Gravel goes back-to-back in Vermont Milk Bowl

What do you do to build on a win in Vermont’s most storied stock car race?

You win it again.

Marcel Gravel put together a performance not seen in over two decades, winning Sunday’s 63rd Vermont Milk Bowl presented by Northfield Savings Bank and joining an elite club of racers who have gone back-to-back in the legendary race.

The flagship event of Thunder Road International Speedbowl and the American-Canadian Tour, the Vermont Milk Bowl has long been billed as one of the toughest short-track races in North America. Three 50-lap segments make up the feature event, with full-field inverts setting the starting grid of the second and third segments. The driver with the lowest aggregate finishing position earns the win and the privilege of kissing a Vermont dairy cow in the winner’s circle.

While the race pays no points toward the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour championship, attendance is required to receive credit for full-time status toward the season-long purse payout.

Gravel, the defending winner of the Vermont Milk Bowl, topped Booth Bros./Hood Milk Qualifying Day a day earlier, edging out four-time “King of the Road” Jason Corliss by a thousandth of a second for the pole position. Kaiden Fisher and Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour points leader Raphaël Lessard won the afternoon’s qualifying heats to set the starting grid. Stephen Donahue won Sunday’s B-feature to lock the final contenders into the race.

The 31-car starting field took the green Sunday afternoon, with a first-lap crash ending the day for Bryan Wall, Jr., Brandon Gray, and Erick Sands. Lessard tested Gravel early in the first segment, but the Wolcott, Vt. native powered back to the point, taking the first-segment win and dropping to the back for the second segment.

The field invert paid off, as contact on the second-segment start piled up the field heading into turn one. Another handful of contenders were towed off for repairs, leaving Trevor Jaques and Cole Littlewood at the head of the field. Neither the weekly rookie nor the Tour sophomore would last out front as Gravel carved his way through traffic to take the segment-two win.

Not since 1998 had a driver won the first two segments of the Vermont Milk Bowl. Gravel was now looking to match Robbie Crouch and Dave Dion, the only two drivers to win all three. Corliss, with third-place finishes in both segments, was gunning to tie Crouch and Nick Sweet with a fourth Vermont Milk Bowl win.

However, Stephen Martin would plant himself at the front of the field in the third segment while Corliss and Gravel clawed their way back to the front. The midseason replacement in the CSV Motorsports entry showed the way in a brisk third leg, taking the checkered flag after ending the second segment in 18th. Heat winner Fisher was second.

Gravel crossed the line in third, scoring only five points on the afternoon to secure the overall Vermont Milk Bowl win.

Gravel’s winning score is the lowest score for a Vermont Milk Bowl winner since veteran Brian Hoar in 1998. Hoar’s father Doug won the third segment that season, giving Brian a four-point score that had been untouchable for years.

“Micro Marcel” is the seventh driver to win back-to-back Vermont Milk Bowls and the first since Corliss managed the feat in 2017 and 2018.

Corliss, the recently-crowned Thunder Road track champion, finished fifth in the final segment to place second overall. Top fives for Fisher in all three segments ranked him third, best among the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour full-timers. Christopher Pelkey was scored fourth with Lessard rounding out the top five.

Quebec’s Patrick Laperle, a three-time winner and the last Canadian to win the race back in 2008, edged out Tour regular Derek Gluchacki for sixth. Jesse Switser was scored eighth with Martin’s third-segment heroics placing him ninth in the final rundown. Thunder Road Flying Tigers regular Logan Powers, who battled back from a practice crash to earn a “last man standing” provisional, started last but rounded out the top ten in his first Vermont Milk Bowl appearance.

With a number of bonuses, including a $5,000 premium for scoring fewer than six points, Gravel took home a record $21,900 for his efforts.

One person potentially displeased with the outcome was Cole Robie, who was nowhere near the Barre, Vt. oval on Sunday. Gravel regularly spots for the young Maine racer, who clinched the Granite State Pro Stock Series crown at Lee USA Speedway the same day.

The history of the Vermont Milk Bowl inspires many racers to don throwback liveries for the weekend, and Gravel was no exception. Drawing from longtime supporter and former racer “Pistol Pete” Fecteau, Gravel forfeited his usual number in favor of Fecteau’s all-white scheme from the early 2000s. Brian Hoar sported a season-long tribute to father Doug, while Hoar’s daughter Taylor paid tribute to Tracie Bellerose, Thunder Road’s only “Queen of the Road.” Gluchacki, a longtime participant of the Kulwicki Driver Development Program with Polish-American heritage of his own, opted for a throwback of Kulwicki’s late-1980s livery.

Not all throwbacks were reverent in nature. Tour regular Gabe Brown restyled his entry as an homage to controversial New Hampshire racing personality and short-term Star Speedway operator Bobby “The Showstoppa” MacArthur. Brown’s new look indeed stopped the show, as he was sidelined in the second segment.

From retro wraps to a bagpipe band to the bovine beauty queen, the Vermont Milk Bowl is steeped in tradition and imagery that merges the modern incarnations of Thunder Road and the American-Canadian Tour with its history-laden past. Both the track and the sanctioning body trade on legacy, carrying on events whose history transcends the ACT brand itself.

Gravel, himself a second-generation racer, has found a way in an intensely-competitive region to carve out his own place in Thunder Road’s history.

Unofficial Results
63rd Vermont Milk Bowl presented by Northfield Savings Bank
Thunder Road International Speedbowl, Barre, Vt.
1. (75VT) Marcel J. Gravel
2. (66VT) Jason Corliss
3. (18VT) Kaiden Fisher
4. (64VT) Christopher Pelkey
5. (48QC) Raphaël Lessard
6. (91QC) Patrick Laperle
7. (7AK) Derek Gluchacki
8. (25NH) Jesse Switser
9. (45NH) Stephen Martin
10. (31CT) Logan Powers
11. (04VT) Justin Prescott
12. (16VT) Brandon Lanphear
13. (2NH) Taylor Hoar
14. (68VT) Brooks Clark
15. (55VT) Keegan Lamson
16. (57VT) Trevor Jaques
17. (4VT) Scott Coburn
18. (99VT) Cody Blake
19. (73MA) Cole Littlewood
20. (46VT) Brian Hoar
21. (58VT) Jimmy Hebert
22. (0VT) Scott Dragon
23. (60BH) D.J. Shaw
24. (55BM) Gabe Brown
25. (26VT) Stephen Donahue
26. (41QC) Jonathan Bouvrette
27. (17VT) Darrell Morin
28. (33QC) Rémi Perreault
29. (00VT) Brandon Gray
30. (6VT) Bryan Wall, Jr.
31. (36NH) Erick Sands

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