BARRE, Vt. — Marcel Gravel bested a stout field of Maplewood/Irving Oil Late Models on the final Thursday night of racing at Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl.
Andy Hill took the early lead as Gravel, Tyler Cahoon and Keegan Lamson started taking it three-wide on lap two. By lap 10, Brandon Lanphear gained some steam under the hood and took to Hill’s outside, making his No. 16VT work hard to gain inches on Hill. The first caution flag would wave on lap 22 for the flat front and broken front end of Chris Roberts.
On the restart, with Hill low and Lanphear high, the field took off again until Darrell Morin tried to get to the bottom coming off turn two and into the backstretch under Hill. The chain reaction caused Hill to sweep up the track into Lamson with Lamson taking Lanphear hard into the turn three wall, the reverberating thud felt throughout the crowd and ending his strong run. Once again it was Hill down low and now Morin up high with championship contenders Chris Pelkey, Scott Dragon and Kyle Pembroke close behind the two-by-two rows.
Following the final caution with eight-to-go for the spinning Cooper Bouchard in turn four, it was Morin versus Lamson with the side-by-side battle quickly giving way to a hard charging Marcel Gravel. Gravel quickly dispatched a loosening Lamson, jumping to the outside of Morin with three-to-go. Gravel would take the lead by a bumper shroud under the white flag, finally leading by a fender to take his second win of the season. Darrell Morin took home second with Keegan Lamson earning third.
Tanner Woodard topped the 40-lap Flying Tiger feature and Curtis Franks claimed the 20-lapper for street stocks.
Ryan Sayers bested the road warrior field.