Beaulieu earns first career GSPSS win at Speedway 95

Redemption. Remembrance. Respect.

Saturday night at Speedway 95, Evan Beaulieu was racing for all three.

Beaulieu earned an emotional first career Granite State Pro Stock Series victory, dominating the second half of the evening’s 125-lap showdown in the series he now calls home.

Not that the win came without challenge.

Speedway 95 has been GSPSS’ sole Maine venue since 2023. The third-mile oval in Hermon, Me. has maintained an intriguing statistic: following the GSPSS’ first race in Maine in 2016, won by D.J. Shaw, every series race held in the Pine Tree State since has been won by a Maine driver.

Beaulieu topped the speed charts in practice and time trials, but a missed shift took him out of contention for the heat race win. Rolling off midpack for the feature, Beaulieu was caught up in a first-lap conflagration that sidelined local Nick Jenkins and long-hauler Cory Casagrande. Beaulieu’s car had some body damage, but nothing that could not be remedied in the pits.

Defending champion Casey Call and former Speedway 95 winner Josh St. Clair spent the early laps at the front of the field, but Beaulieu wove his way through traffic, cracking the top three forty laps in. Beaulieu caught St. Clair, making the pass for the lead with 42 laps on the scoreboard. Once out front, he pulled away from St. Clair, building a formidable lead under green.

Two cautions just past halfway gave St. Clair a momentary reprieve, but the Wiscasset Speedway veteran had nothing for Beaulieu on long runs.

And with clear track ahead on a long run to the checkers, Beaulieu set sail en route to a .615-second margin of victory.

St. Clair, who has finished no worse than third in four prior Speedway 95 attempts, held on for second. Cole Robie finished third, keeping his strong streak in GSPSS competition alive. Casey Call wrapped the evening in fourth, while local standout Ryan Deane rounded out the top five.

Series sophomore Morgan Call made his season debut in sixth, with fellow Mainers Jamie Wright and D.C. Alexander in tow. Claremont winner Wayne Helliwell, Jr. made the long trip north for his first-ever start at Speedway 95, but dropped out early and was scored ninth in the final rundown. Bryan Lancaster rounded out the top ten.

Beaulieu’s victory kept the state’s stranglehold alive, as he joined St. Clair, Garrett Hall, and Mike Hopkins as Speedway 95 feature winners.

But the win was a milestone for the Beaulieu family in many ways.

Rising through the ranks of karting and Legends cars, Beaulieu spent his formative stock car years at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough. The Durham, Me. driver supplemented his weekly Pro Series schedule with the occasional touring start. But that changed at the end of 2021, when Beech Ridge was unexpectedly and permanently shuttered. Like so many local racers, Beaulieu was left without a track to call home.

Beaulieu ran a limited Pro All Stars Series schedule in 2022, but struggled to find top-ten consistency. Looking back to his performance in a limited 2021 GSPSS campaign, Beaulieu returned to the New Hampshire-based tour in 2023, running all but one race with promising results. For 2024, Beaulieu set his sights on the GSPSS championship chase.

After a slow start to the year, Beaulieu came close to victory last July at Speedway 95, leading the first 48 laps before spinning while defending his lead. Beaulieu finished a disappointing fifth. But troubles for title rival Casey Call hinted at a swing in momentum, with Beaulieu taking the points lead a week later and carrying a strong advantage through the rest of the season.

In the season finale at Lee, though, the pendulum swung back. Call, getting the hang of his new car, had a strong race while Beaulieu struggled with handling and track position. Call nipped Beaulieu by a single point to clinch the championship honors.

Concerned with the performance of their aging mount in the second half of the season, Beaulieu and his father Todd took a leap of faith, ordering a new chassis from Alan Berry, who prepares cars for former Beech Ridge regular Corey Bubar. Beaulieu and his team outfitted the new chassis in the offseason, but would have to wait until May to see what kind of speed Berry and fellow chassis guru Robbie Harrison had built into the new ride.

In the GSPSS season opener at Claremont, Beaulieu charged to a sixth-place finish in the final laps. Only two days later, Beaulieu’s mother Lesha passed away after a decade-long battle with cancer, a devastating loss for the close-knit family.

Saturday’s race was Beaulieu’s first race since his mother’s passing. In her memory, he applied Lesha’s favorite color, yellow, to the roof number of his car.

Not only was Beaulieu able to share the winner’s circle with his mother in spirit, but he was able to share it for the first time with both wife Lindsey and daughter Millie.

Saturday was about redemption for last July’s spin and October’s narrow defeat. It was about remembrance of one of his biggest supporters. And it was about earning the respect afforded a feature winner, particularly in a series where outsiders score a plurality of the feature wins.

The GSPSS schedule accelerates into the summer with this Sunday’s Gate City Classic at Hudson Speedway. Beaulieu managed a podium at the New Hampshire oval last summer. The state’s quarter-miles are some of his best tracks.

Time will tell if the pendulum from last year is still swinging back.

Unofficial Results
Granite State Pro Stock Series | GSPSS 125
Speedway 95, Hermon, Me.
1. (56) Evan Beaulieu
2. (14) Josh St. Clair
3. (29) Cole Robie
4. (90NH) Casey Call
5. (22) Ryan Deane
6. (95) Morgan Call
7. (84) Jamie Wright
8. (7A) D.C. Alexander
9. (27NH) Wayne Helliwell, Jr.
10. (81ME) Bryan Lancaster
11. (28) James Doucette
12. (32) Nick Jenkins
13. (7CT) Cory Casagrande

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