Races at Thunder Road International Speedbowl often come down to a matter of survival.
For Jimmy Hebert, it was literally a matter of being the last man standing.
Hebert held off Alex Quarterley and Rusty Poland to win Saturday’s Pro All Stars Series North PASS SLM 150, topping off Thunder Road’s Booth Bros./Hood Milk Bowl Qualifying Day in anticipation of the track’s 62nd Vermont Milk Bowl.
The podium finishers were the sole survivors of a late-race conflagration that decimated the field and left PASS’ championship hopefuls with lots of work to do before next week’s visit to one of the fastest tracks on the schedule.
To get there, though, the Maine-based Super Late Model touring series had to make its only stop of the year at the “Nation’s Site of Excitement,” the legendary Vermont bullring that has proven tough for the series’ stars to tame.
For that matter, Thunder Road has proven hard for Hebert to tame. A native of nearby Williamstown, Vt., Hebert shaped his driving career at the track before hitting the road with the ACT Late Model Tour. But the 2020 ACT Tour champion, with eleven Tour wins to his credit, had never won a stock car race at Thunder Road.
Hebert brought a short field to the green flag alongside newly-crowned “King of the Road” Kaiden Fisher. Making his PASS debut, Fisher jumped out to an early lead, with fellow first-timer Kasey Beattie sneaking up the outside to run second. Beattie faded early to third, with Fisher and Hebert swapping the lead but Fisher holding the overall advantage.
By halfway, points leader D.J. Shaw had cracked the top four, displacing Beattie and then Hebert on his march to the lead. After a brief battle with Fisher aided by the slower car of Poland, Shaw scooted ahead, leaving Fisher to hold off Hebert for second.
A lap-97 yellow for a spinning Pat Corbett brought the field back to Shaw’s bumper, but on the restart, Beattie went to work on Fisher, letting Shaw sneak away out front. Another spin for Corbett bunched up the leaders, with Hebert having to work around Fisher and Beattie to take second with 40 laps to go. Hebert chipped away at Shaw’s advantage, but it seemed he would need help to have a legitimate shot at Shaw.
On lap 138, Poland went around in turn one, bringing out the yellow Hebert desperately wanted. Hebert pulled up to Shaw’s right door for the restart with twelve laps to go, keeping Shaw pinned to the bottom to take the lead on the high side. Hebert cleared Shaw high after two laps, with Fisher and Beattie a distant third and fourth.
Shaw regrouped, unsettling Hebert in turn one with seven laps left to get back to the lead. Hebert dug in hard, but Shaw ran him up the track a lap later, pulling ahead with the advantage. Hebert repaid the favor from behind, nudging Shaw down the backstretch until Shaw slipped up the banking and slammed the turn-three concrete. Hebert drove off with the lead and Fisher stole second as Shaw slowed to a crawl, his car too damaged to give pursuit.
But as Shaw tried to limp to the finish, fluids soaked the racing groove in his wake. Hebert skated high in turn one, but his challengers had no such luck, skidding into the turn-one tire barrier with Beattie, Johnny Clark and Trevor Sanborn taking the hardest hits. The red flag waved with two laps to go as most of the remaining cars sat parked in turns one and two with varying degrees of damage.
Clark and Sanborn were towed off along with Bobby Therrien. Beattie’s car, battered both front and rear, needed two wreckers to return it to the pits. Fisher called for a push to the pits from second. Shaw, whose trouble set off the calamity, received a push as well, making his displeasure known as he was pushed past Hebert on the frontstretch.
That left Hebert and Quarterley on the lead lap, with Poland eligible for the free pass. Michael Scorzelli, three laps in arrears, was the only other car running.
Quarterley was caught off guard on the final restart, with Hebert coasting over the final two laps to an easy, if unconventional, win.
After making his PASS debut in the 2022 Oxford 250 in a converted ACT Late Model, Hebert wheeled his Super Late Model to victory in only his ninth PASS start, earning his first-ever stock car win at Thunder Road.
Hebert’s chassis comes from the Dale Shaw Race Cars shop, adding another twist of discomfort to what was an awkward post-race environment.
“Me and D.J. were lined up the last restart there, this would be a good battle,” Hebert said of the late contact with Shaw. “I ran him clean, I got by him, and then he jacked me. Then I said OK, he’s back to my inside, whatever, and then he tried ripping the left side of my car off. I had had enough.
“So I tried to move him up enough to get by him, but he just couldn’t hang on, unfortunately. I didn’t mean to wreck him.”
Quarterley had not even planned to race at Thunder Road. The Westfield, Mass. native brought his car for father Dale to race, while he served as crew chief both for Dale and for friend and teammate Jeremy Sorel’s Milk Bowl effort. But when the NASCAR and motorcycle veteran could not get comfortable in the car during Friday’s practice sessions, the junior Quarterley took the wheel for the race. In only his fourth PASS start, Quarterley avoided trouble and picked up his first career top-ten finish.
“I didn’t know we were going green, so I was just hanging on, trying to see,” he said of the final restart. “I really wanted to give him a shot for it, and maybe take a shot at winning it, but there was way too much ground to close up once I realized it was green, we were going.”
When asked how he survived the carnage, Poland saw no need to sugarcoat it.
“Shit luck,” he said. “That’s about all I had. That was gross. I don’t really know what happened. But I’ll take it how I can get it. Good points day for us, I guess.”
The Star Speedway winner has finished tenth and third in his two races since the upset victory. “First time here since 2004 or 2005 in a go-kart,” he said of his first stock car start at Thunder Road. “I suck here, but we’ll take it.”
Fisher was scored fourth at the finish, completing only 148 laps, with Beattie credited with fifth. Sanborn, Clark and Therrien were scored sixth through eighth. Shaw was scored three laps down in ninth. Scorzelli, the only other car on the track at the finish, was tenth.
Corbett, who parked his car after a pair of spins, was the only other car to take the green flag.
Thunder Road has struggled for years to draw PASS entries, with no easy answer as to why. White Mountain Motorsports Park winner Derek Griffith was a late withdrawal and Joey Doiron was sidelined this week with a broken foot, leaving the field short two expected entries. Full-timer Dennis Spencer, Jr. was also a no-show. The resulting 11-car grid was the smallest of the year, excluding Spud Speedway’s non-points event in July.
But short fields still count the same. Hebert is now a PASS winner, doing so at his home track. Shaw’s misfortunes, while costing him some ground in the points race, will not do much damage overall, with Clark only finishing a few positions ahead.
The real threat is Thompson Speedway in one week, and the work that lays ahead for Shaw, Clark and others to get their cars back into raceable condition for the fastest short track on the PASS itinerary.
For those not racing in the Milk Bowl, and for those who are not named Rusty Poland, the work starts Sunday.
Unofficial Results
PASS North | PASS SLM 150
Thunder Road International Speedbowl, Barre, Vt.
1. (58VT) Jimmy Hebert
2. (32Q) Alex Quarterley
3. (19) Rusty Poland
4. (18VT) Kaiden Fisher
5. (45) Kasey Beattie
6. (44) Trevor Sanborn
7. (54) Johnny Clark
8. (5X) Bobby Therrien
9. (60) D.J. Shaw
10. (18S) Michael Scorzelli
11. (5VT) Pat Corbett
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