Belcher Finishes Sports Truck Season With D.A.V. Victory
Chase Belcher came up just short of winning the Sports Trucks championship this year at Seekonk Speedway. Even though he did win multiple races and come close along the way, he came up a mere handful of points short of Mike Cavallaro’s championship run and was obviously not happy with that.
But for Belcher, he wanted to finish the season strong at the D.A.V. Fall Classic 30 lap Sports Truck feature race on Saturday. And when the checkered flag went up high in the air, it was Belcher wheeling the Everett’s Auto Parts No. 81 under the start/finish line and into victory lane. It was Darryl Church and Ed Gagnon bringing the field to the green flag for the feature race, but it wasn’t long before Belcher got to the inside lane and took over the lead from Church on lap three, setting a fast pace.
While Belcher took the lead early, the middle of the pack saw drivers battling hard for position. John Paiva was stuck behind David Lougee, Mike Lopes, and others while they dueled for positions. Lopes got together with Adam Murphy, who was in the No. 82 for brother Rob, and Lopes ended up going around. Murphy was given a penalty for the contact and both drivers had to come from the rear of the field for the rest of the race.
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While Paiva worked his way through the field, he was obviously using a lot of the tires and equipment on his No. 21 and it showed when got to the front of the field and tried to chase down Belcher. He was able to get to his bumper multiple times, but it wasn’t enough to get around him under the green flag with just five laps to go. However, with four remaining, a caution flag flew for a spin by Cole Jackson and the complexion of the race could have changed if Belcher would have struggled on the restart.
That was not the case.
In the final few laps, Belcher got away on the restart and it was Josh Hedges who was giving Paiva a challenge for the second spot instead of the two of them going for the victory. It was Belcher taking down the win in the 30 lap main event, with Hedges edging out Paiva across the line at the finish in second position. Paiva finished third, with Lenny Guy and Murphy coming from the rear in the final stages to finish fifth.
Ed Gagnon, Joseph Fortin III, Shawn DeMello, Rick Albernez and Bob Rainville rounded out the top 10.
Sources: SeekonkSpeedway.com