The story of the American-Canadian Tour is closely tied to the Northeastern ideal of perseverance and survival. From the ACT’s origins as a successor to the dissolved NASCAR North to its current status as New England’s longest-tenured Late Model sanctioning body, the Vermont-based organization has found ways to stay relevant amid a constantly-changing racing landscape.
Two years ago, the ACT faced a changing of the guard with the unexpected passing of series impresario Thomas Michael Curley. Now, in its second year under new owners Cris Michaud and Pat Malone, the ACT and its flagship Late Model Tour look ahead to an exciting season that breaks new ground while drawing from its own rich history.
For those watching from afar and those heading to Oxford later today, Short Track Scene brings you this year’s American-Canadian Tour Season Preview.
Ten Races
In recent years, the ACT Late Model Tour points race has been decided by a ten-event schedule. Tom Curley felt that, given the many commitments of racers throughout the year, a ten-race schedule was just right for the scale of the tour. Cris Michaud echoed that assertion upon the release of this year’s schedule.
This year’s ACT Tour schedule includes feature races at some of New England’s most storied tracks. The Tour races twice on its home track, Thunder Road International Speedbowl, Vermont’s last remaining paved oval. Two races each will be contested at Maine’s Oxford Plains Speedway and Connecticut’s high-banked Thompson Speedway. New Hampshire’s Star Speedway, after introducing ACT-rules Late Models to its weekly racing card last year, will host the Tour again, as will Quebec’s Autodrome Chaudière. The Tour will add another two races at Michaud and Malone’s latest acquisition, northern New Hampshire’s White Mountain Motorsports Park. One of those is August’s $10,000-to-win Midsummer 250, the longest race on the schedule by lap count.
Three tracks from last year’s schedule had to step aside in 2019, with Lee (N.H.) USA Speedway, New London-Waterford (Conn.) Speedbowl and Speedway 51 all losing race dates. Lee’s long-tenured season opener had been a challenge for teams, with wet weather forcing the rescheduling of the traditional Governor’s Cup for the last few years. The Speedbowl has deep-seated issues of its own to contend with, likely forcing management to make a change. Speedway 51, which has long been a familiar and friendly track for the ACT faithful, is a surprising drop after hosting two competitive races last year.
The ACT schedule is rounded out by a number of non-points events that leave additional prize money on the table for those desiring a deeper schedule. Among these are September’s prestigious Vermont Milk Bowl at Thunder Road and March’s already-contested Commonwealth Classic feature, held on foreign territory at Virginia’s Richmond Raceway. The preseason kickoff was well-attended, suggesting a strong season ahead.
Thinking Local
With the exception of Oxford, where Super Late Models are the marquee weekly division, all of the tracks on the 2019 ACT Tour schedule feature ACT-rules Late Models among their weekly divisions.
This is part of the ACT strategy by design. It is hardly unique to regional touring racing; Maine’s Pro All Stars Series receives quite a boost from local racers at its home dates at Oxford Plains Speedway. But at eight of ten races this year, the ACT Tour regulars will face stout competition from the weekly Late Model warriors as they look to steal one from the visitors.
Two weekly racers managed the feat last year. Thunder Road regular Jason Corliss, who returned to weekly racing after a Tour run in 2017, swept both T-Road races against the touring heroes. And in the season finale at Thompson Speedway, William Wall inherited the win when another local failed post-race technical inspection.
The design of the schedule reflects this local approach, with over half the schedule complete by the end of June. By front-loading Tour events into the early weeks when tracks are just opening for the season, drivers are left with gaps in the summer. While this may not bother those committed fully to the Tour, it may give some weekly racers a chance to add a Tour run to their season plans.
Big Money Up For Grabs
Money is always an issue at the local levels of racing. To that end, the ACT Tour has put big money on the line for its racers throughout the year.
The Midsummer 250 at White Mountain Motorsports Park is the immediate eye-catcher, with $10,000 in purse money for the race winner. The Bacon Bowl 200 at Autodrome Chaudière will offer another $10,000 (in Canadian funds, naturally) prize for the winner.
The season’s first visit to Chaudière in June is the start of this year’s Summer Kickoff Series as well. The three-race series, running through June’s Thompson race and the series’ return to Star Speedway, is marked by $5,000-to-win features and bonuses for multiple-race winners in that stretch.
September’s non-points Milk Bowl is also a $10,000-to-win event, though surely there is some added value in the winner’s celebratory kiss from a cow, and lap-leader money can make a Milk Bowl win particularly lucrative.
A Renewed Canadian Commitment
When the American-Canadian Tour began as a Pro Stock touring series in 1986, it had not only a base of loyal Canadian competitors, but a number of visits to the eastern Canadian provinces as well. When the ACT focused on the more budget-friendly Late Model Tour after 1995, the Canadian focus was closely honed in on the province of Quebec, with only a few token Canadian dates on the schedule.
Since 2007, the Tour’s Canadian presence was largely championed by a Quebec-based affiliate, the Série ACT. In early 2018, the ACT and Série ACT presented harmonized schedules that eliminated all but one conflict between the two, suggesting a new height of cooperation in the Late Model era.
But weeks later, the ACT and Série ACT dissolved their partnership. Série ACT principal Marc Patrick Roy regrouped with a new Late Model tour for his Quebec allies. Until a last-minute non-points event was added to the Tour schedule, it looked like the “C” in “ACT” had become a reminder of the past.
Instead, for the first time since 2015, the ACT Tour will race for championship points in Canada. June’s Claude Leclerc 150, named for the septuagenarian racer nicknamed the “Ironman,” will be contested on familiar turf at Autodrome Chaudière. A non-points event the next day, the Jean-Paul Cabana 125, will be hosted a short distance away at Circuit Riverside Speedway Ste-Croix, creating an effective doubleheader for those making the trip north.
Autodrome Chaudière will also host a second running of the Bacon Bowl non-points event in August, for a total of three Canadian events on the schedule.
Some Canadian drivers have hinted at an ACT Tour title run as well, with the Quebec-based Late Model series having not released concrete plans for a 2019 campaign. Leclerc, who turned 77 last year, and Jonathan Bouvrette are among those who have announced they will run under the ACT banner this year.
Returning Favorites
While Maine’s Pro All Stars Series has attracted New England’s biggest short track names for years, the ACT Tour has cultivated its own class of stars. While circumstances on and off the track can dictate plans for the season, it looks like most of those stars will return for another championship battle.
Despite skipping March’s Commonwealth Classic, two-time and defending champion Scott Payea (#37VT) and Rick Paya’s RPM Motorsports operation are set to return for another title run. Payea and RPM have been the odds-on favorites to win since teaming up three years ago. Payea is still riding a streak of top-ten finishes going back to June 2016, a run of good fortune that bodes well for another championship.
Payea’s strongest challenge to a third title, though, could come from a racer with three titles of his own. Wayne Helliwell, Jr. (#27NH) will return to the Tour full-time for the first time since 2015. Helliwell and his Bernhardt Automotive team turned their focus to Super Late Models in 2016, winning the Oxford 250 that year. However, Helliwell’s fight with multiple sclerosis and advances in the SLM field brought minimal success the last two years, leading the pair to return to their roots for 2019.
Payea’s chief rival in 2019 was Eddie MacDonald, who matched Payea’s two 2019 wins with two of his own. But after a controversial call at the end of the season finale at Thompson, a call that buried MacDonald’s title hopes with only a few laps to go, it seems likely that “The Outlaw” will race elsewhere this year.
The Rising Stars
In recent seasons, two or three dominant drivers have split the season’s races amongst themselves, leaving precious few opportunities for new winners to break out. Last year’s competitive season introduced ACT fans to new winners for the first time in a couple years, and hinted at the performance of some of the series’ rising stars.
Jimmy Hebert (#58VT) leads the charge after a third-place points run in 2018. Hebert returned his family-owned team to victory lane for the first time since 2013, winning twice and showing strength in the face of adversity. Rich Dubeau (#30NH) was unable to find victory lane, but the fourth-year driver led 163 laps in his best season-long performance yet, and will be one to watch as the season presses on. Corey Mason (#1NH) impressed at times in his first full-season effort, earning three top-five finishes against the Tour’s best.
Rookie of the year Dylan Payea (#7NH) will be looking for his own breakthrough season. The younger cousin of Scott, Payea and his family team spun limited resources into three top-ten finishes and a consistent year overall. While resources will likely be a factor, Payea should be able to parlay last year’s consistency into better results this season.
Payea’s three chief rookie competitors will also return, looking to improve on challenging first seasons. Christopher Pelkey (#64VT) has a new car and will hope to dodge the bad luck that doomed his 2018 season. Sisters Reilly (#21VT) and Peyton (#22VT) Lanphear will return for sophomore efforts after a big leap to Tour racing last year.
New Arrivals, Familiar Faces
The ACT Tour will have some new faces in regular competition as well. Ryan Kuhn (#72MA) will make the step up to Tour racing full-time after winning the 2018 Seekonk Speedway Late Model championship. The eighteen-year-old ran three Tour races last year, with two top tens and a worst finish of twelfth.
Two names a bit more familiar to ACT fans will be making their first full-time campaigns on the American Tour, with Jonathan Bouvrette (#41QC) and Jean-François Déry (#21QC) filing full-season entries. Bouvrette has come close to a Tour victory lane in the past, and both Bouvrette and Déry have earned championships in the former Série ACT.
Canadian upstarts Mathieu Kingsbury (#9QC) and Jean-Philippe Bergeron will also join the fray. Kingsbury will race as a teammate to Bouvrette, while second-year star Bergeron has been working with ACT Tour veteran Claude Leclerc (#11QC). Leclerc, who won a heat race at Oxford last year, will run the full Tour schedule once again.
A few drivers are entered for the first few races of the season as a sort of wait-and-see, including Tour winner and Thunder Road champion Bobby Therrien (#5VT). The “Bad Boy” will run the first few races in consideration of a title chase. And at each track, the touring regulars will have to face stout local competition, like Jason Corliss and Scott Dragon at Thunder Road, William Wall and Tom Carey III at Thompson, or multi-time track champion Quinny Welch at White Mountain Motorsports Park.
And after stepping back to a crew chief role on his ACT team the last couple seasons, Joey Polewarczyk, Jr. (#97NH) will run a partial schedule behind the wheel of his Late Model, complementing his part-time Super Late Model schedule. Pole, a longtime supporter of the ACT Tour, took the checkered flag in the Commonwealth Classic feature at Richmond in March. He will surely contend for a few more wins throughout the year.
Predictions & Conclusions
For a few seasons, the American-Canadian Tour struggled with the same issue that has faced NASCAR’s top series in recent years. Despite an influx of new talent and rising stars, and despite the Tour’s best efforts to promote them, the same perennial contenders were there to claim the victories and championships for themselves.
The 2018 season was the season the Tour needed, with rising stars breaking back into victory lane and weekly stars winning against the championship favorites. Until the closing laps at Thompson Speedway, the championship battle was up for grabs.
This year presents more of the same intrigue, with a familiar title rival returning to competition and a few new faces threatening to battle for victory. What will the storyline be in October, as the ACT Tour lines up for the last 75 laps of 2019?
Ultimately, betting against Scott Payea is a fool’s gamble. Since teaming up in 2016, the Payea-Paya combination has been a charmed one, one of the best-funded and most stable combinations in the ACT pit area.
But the pairing of Wayne Helliwell, Jr. and Bruce Bernhardt has been every bit as stout. Helliwell and Bernhardt have three ACT titles and an Oxford 250 to their name. Even after a few years away from full-time ACT competition, Helliwell and team are sure to threaten Payea for Tour supremacy.
The two easy favorites will have to factor in a challenge from Jimmy Hebert, who showed resilience in rebounding from a grinding early-season crash to post his first wins in six years. And with former Canadian champions Jonathan Bouvrette and Jean-François Déry in the field, plus Joey Pole and others looking to steal wins from the full-timers, Payea and Helliwell will have more pedigreed contenders to fend off than the ACT hopefuls have had in years.
The story of the year could even be the season that results from the season ahead. From the long-distance Midsummer 250 to the Tour’s renewed Canadian commitment, some intriguing groundwork is falling into place that could have significant ramifications for the future of the Tour and its platform. The American-Canadian Tour is greater than a single touring series, after all; it defines a platform of budget-conscious bullring competition throughout northern New England and Quebec.
It starts with 150 laps around Oxford, and the season rolls on from there.
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