Brown reverses “Magic Mile” fortunes with ACT Northeast Classic checkers

New Hampshire Motor Speedway has not exactly been Gabe Brown’s best track over the years.

But fortunes turned on a dime for the reigning Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour champion.

Brown rebounded Friday’s mechanical mishap to dominate the second half of Saturday’s season-opening Northeast Classic, earning the young racer his first win on New England’s longest oval.

And compared to last year, Brown’s season is already off to a hot start.

Saturday’s lidlifter was the first race in a multi-year partnership for the rechristened Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour, pairing the heavy equipment merchants with New England’s most established brand in stock car racing. And it took place on the biggest stage in the Northeast, a track that has all the gravity of Daytona International Speedway to its local racers.

But the mystique of the “Magic Mile” has eluded Brown since his first start in 2018. Replacing mentor Dale Shaw for a Granite State Pro Stock Series race that June, the fifteen-year-old only made it halfway before clobbering the turn-two wall.

Brown has clearly come a long way since then, but his NHMS fortunes have remained trapped in the past, with mid-pack performances and a couple crashes offset by a lone seventh-place run in his first ACT NHMS start.

Friday’s practice day did little to encourage the Center Conway, N.H. native, as rear end trouble sent him to the infield with major driveline work to repair. Ever resilient, Brown sliced his way through traffic to earn a plus-seven handicap in his heat, placing him on the pole for the feature alongside veteran Tom Carey III.

Carey, still searching for his first NHMS win despite showing plenty of speed on the big track, edged Brown to set the early pace. Brown battled Jesse Switser for second, but ultimately cleared Switser to reel in “TC3.” With 15 laps in the books, Brown slipped past Carey to take the point.

Trouble for Stephen Donahue brought out the yellow flag on lap 17. With threatening skies spitting forth light rain, officials called the race’s halfway break early, summoning the teams to pit road for adjustments and fuel. The rain cleared quickly, with no track drying needed to get the race back underway.

Brown shot into the lead on the restart, with two-time champion D.J. Shaw moving into the runner-up slot. In their mirror, Carey found new threats from Switser, double-duty racer Brandon Barker, and three-time defending Northeast Classic winner Derek Gluchacki. Brown clung to the lead as Cam Huntress suffered his own driveline frustrations to bring out the yellow again on lap 23.

As Brown maintained out front, Barker and Gluchacki emerged as Carey’s toughest challengers for the runner-up slot. But just as Brown seemed to have the race in hand, Ben Rowe spun in turn three, re-racking the field with only five laps left on the scoring tower.

Brown lined up to the outside of Carey for the restart, powering back to the point as Carey came under fire. While the top five jockeyed for positions in his mirror, Brown pulled away from the second-place battle.

In the first race of his Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour title defense, Brown cruised home to his third career ACT Tour victory and his first win at the “Magic Mile.”

Barker, sixth in the afternoon’s Pro All Stars Series showdown two races prior, wheeled the Sullivan family’s entry to second place, capping off a strong afternoon for the Windham, Me. pilot. Gluchacki, gunning for an unprecedented fourth-straight NHMS win, came up short and settled for third.

Carey, whose father earned a NASCAR Busch North Series win at NHMS in 1999, slipped to fourth in the final laps. Shaw debuted his family’s own ACT entry with a fifth-place finish, after racing since 2020 for Vermont car owner Arnie Hill.

Sixth went to Jimmy Renfrew, Jr., who started at the tail of the field after being stripped of his heat race win. Switser, who originally won last year’s Northeast Classic before a post-race engine teardown handed Gluchacki the checkers, faded to seventh in the final stretch. Multi-time Serie ACT champion and former NASCAR Truck Series winner Raphael Lessard was eighth. Rookie Connor Souza overcame a heat-race crash to finish a strong ninth, while Jamie Swallow, Jr. rounded out the top ten.

The big track stymied some of the Tour’s typical frontrunners. Alexendre Tardif, racing for Team 31 Racing and car owner Jason Glaude while his own team focuses on a part-time PASS effort, was shuffled out of traffic late and finished 16th. Erick Sands, winner of last year’s season-ending Haunted Hundred at Seekonk Speedway, was 19th. Sophomore contenders Kasey Beattie and Kaiden Fisher were just outside the top ten.

But Saturday’s race was far different from what many feared. Half of last year’s 39-car Northeast Classic starting grid failed to finish, the majority eliminated in grinding crashes that left some teams stripping their cars in the garage area to rush them to the chassis shop the next morning. Critics recalled the ACT Invitational, a non-points race whose final running in 2017 was shortened for darkness after crashes slowed the pace, and suggested that perhaps the series’ annual appearance at Loudon had run its course, too.

Instead, 28 of the 34 starters in Saturday’s race were still running at the checkered flag. Only one was eliminated by crash damage, and none of last year’s multi-car melees marred the proceedings.

Brown’s big day was also the first ACT win at NHMS for the AR Revolution body since Wayne Helliwell, Jr. trounced the field in September 2020. The distinct wedge-nosed body shell, ARBodies’ response to Five Star’s NextGen package, has not been without controversy. PASS banned the body at NHMS in 2023, and Super Late Models have been slow to adopt it as a result.

But it has found a home in the American-Canadian Tour, with Carey putting its aerodynamics to good use on the big tracks despite not yet claiming an NHMS win.

Five of Saturday’s top six finishers ran AR Revolution bodies, with only Shaw opting for the Five Star NextGen body. Brown, Gluchacki, and Renfrew were outfitted with the new body for the first time.

Brown’s car also differed from last year by featuring a Chevy bowtie, breaking Ford’s chokehold on NHMS’ victory lane. Courtesy of a crate engine advantage, the Blue Oval had won PASS’ five prior points races back to 2020, as well as the final ACT Invitational in 2017. ACT took measures within the last year to level the playing field, and a number of teams responded by abandoning the Ford branding on their entries at Loudon.

What the field looks like at Oxford Plains Speedway in a week is anyone’s guess. Few ACT teams have second or third cars to prepare a special piece for the biggest tracks. Never mind that at Oxford, too much engine can actually be a liability.

None of that concerns Brown, a former Oxford track champion who has both ACT and PASS wins on the legendary oval. Oxford is the perfect place for the young racer to continue his title defense as he matures beyond the image of the outwardly-aggressive firebrand.

At NHMS, he managed to get his defense rolling a week early.

Unofficial Results
Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour | Northeast Classic 50
New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, N.H.
1. (47NH) Gabe Brown
2. (0NH) Brandon Barker
3. (03MA) Derek Gluchacki
4. (5MA) Tom Carey III
5. (60BH) D.J. Shaw
6. (00NH) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
7. (25NH) Jesse Switser
8. (48QC) Raphael Lessard
9. (38RI) Connor Souza
10. (4NH) Jamie Swallow, Jr.
11. (41QC) Jonathan Bouvrette
12. (45NH) Kasey Beattie
13. (46X) Brian Hoar
14. (18VT) Kaiden Fisher
15. (30RI) Jacob “Rowdy” Burns
16. (31CT) Alexendre Tardif
17. (64RI) Devin Deshaies
18. (22RI) Mark Jenison
19. (36NH) Erick Sands
20. (26VT) Stephen Donahue
21. (04NH) Shawn Swallow
22. (47MA) Justin Storace
23. (92ME) Colby Meserve
24. (29X) Cole Robie
25. (68NH) Tanner Woodard
26. (33QC) Rémi Perreault
27. (7MA) Jeremy Sorel
28. (91CT) Jake Johnson
29. (28ME) Ben Rowe
30. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
31. (29NH) Aaron Fellows
32. (29ME) Allen Fellows
33. (27NH) Cam Huntress
34. (69VT) Blair Bessett

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