Randy Cabral Scores Hammond Memorial NEMA Lites Feature at Speedbowl
Waterford, CT — Randy Cabral won the Northeastern Midget Association’s Shane Hammond Memorial Lites feature at the Waterford Speedbowl on Saturday evening.
Coming from deep in the field, Cabral passed early leader Chris Haskell with 16-laps remaining to capture his first Lites victory of the season.
The race included a handful of cautions and a red flag period when Tom Fox spun coming out of the second-turn and was violently collected by David Moniz. Both drivers were uninjured.
Once in command, Cabral stretched his lead winning the event far ahead of runner-up Haskell.
“The car was perfect,” stated Cabral in victory lane. “We put four new tires on tonight for the first time this season. That, along with the guys getting the set-up just-right, made it easy to drive. I’m just glad to get my first Lites win this year. This one was extra-special as Shane was a very-close friend. It just means so-much, it’s hard to put it into words. I really wanted to win for Shane and his family.”
Second-place Haskell was not unsatisfied with his finish. “Like always, Randy just seemed to come out of nowhere. He’s a great racer and running with him tonight was fun as-always,” he said. “We had a great car tonight, but Randy’s was a tad-better.”
Rounding-out the top-3 was Todd Bertrand. “I’m happy the car is in one-piece tonight as there were a lot of close-calls,” stated Bertrand whose last Lites feature win came at Monadnock in May. “This was an important race for our series honoring Shane’s memory, and it’s great to see how many fans came out to watch us tonight.”
Eric LeClerc and Jim SantaMaria completed the top-5.
The NEMA Lites Series next sees action at Winchester, New Hampshire’s Monadnock Speedway on Saturday July 31.
(NEMA Lites Results): 1. Randy Cabral, 2. Chris Haskell, 3. Todd Bertrand, 4. Ed LeClerc, 5. Jim SantaMaria, 6. Joey Mucciacciaro, 7. Andy Barrows, 8. Bethany Viets, 9. Carl Medeiros Jr., 10. Ryan Bigelow, 11. Kevin Parks, 12. Paul Bigelow, 13. Lanson Fornoro, 14. Jay Diamond, 15. Paul Luggelle, 16. Tom Fox, 17. David Moniz.
Sources: Dave Dykes/NEMA Lites PR