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American Canadian Tour

Moltz Closes In, Bouvrette Dominates, 250 Entries Grow: Northeast Late Model Recap

Each week, Short Track Scene looks back at results and news from northern New England’s Late Model and Super Late Model competition, from the region’s premier tours — the American-Canadian Tour, the Granite State Pro Stock Series, and the Pro All Stars Series — to the tracks and drivers that support them. Thanks to the local journalists and fans who report in from the track each week to keep their fellow fans informed.

ACT TOUR: With only three races left to settle the 2017 ACT Tour championship, the Tour made its second stop of the year at North Woodstock, NH’s White Mountain Motorsports Park for the Foley Oil & Propane 150. Thirty-five Late Models were on hand to attempt the Saturday-night feature, with the usual ACT Tour stars joined by WMMP’s own weekly competitors.

Scott Payea’s dominant season thus far carried the Vermont driver into the weekend with a 59-point cushion over second-place Dillon Moltz. Moltz, the only other driver to finish in the top ten in every race thus far, just needed luck to shuffle the deck. And fourteen laps into the feature, the deck got shuffled. Contact between Payea and Russell Clark left Payea with significant body damage, halting his progress to the front.

Moltz took the race lead 25 laps in and, in a repeat of the ACT season opener, used lapped traffic to keep the rest of the field at bay. The 2014 Granite State Pro Stock Series champion led the final 125 laps en route to his second ACT Tour win of 2017. Jimmy Hebert, looking for his first Tour win since 2013, ran second to Moltz after a late restart, but Jason Corliss nudged his way past Hebert to take the runner-up spot at the finish.

Jesse Switser, a WMMP regular, finished fourth, with Tour full-timer Josh Masterson rounding out the top five. Rowland Robinson, Jr. was sixth, followed by weekly racers Shawn Swallow and Oren Remick. Stephen Donahue recovered from an early-race spin to finish ninth.

Scott Payea soldiered on after the early contact, stayed on the lead lap, and battled back to finish tenth, his first finish outside the top four this season. Payea hung onto the points lead, but his advantage was cleaved in half, as he leads Moltz by 28 points with two races remaining. Another stroke of bad luck could make this a very exciting battle to the championship.

Defending ACT Tour champion Nick Sweet was back in the lineup Saturday night, piloting WMMP regular Richie Brown’s car for his third Tour start of 2017. Sweet finished sixteenth. Jean-François Déry skipped the night’s Série ACT event in Quebec, but finished deep in the field in 25th. Interestingly, Jason Corliss was the only registered rookie in the field, with Spencer Morse missing from the entry list and Raymond Christian III racing at Oxford.

WMMP regular Allison Menard started shotgun on the field and became the first woman to take the green flag in an ACT feature since Emily Packard finished ninth at Oxford last August. Menard suffered a flat tire in the feature and finished 23rd. It could have been worse: fellow WMMP racer Stacy Cahoon crashed in his heat and loaded up early, and Bryan Mason’s engine troubles kept him from starting his heat at all.

SERIE ACT: For the first time in 2017, the ACT Tour’s French-Canadian counterpart went head-to-head with its namesake series. The penultimate race of the Série ACT schedule was held Saturday night at the flat Autodrome St.-Eustache, just northwest of the island of Montréal.

With limited time to make up ground in the series points, Jonathan Bouvrette used the 100-lap race to make a statement. Charging from the seventh starting position, Bouvrette took the race lead from Dany Trépanier and led the final 80 circuits to score his second Série ACT win of 2017 over his chief competitor, Patrick Laperle.

Steve Cote, Patrick Cliche and veteran Claude Leclerc rounded out the top five. On a night when the ACT Tour was in action in New Hampshire, there were not one but two American drivers in the lineup. Thunder Road regular Craig Bushey finished seventh, and the ageless Joey Laquerre finished thirteenth. With both Laquerre and the 75-years-young Leclerc in the lineup, this may be the first points race in some time with two septuagenarians in the field.

Bouvrette’s victory, combined with the bonus points for his heat-race win, moved him to the Série ACT points lead by 21 points over Laperle. The Série ACT teams have one week off to regroup before their season finale at Autodrome Montmagny over Labor Day weekend.

OXFORD 250: Late announcements continue to trickle in as the field for the 44th Annual Scott’s Recreation Oxford 250 presented by Fastway Trailer Products takes shape. The latest addition to the entry list is Trevor Sanborn, listed in a second entry for Richard Moody Racing. Sanborn will drive the #44 as a teammate to Ben Rowe’s #4.

Rowe’s father, veteran and three-time 250 winner Mike Rowe, had been listed on the entry list in the second RMR entry, but has been added in the Caruso Fowler Racing #24 he has raced at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway this season.

Jeff Taylor also confirmed his entry for this year’s 250. The multiple-time Oxford track champion has not raced at all in 2017, focusing instead on his business, successful chassis shop Distance Racing Products. Taylor’s return to the track could be the ultimate one-off if he finally succeeds in winning the 250.

WEEKLY ACTION: Tyler Cahoon took his second career trip to Thunder Road International Speedbowl’s victory lane Thursday night. Cody Blake finished second in the Late Model feature, followed by points leaders Trampas Demers and Bobby Therrien. Therrien, by virtue of heat-race points, stretched his points lead over Demers with two weekly races to go.

Maine’s primary battlegrounds for Super Late Model action served as testing grounds for the Oxford 250 on Saturday night. At Scarborough’s Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Reid Lanpher prevailed in a green-flag Pro Series feature, extending his points lead over second-place finisher Curtis Gerry. Former PASS winner David Oliver scored his best run of the season with a third-place finish.

Up the road at Oxford Plains Speedway, it was a visitor taking the checkered flag as DJ Shaw cruised to victory in the weekly 50-lap SLM feature. TJ Brackett assumed the points lead in the weekly class with a second-place finish, while rookie Gabe Brown continued to impress with a third-place run. Weekly point contenders Alan Tardiff finished seventh and Tim Brackett tenth. ACT rookie Raymond Christian III took a week off from Tour action to prepare his SLM for the 250 with an eighth-place finish. Glen Luce was on hand as well, but only finished 17th in the 18-car field.

COMING UP: All eyes will be on Oxford Plains Speedway this weekend for festivities surrounding the Oxford 250. The Granite State Pro Stock Series makes its Oxford debut Saturday night with a 100-lap feature. Sunday afternoon, the PASS stars and out-of-town visitors qualify for the evening’s 250-green-flag-lap feature.

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Jeff Brown is a contributor to Short Track Scene. A native of New Hampshire and a long-time fan of New England racing, Brown provides a fan's perspective as he follows New England's regional Late Model touring series.

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