emerson Cayer and Matt Sonnhalter.
Cayer broke out to the lead as the green flag waved but Sonnhalter fought back on the outside to overcome Cayer by lap 2 and start to pace the field. NEMST new comer Haywood Herriot chased Sonnhalter and pulled away from the 3rd place battle. Wells improved his 11th place starting position to 7th in just 3 laps. Once Wells pulled up to the 5th place battle he encountered heavy traffic and was held up for a number of laps. Early leader Cayer fell back on the outside and Wells pushed forward moving into the 4th position on lap 15.
Sonnhalter and Herriot had a 20 car length lead over 3rd place as the 20 lap mark came around and Wells began to chase the top 2 competitors. On lap 32 Wells moved around Herriot for 2nd and set his eyes on the young Sonnhalter. Lapped traffic was heavy as the leaders moved high and low to pull around the slower vehicles. At lap 45 Wells pulled to the outside of Sonnhalter behind 2 wide lapped traffic and tried to make his move around the leader.
The lapped traffic slipped high coming out of turn 4 with Sonnhalter sliding low and Wells following the fellow Volkswagen driver past the pack. Wells moved to the bumper once again but started to fall back slightly in the next few laps as the track was clear for the leader until the finish. In the end Sonnhalter pulled away to a half second lead and won his first ever NEMST feature event over the already clinched 2015 Champion Toby Wells. Herriot would hang on for 3rd with Jimmy Childs and Zach Audet completing the top 5.
The NEMST has a fall break scheduled before its final event of the season at Thompson Speedway’s World Series in mid-October. For additional NEMST information please visit our website at www.northeastministocktour.com or Like Us on Facebook.
Twisted Tea Pole Starter: Emerson Cayer
Thirty Racewear Hard Charger: Pete Zakarite (10)
Sunoco Race Fuels Winners Circle Challenge: Matt Sonnhalter
Texas Roadhouse Hard Luck Award: Nick Anderson
RH2way Top Rookie: Haywood Herriot (3)
North East Mini Stock Tour – Feature
Finish Car No Driver Hometown
1 33 Matt Sonnhalter E. Thetford, VT
2 2NH Toby Wells Dublin, NH
3 17 Haywood Herriott Gorham, NH
4 5 Jimmy Childs Leeds, ME
5 19 Zach Audet Skowhegan, ME
6 88NH Emerson Cayer Contoocook, NH
7 2ME Rob Greenleaf West Bath, ME
8 O7 Pete Zakarite Niantic, CT
9 43 Dana Shepard Putney, VT
10 18NH Jacob Rheaume Rochester, NH
11 24 Joe Baxter Pascoag, RI
12 18 Justin Larsen Peru, ME
13 7 Eric Pelletier Dayville, CT
14 83 Brady Romano livermore falls, me
15 90 Desmond Skillings Antrim, NH
16 20P Pete Mccollett Readfield, ME
17 22W Shaun Waites Jr Raymond, NH
18 84 William Schoeler Warwick, ME
19 55 Nicholas Anderson Oxford, MA
20 41 Loren Smith Allenstown, NH
Sources: Bob Guptill/NEMST PR