Gabe Brown can be forgiven for feeling like White Mountain Motorsports Park owes him. The track is simultaneously the site of some of his biggest wins and some of his biggest disappointments.
Saturday night’s Bar Harbor Bank & Trust Fall Foliage 200 was definitely one of the former.
Brown dominated the 46th running of the signature American-Canadian Tour tilt to earn a long-overdue first ACT Tour win of 2024. And maybe, just maybe, the score is settled.
“I feel like this track’s owed me one since the White Mountain 250 last year,” Brown said. “This thing’s been killer for a long time, and I’m glad that we finally got a good win up here for my guys.”
The firebrand from Center Conway, N.H. entered the weekend carrying the ACT Tour points lead on the back of a consistent season. But Brown desperately wanted a win to reflect the effort he and his team had poured into their ACT program all year. And the year’s second trip to WMMP, where Brown had clinched the three-race Wall’s Ford Platinum Series mini-championship a week before, was a perfect place to do so.
Brown was only fourth in his heat, but with his toughest competitors handicapped on the grid by wins earlier in the season, the second-year ACT Tour full-timer rolled off eighth, ahead of title rivals D.J. Shaw, Derek Gluchacki, and rookie Kasey Beattie.
Sophomore Bryan Wall, Jr. and Erick Sands brought the 28-car field to green, with Sands securing the lead quickly. Two laps in, Beattie’s hopes of a home track win took a hit as he spun off the turn-two banking. Beattie tagged in at the tail of the field, avoiding a caution and leaving him with a long road ahead.
Contact between Tom Carey III and Philippe Poulin brought out the first caution on lap 9, sparing Beattie from the risk of losing a lap early. Sands got ahead of Wall on the restart, but Brown was coming fast. Brown made the move for second on lap 24, and two laps later he slipped by Sands to take the lead for the first time.
Gluchacki teetered on the edge of the top ten, playing the long game, but the Massachusetts contender began dropping back with overheating issues. Gluchacki pulled his ailing car to the pits as Justin Prescott came to a stop with a flat tire, bringing out the second yellow flag of the night on lap 35.
Rookie Kaiden Fisher, the recently-crowned “King of the Road” at nearby Thunder Road International Speedbowl, had marched to third and joined the top-three battle for the next restart, but Brown held steady out front. Sands, shuffled to fourth, fought off advances from Jamie Swallow, Jr. and Jesse Switser. Switser got by Swallow for fifth while street stock veteran Jason Woodard’s trouble brought out successive cautions.
Brown was still in command when Prescott and Carey got together and careened headlong into the turn-three tire barrier, bringing out a red flag on lap 56. As the two cars were plucked from the barrier and returned to the pits, a handful of drivers opted to make their mid-race stop early.
Brown was among those who stayed out, and within ten laps of the restart he was chewing through slower traffic. Remi Perreault’s lap-68 spin brought out the yellow, though, and this time Brown, Fisher, Shaw and Alexendre Tardif were among those who made their pit stops.
Wall and Sands cycled back to the lead, opening up a gap on Brandon Gray and Patrick Laperle as Brown, Tardif and Shaw carved their way through the pack. Beattie, who had pitted under the red flag, was ahead of them, breaking into the top five on a long green-flag run.
Beattie was fourth and Brown was knocking on the door of the top five when Justin Storace went around in turn four, bringing the yellow out on lap 115 and bunching the leaders up again.
Wall was first to the green flag, but Sands took the lead back on lap 119, leaving Wall to deal with Brown and Beattie in his mirror. A stack-up in two following a Storace spin brought out another yellow on lap 131, with another restart to follow.
Sands inched ahead on the restart, but a lap later Wall charged up the outside, with Brown and Beattie making quick work of the early leader to take second and third. Brown outgunned Wall a few laps later, taking the lead on lap 137, a lap before Fisher spun with a flat tire to bring out the ninth caution of the night.
This time, it was Wall who was shuffled out of the lead pack, with Tardif and Swallow racing their way into the top four. Another spin for Fisher slowed the race on lap 156, but Brown continued to show the way, leading Beattie and Tardif through traffic. As the lap counter grew, Brown appeared to have his first win of the year well in hand.
But then Reilly Lanphear went around in turn one, bringing the yellow back out on lap 191 and setting up a nine-lap dash to the finish.
Brown surprisingly took the outside line for the restart, handing the preferred inside groove to Beattie. Brown fired off fast, though, closing the door on Beattie for the lead. Behind them, a scramble ensued in the back half of the top ten, with veteran Laperle taking Sands and Shaw three wide through turn two. Laperle’s bold move pinched Shaw into the backstretch wall, and the two-time champion spun back into traffic, collecting Sands and scattering debris down the backstretch as the field slowed for the yellow with seven to go.
Restarting on the inside this time, Brown led the field back to green, but the run was short-lived as Sammy Gooden spun off turn two with a flat tire. The field was quickly re-racked for another restart with Brown and Beattie out front.
And though he had to dodge a sluggish Lanphear in the closing run, Brown was untouchable in the final seven laps as he became the ACT Tour’s tenth different winner in 11 races this year.
While Gooden and Gray squared off in turn two after the race, Brown lit up the frontstretch with a smoke show to celebrate a win that he had waited all season to score.
While Beattie was his closest competition in the final laps, it was Tardif who tested Brown’s maturity the most as they worked through traffic.
“I have zero patience with anything, ever,” said Brown, “and it shows a lot on the race track. I just knew Tardif there kept shuffling cars up in front of me, and I had to either shuffle them further up or just get back in line behind them. He was doing the best he could do to keep me behind him. He owes me one and I’m aware of it, and I was expecting it tonight, but I enjoy racing with those guys, and they’re a great group of people. We knew we had a really good car, and just had to let things play out and go forward.”
Brown also had to consider the close calls with Lanphear, his longtime girlfriend, though he shrugged off the notion that the lap-191 yellow jeopardized his chances.
“I knew that wasn’t what was going to cost me the race that way,” he said. “If it got into my tires, I’d probably be pretty upset. She’s probably scared to come down here and see me, but I’m happy that I won.”
After spinning on the second lap, Beattie was thrilled to come home second in front of his home track fans.
“I honestly thought our night was ruined,” the St. Johnsbury, Vt. rookie said. “We got it going, and I didn’t want to pull a yellow, it was too early in the race. I felt we had a good enough car to not go a lap down, and the yellow came out right after that, so we were able to be right with the back of the field and try to drive back through the field.”
From there, it was all strategy. “We knew our pit window was the first yellow after lap 50, to give me time to work my way up through the field, and to try and undercut anyone else who would pit and get track position,” he explained. “So the first fifty laps there, I was kinda just balls to the wall, I guess, just trying to drive to the front and to see where my car was at, and what we needed to do at the pit stop.”
As for the late restart and lane choice, Beattie brushed it off as a strategic slip. “We were working a deal with Gabe,” he said. “I felt that getting the track position, getting back single-filed out and then getting a shot at him would be better. We had a little miscommunication there when he picked the top. I think he thought we wanted the bottom, and I was just lucky enough that the guys behind us didn’t get a good enough restart, and I was able to slide right up in front of them.”
But that was all Beattie had to give. “Even if he had picked the top straight up, I don’t think I would have been able to pass him cleanly,” he said. “I would have had to drive straight through him, and I wasn’t gonna do that after he passed me cleanly earlier in the night.”
Tardif, the young Canadian who picked up his first ACT Tour win earlier this year, finished third for his fourth podium performance of 2024.
“Our car is pretty good on the long run,” he said. “Just on the short run, it’s harder for me, but on the long run it’s really good. So I waited until the end and gave it all at the end, and it worked! Especially on the outside.”
Tardif had his hands full with Swallow during the race. “I think I was better than him, but once he was on the outside, and me on the inside, I think I gave him a little bit too much room,” he said. “So I spun my tires, exit of two, so he was getting by me, but I was a little bit faster than him. But once I figured it out in my head, I get in on the inside and after that, I was gone.”
Swallow matched his best run of 2024 with a fourth-place finish. Joey Polewarczyk, a three-time Fall Foliage winner at Airborne Park Speedway and WMMP, wheeled one of the oldest cars in the field to his best ACT performance this year with a fifth-place finish.
WMMP regular Kyle Goodbout survived the late conflagration to come home a surprising sixth, ahead of Wall and Laperle. Jeremy Sorel persevered from a 24th-place start to finish ninth, while Labor Day Classic winner Scott Dragon rounded out the top ten.
Sands and Shaw soldiered on after the hard crash on lap 193, finishing 11th and 13th.
Brown’s first win of the year coincided with a night to forget for most of his championship rivals. With two races left to settle the score, Brown has a 70-point lead on reigning champion Shaw. Beattie, Tardif and Gluchacki are a few points back of Shaw, separated by a point a piece.
Not that Brown is comforted by the spread, after a sure shot at the title last year went up in smoke in the season finale. “I thought I had it wrapped up after the last race here last year, going into Waterford,” he admitted, “and I would never think I’d have it wrapped up until the day’s over championship night.”
While Brown’s stock car career took shape at Oxford Plains Speedway, WMMP is the track he has come to love. Only an hour from home, it is the site of his second Pro All Stars Series win, numerous weekly feature Late Model wins, and the 2024 Wall’s Ford Platinum Series championship he clinched a week ago.
But there are the lowlights, too: a 2022 PASS win that was reversed due to an improperly-mounted transponder, last year’s ACT Midsummer Classic 250 when a late charge to the front was derailed in a multi-car wreck, a hard crash in July’s PASS race that took him out of title contention, and this August’s Midsummer Classic, where a flat tire slowed him while running second.
“I just love this place,” Brown said. “There’s no better race track anywhere, ever, in the country. This place is badass, and Cris [Michaud, track co-owner] and [race director Scott] Tapley and all the guys do an awesome job up here. They goop it, they goop other lanes, they goop other things, and the track’s just badass, and tonight proved it.”
Brown’s love of WMMP will only go so far in the final rounds of the ACT Tour championship race. Brown has yet to run an ACT Tour race at Thompson Speedway, despite years of PASS experience. He does have a pair of top-five finishes in two ACT features at Seekonk Speedway, the site of the season finale.
But only twice this year has Brown finished worse than sixth in an ACT Tour event.
If he can match that standard, the title should be well within reach.
Unofficial Results
ACT Late Model Tour | Bar Harbor Bank & Trust Fall Foliage 200
White Mountain Motorsports Park, North Woodstock, N.H.
1. (47NH) Gabe Brown
2. (45NH) Kasey Beattie
3. (21QC) Alexendre Tardif
4. (4NH) Jamie Swallow, Jr.
5. (97NH) Joey Polewarczyk
6. (17NH) Kyle Goodbout
7. (77NH) Bryan Wall, Jr.
8. (91QC) Patrick Laperle
9. (7MA) Jeremy Sorel
10. (0VT) Scott Dragon
11. (36NH) Erick Sands
12. (18VT) Kaiden Fisher
13. (04VT) D.J. Shaw
14. (68NH) Jason Woodard
15. (27NH) Cam Huntress
16. (00VT) Brandon Gray
17. (01VT) Stephen Martin
18. (6NH) Sammy Gooden
19. (33QC) Remi Perreault
20. (49NH) Matt Anderson
21. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
22. (21VT) Reilly Lanphear
23. (33P) Philippe Poulin
24. (47MA) Justin Storace
25. (25NH) Jesse Switser
26. (46X) Justin Prescott
27. (5MA) Tom Carey III
28. (03MA) Derek Gluchacki
29. (01GC) Dylan Payea
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