Robie earns first career PASS win at Riverside

Cole Robie wasn’t about to let Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. carry all of the summer momentum into the Oxford 250 uncontested.

The teen rookie muscled past Renfrew with five laps to go to take his first Pro All Stars Series North win at Riverside Speedway in the PASS 150, the final points-paying feature leading into the 53rd Annual Nitro Trailers Oxford 250.

And just like that, Robie has a share of that summer momentum on his side, too.

Booked as a double feature with the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour, PASS’ return to Riverside for the first time since 2020 had been rescheduled from a rain postponement earlier in the year, breaking PASS’ usual pattern of giving teams a final shakedown at Oxford Plains Speedway leading into the biggest race of the season.

Instead, teams faced the challenge of tackling a fast, high-banked quarter-mile only two weeks before the famed endurance event.

Garrett Hall secured the pole for the 150-lap shootout alongside Modified competitor Matt Swanson, making his first Super Late Model start since 2017 in a team car for points leader D.J. Shaw. Swanson was shoved aside on the start, with Robie surging to the front in the fracas.

Renfrew, racing the same car he drove to victory hours before in the Granite State Pro Stock Series’ Langis Caron 150 at Autodrome Chaudière, made a quick move from seventh on the grid to fourth, dicing his way to second only 26 laps in.

A caution for a slowing Trevor Sanborn bunched up the field, with Renfrew waxing Robie on the restart. Renfrew set sail with wide-open track ahead, but Robie began reeling him in on a long run, catching him as they worked past traffic on lap 92. Slowed only momentarily, Renfrew pulled ahead of Robie, but Robie closed in ten laps later.

Swanson lost control as the leaders loomed large on lap 105, backing into the turn-two wall and bringing out a yellow flag. Shaw had settled into third with Gabe Brown fourth, but Brown was one of many to pit under the yellow for needed adjustments.

Once again, Renfrew pulled out to a significant lead, but Robie had the better long-run package. Robie whittled away Renfrew’s advantage, closing up to Renfrew’s bumper with ten to go.

Not content to shove his way past and leave Renfrew poised to return the favor, Robie kept pressuring Renfrew, finally finding an open lane with five laps to go.

Robie never looked back, hanging on to win his first-ever PASS North Super Late Model race in just his 19th start.

It has been a quick ascent for Robie, the Windham, Me. teen who advanced from Legends cars to ACT Late Models and then Pro Stocks. The third-generation driver largely bypassed weekly racing, winning the GSPSS title and his first Pro Stock race last year.

Despite some rough-and-tumble outings early on, Robie has been refining his craft. He has a wealth of knowledge to draw from: grandfather Carleton raced for years with ACT and the NASCAR Busch North Series, while father Jarod flirted with opportunities outside New England before settling in Maine. Two-time Vermont Milk Bowl winner Marcel Gravel, a weekly regular at Thunder Road International Speedbowl, spots for Robie whenever his racing schedule allows.

The growth is evident: in ten PASS starts this year, Robie has eight top-ten finishes and four top-fives, including a fifth-place finish in July’s Celebration of America 300, plus a win earlier this year with the GSPSS. 

Renfrew, who won July’s PASS tilt at Lee USA Speedway as well as the last two GSPSS races on the calendar, came up just a few laps of sweeping his weekend’s races with a new sponsor on board. Jimmy Hebert, making only his second PASS start of the season, charged to third on the final restart and stayed there to notch a podium finish.

Shaw was fourth, with Sanborn recovering from his early trouble to post a fifth-place finish.

Brown was sixth, the final car on the lead lap, ahead of polesitter Hall. Rookie Kyle Goodbout was eighth, with Joey Doiron and early retiree Swanson rounding out the running order.

The ten-car field was the result of a confluence of circumstances, starting with the rescheduled race date. Few open weekends existed that could accommodate both PASS and ACT’s itineraries. With the date shoehorned into the crucial window before the Oxford 250, with an extra-distance weekly feature at Oxford and the GSPSS event at Chaudière the night before, and with the following weekend occupied by NASCAR’s weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, teams were forced to make tough choices.

Alexendre Tardif, fresh off a win at Oxford, put his full focus into defending his GSPSS win at Chaudière. Johnny Clark, out of the points hunt after skipping a race earlier this year, was not at Riverside, nor was veteran Pat Corbett.

Other racers chose to keep their Oxford cars fresh for the 250. Doiron, who finished tenth in Wednesday’s Battle at Berlin, rolled out an older car for their third race in eight days and never found a competitive pace. Brown borrowed a car from Brian Whalley for the afternoon, slapping his familiar No. 47 on Whalley’s distinctive green ride.

Much like Thunder Road a couple hours away, Riverside has struggled to draw Super Late Models en masse, even with the GSPSS-sanctioned events of the last few years. By comparison, 26 cars attempted the day’s Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour event, though ACT-style Late Models have a strong weekly presence at Riverside and nearby White Mountain Motorsports Park.

But the cars that were there were entries with a big presence in the points fund, pitting Cole Robie against the best PASS has to offer.

And to take his first win, he had to unseat one of the hottest drivers of the summer.

Safe to say, there are more wins to come.

Unofficial Results
PASS North | PASS 150
Riverside Speedway, Groveton, N.H.
1. (29) Cole Robie
2. (00) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
3. (58VT) Jimmy Hebert
4. (60) D.J. Shaw
5. (44) Trevor Sanborn
6. (47) Gabe Brown
7. (94) Garrett Hall
8. (6) Kyle Goodbout
9. (73D) Joey Doiron
10. (60BH) Matthew Swanson

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