Gluchacki makes comeback statement with ACT Spring Green win

After two challenging weeks and two wrecked race cars, Derek Gluchacki was eager for an opportunity to rebound.

Wednesday’s Spring Green was the perfect time and place to bounce back.

Gluchacki grabbed the lead from a dominant D.J. Shaw to win the 50th running of one of the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour’s most storied events on a hot early-summer night.

The Spring Green, first held in 1974 at the long-gone Catamount Stadium in Vermont, has been contested at Seekonk Speedway since 2023. Oddly, only once has the Seekonk edition of the event been held in its titular season. The 2023 inaugural was rain-delayed into August. This year’s race, held in conjunction with the Monaco Modified Tri-Track Series as part of a reimagined late-June midweek show, took place days after the official start of summer.

This year’s race also took place only four days after the Claude Leclerc 150 at Autodrome Chaudière, giving teams a tight window in which to turn around and race again.

Gluchacki did not make the trip to Chaudière, but he was hardly refreshed. The North Dartmouth, Mass. contender bowed out of the international excursion after back-to-back wrecks, needing a little extra time to get his fleet race-ready.

After a brief rain delay, Gluchacki foreshadowed his car’s potency, joining Joey Polewarczyk and Brandon Lambert as heat winners. Shaw, who topped the plus-minus pool with a motivated drive in the second heat, claimed the pole with Canadian competitor Rémi Perreault starting outside.

Shaw made quick work of Perreault, who held on for second as Jesse Switser held back defending race winner Kasey Beattie. Gluchacki, who gridded seventh, picked his way through the pack, ultimately clawing his way to second by a lap-60 caution.

Coming off his best finish of the year at Chaudière, Shaw remained dominant, but the arrival of one-time rival Gluchacki kept the New Hampshire native on his toes. Winless since last August, Gluchacki worked over Shaw, who parried back at every corner.

But with 25 laps left in the short-distance shootout, Shaw’s advantage began to ebb. Gluchacki found his opening at last on lap 109, then fended off the two-time Tour titlist to pick up his ninth career Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour win and his first at the “Action Track of the East.”

Shaw, still searching for a first ACT win for his family-backed effort, finished a season-best second. While wins matter to the six-time Pro All Stars Series championship operation, Shaw’s first season with wife Mallory as the owner of record has produced top tens in five of six races with a worst result so far of 11th.

Defending race winner Beattie finished a solid third, giving the struggling sophomore podium finishes in two of his last three starts. Points leader Raphaël Lessard was fourth with early frontrunner Switser fifth, also placing Dale Shaw Race Cars chassis in three of the top five slots.

Erick Sands, a first-time winner in last fall’s Haunted Hundred at Seekonk, was sixth. Outside polesitter Perreault held on for seventh, his best career finish and his first top-ten result in the United States. Former Spring Green winner Polewarczyk was eighth, with Tom Carey III and home track favorite David Darling rounding out the top ten.

Defending Tour champion Gabe Brown struggled through the night, stalling on the track to bring out a caution on lap 46. Brown soldiered on to finish a lap down in 21st.

Curiously absent from the lineup was Claude Leclerc 150 feature winner Alexendre Tardif. After starting the first four races of the season for car owner Jason Glaude and Team 31 Racing, “Fireball” rolled out his familiar Roy Motorsports entry in Canada to take the checkered flag on home turf. Tardif was seventh in points after his win. Glaude’s team was back in action at Seekonk, but with longtime Team 31 pilot Ryan Morgan at the wheel. With Tardif’s absence, twice this season has the most recent race winner not been in the field for the next event.

Gluchacki’s first win of the season, and his first career Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour win at Seekonk, was also the first win for a Massachusetts native at the “Cement Palace” since the Tour’s first visit in 1983. The 1983 appearance, won by Vermonter Steve Poulin, was still under NASCAR’s branding prior to the modern American-Canadian Tour’s inception.

Gluchacki also set records for the Kulwicki Driver Development Program, in which the 23-year-old has been a finalist for the last two years. Gluchacki’s eighth win under the KDDP banner was also the program’s first feature win at Seekonk and its first in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

But most importantly, the win soothed the frustrations of the past month.

A perennial ACT title contender, Gluchacki started the season out with a third-place run at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and eighth place at Star Speedway. At Thunder Road, a track that has stymied Gluchacki for years, he ran midpack before fading to a 22nd-place finish. The next week, at White Mountain Motorsports Park, he was cleaned out at the tail end of a pileup, retiring with radiator damage and finishing 26th.

Undaunted, Gluchacki brought his second car to Riverside Speedway the following Friday for the track’s $20,000-to-win Keith Morse Memorial. Gluchacki was awarded the $500 long-haul bonus, but the prize was quickly erased by a lap-six wreck that dealt severe damage to Gluchacki’s car. Now with two wrecked cars, and precious few weekday hours to pick up the pieces, Gluchacki was stopped in his tracks.

Needing additional time to get one of his cars ready, Gluchacki and his team opted out of traveling to Chaudière. Steven Boissonneault, one of the Quebec locals, ran Gluchacki’s number to keep the team in the “100%” pool that ensures a full championship fund payout. But Boissonneault failed to qualify for the feature, earning minimal points toward the title effort.

Gluchacki now sits eighth in the standings, 181 likely-insurmountable markers behind Lessard. The ACT championship has proven elusive to Gluchacki since his full-time presence on the Tour. He was forced to skip Canadian events in 2022 due to stringent border requirements; in 2023, a late-season surge was stalled by a heat race wreck that kept him from making a start at Thunder Road. Since 2021, Gluchacki has finished no worse than fourth in points, but he has only made every start twice.

However, Gluchacki’s win moves him to second in the Brookside Equipment Sales Triple Crown, only one marker behind Shaw. The final event in the Triple Crown is September’s Fall Foliage 200 at WMMP. Gluchacki has shown plenty of speed at the track in the past, though in his last four Tour races there, his best finish is 10th.

But well over half the season remains ahead. Even if the championship is the longest of long shots, Gluchacki has plenty to race for.

Unofficial Results
Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour | 50th Spring Green 125
Seekonk Speedway, Seekonk, Mass.
1. (03MA) Derek Gluchacki
2. (60BH) D.J. Shaw
3. (45NH) Kasey Beattie
4. (48QC) Raphaël Lessard
5. (25NH) Jesse Switser
6. (36NH) Erick Sands
7. (33QC) Rémi Perreault
8. (97NH) Joey Polewarczyk
9. (5MA) Tom Carey III
10. (52MA) David Darling
11. (12RI) Bobby Pelland III
12. (18VT) Kaiden Fisher
13. (27MA) Chase Curtis
14. (27NH) Cam Huntress
15. (0NH) Brandon Barker
16. (31CT) Ryan Morgan
17. (98MA) Ryan Flood
18. (72MA) Ryan Kuhn
19. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
20. (29MA) Joshua Hedges
21. (47NH) Gabe Brown
22. (47MA) Justin Storace
23. (17RI) Vinnie Arrenegado, Jr.
24. (41QC) Brandon Lambert
25. (02MA) Geoff Rollins
26. (22VT) Peyton Lanphear
DNS (31BT) Brody Monahan

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