At the end of the American-Canadian Tour Late Model season last year, Derek Gluchacki and DJ Shaw were tied atop the win column with three checkered flags each.
With the 2023 season’s championship opener a month away, the two racers are tied at the top yet again.
The rising star and the reigning champion both came away victorious in Saturday’s twin-bill non-points ACT Tour lidlifter at Hickory Motor Speedway.
Gluchacki took the first trophy in the rain-delayed St. Patrick’s Day 125, while Shaw claimed the Easter Bunny 125 later in the evening.
The preseason road trip to North Carolina was staged in conjunction with Maine’s Pro All Stars Series and its annual Easter Bunny 150. The ACT Late Models joined PASS for the 2021 Easter Bunny doubleheader, with three-time ACT Tour titlist Wayne Helliwell, Jr. sweeping both of the weekend’s features.
Friday’s St. Patrick’s Day 125, though, was a victim of weather as rain washed out all on-track activity. ACT and PASS worked with the speedway to move all racing to Saturday for a twin-bill double feature in which surviving the first race was paramount.
Gluchacki, recently named a Kulwicki Driver Development Program semifinalist, showed the way early in the St. Patrick’s Day 125 before yielding to Shaw. The two paced the field while Mike Hopkins and Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. carved through traffic, with Hopkins taking second from Gluchacki just past halfway.
A series of midrace restarts kept Shaw on his toes, with Jake Johnson joining Hopkins in the battle for the top spot. Gluchacki slipped back to second, though, as Johnson and others ducked into the pits as the laps wound down.
Shaw was in command with fourteen laps to go, when a red flag was thrown to show respect for a funeral being conducted next door to the speedway. A lengthy cleanup from the earlier PASS race had delayed the start of the ACT feature, pushing the end of the race into a scheduled intermission. After a 45-minute break, the race resumed, with Gluchacki battling Shaw for the top spot.
The two rivals put on a show in the final laps, with Gluchacki taking charge to win his first ACT feature of 2023. The North Dartmouth, Mass. competitor bookended last season with wins in the season opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and in the season finale at New London-Waterford (Conn.) Speedbowl. While Saturday’s races do not count toward the points championship, Gluchacki kept his momentum up in advance of the true start of the season.
Shaw, who did not run the 2021 ACT events at Hickory, drove Arnie Hill’s car to a second-place finish. Renfrew was third, with White Mountain Motorsports Park regular Kasey Beattie fourth. Jean-Philippe Bergeron battled back from a spin to finish fifth.
Multi-time WMMP track champion Quinny Welch was sixth, ahead of rookie Andrew Molleur and Tour regular Tom Carey III. Three-time Thunder Road champion Jason Corliss was ninth with Nick Johnson rounding out the top ten.
Dany Trépanier was unable to turn his car around for the afternoon’s second feature, and Bryan Wall, Jr. found himself in a similar position after a stuck throttle in practice. Twenty-four cars answered the call, with Patrick Laperle and Hopkins rebounding from first-race issues to bring the second feature to green.
Laperle traded the lead with Marcel Gravel while Shaw moved into contention quickly. Problems for Hopkins cleared a path for Shaw to move to the lead, while a battle between Laperle and Jamie Swallow, Jr. allowed the reigning champ to distance himself from the field.
Shaw was well in command when a spin for Keegan Lamson brought out a late caution, but with the field battling fiercely in his mirror, the veteran was able to drive away for his first win of the year.
Corliss, who announced plans this offseason to return to the Tour full-time in 2023, finished a stout second. Jamie Swallow, Jr., who exited the first race early with overheating issues, held on after his early battle with Laperle to finish third, his best in ACT-sanctioned competition.
Fourth went to Gravel, who thrashed between races to get his car back together after he was crashed out of the first feature. Renfrew finished fifth, the only driver besides Shaw to place in the top five in both features.
Jake Johnson, Laperle, Gluchacki, Welch and Beattie closed out the top ten.
Shaw, the 2014 winner of the PASS-sanctioned Easter Bunny 150, became the first driver to earn wins in both PASS and ACT competition at Hickory. A five-time PASS North champ and 27-time feature race winner, Shaw’s ACT involvement was chiefly in car construction until 2020, when he made his first Tour start in over five years. Shaw finished second in points and earned his first Tour win in 2021 en route to another runner-up points finish.
The 2022 season was the veteran’s breakout year in his newest challenge. Shaw won the Midsummer Classic 250 at WMMP, followed up with a win in Thunder Road International Speedbowl’s Labor Day Classic, and won the penultimate race of the year at Seekonk Speedway to clinch the ACT Tour title.
Two points positions behind Shaw was Gluchacki, who echoed Shaw’s rise to Tour prominence with a late-season 2021 win at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut. Gluchacki’s wins in the season opener and finale sandwiched a victory at Oxford Plains Speedway on the eve of the Oxford 250, giving him three checkered flags for the season in addition to a handful of non-Tour Late Model wins. Gluchacki skipped the two Canadian events on the schedule, leaving him at a points deficit for most of the season, but revised border-crossing guidelines should clear the way for the young racer to make his first races north of the border.
ACT’s teams have nearly a month to prepare for the season-opening Northeast Classic at NHMS, where Gluchacki is the defending winner and where Shaw nearly scored his first Tour win in 2021.
Gluchacki and Shaw have had run-ins in the past. An on-track rivalry might be in their future, too.
Unofficial Results
American-Canadian Tour St. Patrick’s Day 125
Hickory Motor Speedway
1. (03MA) Derek Gluchacki
2. (04VT) DJ Shaw
3. (00NH) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
4. (45NH) Kasey Beattie
5. (18QC) Jean-Philippe Bergeron
6. (0NH) Quinny Welch
7. (31CT) Andrew Molleur
8. (5MA) Tom Carey III
9. (66VT) Jason Corliss
10. (6MA) Nick Johnson
11. (77NH) Bryan Wall, Jr.
12. (42QC) Eric St.-Gelais
13. (28NH) Ricky Bly
14. (10ME) Christian LaFlamme
15. (37CT) Jordan Hadley
16. (55VT) Keegan Lamson
17. (15ME) Mike Hopkins
18. (91QC) Patrick Laperle
19. (30RI) Jacob “Rowdy” Burns
20. (1MA) Austin Erickson
21. (91CT) Jake Johnson
22. (86VT) Marcel J. Gravel
23. (19QC) Dany Trépanier
24. (5ME) Dominic Curit
25. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
26. (4NH) Jamie Swallow, Jr.
DNS (82MA) Mark Hudson
Unofficial Results
American-Canadian Tour Easter Bunny 125
Hickory Motor Speedway
1. (04VT) DJ Shaw
2. (66VT) Jason Corliss
3. (4NH) Jamie Swallow, Jr.
4. (86VT) Marcel J. Gravel
5. (00NH) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
6. (91CT) Jake Johnson
7. (91QC) Patrick Laperle
8. (03MA) Derek Gluchacki
9. (0NH) Quinny Welch
10. (45NH) Kasey Beattie
11. (18QC) Jean-Philippe Bergeron
12. (6MA) Nick Johnson
13. (31CT) Andrew Molleur
14. (30RI) Jacob “Rowdy” Burns
15. (1MA) Austin Erickson
16. (37CT) Jordan Hadley
17. (55VT) Keegan Lamson
18. (10ME) Christian LaFlamme
19. (5ME) Dominic Curit
20. (42QC) Eric St.-Gelais
21. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
22. (15ME) Mike Hopkins
23. (5MA) Tom Carey III
24. (28NH) Ricky Bly
DNS (77NH) Bryan Wall, Jr.
DNS (19QC) Dany Trépanier
DNS (82MA) Mark Hudson
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