Cole Butcher came agonizingly close to victory twice last year at Hickory Motor Speedway. Instead, the Canadian star settled for a runner-up finish and a strong run spoiled by a late crash.
This year, Butcher made up for lost time.
The 2022 Oxford 250 winner swept Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day 150 and Easter Bunny 150, the season-opening double feature for the Pro All Stars Series Super Late Models.
Butcher held off rookie Max Cookson in both races to take his fourth and fifth career PASS-sanctioned wins on the same afternoon.
Rain washed out on-track activity on Friday, forcing Friday night’s feature program to run on Saturday and condensing 650 laps of feature racing into a single-day show at the “Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars.”
The Porters Lake, N.S. native made his second race easier, then, by staying at the front in the first. Running at the head of the pack, Butcher missed a big wreck in the St. Patrick’s Day 150 when Josh King’s drivetrain issues oiled down the track behind him. A handful of cars were swept into a grinding crash that ended the afternoon for Nick Jenkins and ended the race early for Trevor Sanborn and Jeremy Davis, among others.
Mike Hopkins, a recent CARS Pro Late Model Tour winner at Southern National Motorsports Park, took the lead from reigning PASS North champ Ryan Kuhn, but Butcher seized the top spot on a restart with a third of the race remaining. Hopkins would peel off a few laps later, with Cookson pursuing Butcher until a caution flag froze the field with three laps to go.
Butcher held off the fast rookie on the final green-flag run to take his fourth career win under the PASS banner and his second PASS National Championship checkered flag. Butcher’s win in last August’s Oxford 250 was also a part of the touring organization’s National Championship crown.
Cookson, who won his first PASS feature last fall after clinching the Oxford Plains Speedway track championship, held on for second with Kuhn third. Brandon Barker was fourth with five-time PASS North champ DJ Shaw fifth. Joey Doiron, in his first start for Petit Motorsports, was a strong sixth.
Garrett Hall was seventh, ahead of New York’s Michael Scorzelli. Andy Shaw, a five-time PASS Modified titlist and DJ’s older cousin, finished ninth in his first PASS Super Late Model start since 2015. Shawn Knight rounded out the top ten.
The remainder of Friday’s feature program gave teams a reprieve to prepare for the Easter Bunny 150, but the same names bubbled back to the top once the green flag flew. Hopkins, seeking his first PASS win since 2019, planted himself at the front of the field, leading plenty of laps. But the handling on his black No. 15 faded late in the feature, backing him into the clutches of Butcher.
Butcher and Cookson got by the Maine veteran, with Butcher wheeling the Atlantic Tiltload Toyota to his second win of the day and his fifth career PASS win.
Cookson and Hopkins completed the podium. Brandon Barker notched a second fourth-place finish and Garrett Hall rounded out the top five.
Kuhn was sixth, ahead of Canadian Kyle Reid and 2020 Snowflake 100 winner Jake Johnson. Trevor Sanborn unloaded a backup car after the first race and drove to a ninth-place finish for Richard Moody Racing. Andy Shaw completed a successful weekend for car owner Dale Drew with a tenth-place run.
Twenty-two cars started the St. Patrick’s Day 150, with eighteen remaining to take the green for the Easter Bunny 150 a few hours later. Most of those teams made the long trip from the cold Northeast, with Ryan Moore the only local challenger. Moore, son of 1995 NASCAR Busch North Series champion Kelly and once a big-time prospect himself, won last year’s first of two Easter Bunny 150s, but was sidelined in the first race this year and could not make the start of the second.
Butcher has been following a similar path. A two-time East Coast International Pro Stock Tour champion and one of the drivers to beat in the Canadian Maritimes, Butcher is not anonymous in American touring racing. Butcher took his first PASS North win in 2018 in a race at Petty International Raceway in New Brunswick, but a victory on American soil had eluded him, and the 2020 pandemic put a pause on the family’s cross-border competition.
Since then, Butcher has split his time between the Maritimes and chasing greater racing dreams in the States. An early-season PASS win at Oxford set the stage for last August, when Butcher won the Oxford 250 after controversial late-race contact with fan favorite Johnny Clark. Butcher has also partnered with Donnie Wilson Racing to run select national-level events.
Wilson fielded NASCAR star William Byron’s winning entry in last year’s Easter Bunny 150.
The story of the weekend, though, may have been Cookson. The young racer from Pittsfield, Me. has proven to be a quick study at the wheel of a Super Late Model. In addition to last year’s weekly championship at Oxford, Cookson ran eight PASS features, most at his home track. Cookson finished no worse than seventh in his last five starts, including a fifth-place finish at the Oxford 250, a near-victory at Thunder Road before he was spun from the lead, and a dominating win in the season’s final event at Oxford. At Hickory, a track he had never raced at, Cookson finished second twice. The sky is the limit as Cookson embarks on his first full PASS North season.
That season starts in two weeks in Connecticut at Thompson Speedway, where PASS will once again open the year with two of the fastest tracks on the schedule.
And while some of PASS’ heavy hitters will be unloading for the first time, Cookson, DJ Shaw and others have already knocked some of the offseason rust free.
Unofficial Results
PASS National Championship St. Patrick’s Day 150
Hickory Motor Speedway
1. (53) Cole Butcher
2. (39) Max Cookson
3. (72) Ryan Kuhn
4. (88) Brandon Barker
5. (60) DJ Shaw
6. (7D) Joey Doiron
7. (94) Garrett Hall
8. (18) Michael Scorzelli
9. (50) Andy Shaw
10. (25) Shawn Knight
11. (15MA) Jake Johnson
12. (42) Kyle Reid
13. (24J) JP Josiasse
14. (15) Mike Hopkins
15. (5) Ben Rowe
16. (74) Ryan Moore
17. (21) Josh King
18. (12) Dennis Spencer, Jr.
19. (44) Trevor Sanborn
20. (32) Nick Jenkins
21. (09) Jeremy Davis
22. (96) Wyatt Alexander
Unofficial Results
PASS National Championship Easter Bunny 150
Hickory Motor Speedway
1. (53) Cole Butcher
2. (39) Max Cookson
3. (15) Mike Hopkins
4. (88) Brandon Barker
5. (94) Garrett Hall
6. (72) Ryan Kuhn
7. (42) Kyle Reid
8. (15MA) Jake Johnson
9. (44) Trevor Sanborn
10. (50) Andy Shaw
11. (7D) Joey Doiron
12. (60) DJ Shaw
13. (96) Wyatt Alexander
14. (18) Michael Scorzelli
15. (24J) JP Josiasse
16. (25) Shawn Knight
17. (09) Jeremy Davis
18. (5) Ben Rowe
DNS (12) Dennis Spencer, Jr.
DNS (74) Ryan Moore
DNS (21) Josh King
DNS (32) Nick Jenkins
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