BARRE, Vt. — Marcel J. Gravel overcame both a late challenge from the defending champion and a very tired pair of arms to take the opening-night Maplewood/Irving Oil Late Model win at Barre’s Thunder Road on Thursday.
Gravel pulled out to a big lead before holding off a late bid by Jason Corliss for his second career victory in the 50-lap feature as seen on Northeast Sports Network.
After starting on the outside pole, Gravel quickly darted to the lead over Westford’s Darrell Morin. As Morin and Christopher Pelkey engaged in a lengthy battle for second, Gravel left both in the dust, eventually pulling out to nearly a quarter-track lead.
But even as he walked away, it quickly became a challenging night of a different kind for Gravel. Around the 15-lap mark, the leader’s power steering began to malfunction, and eventually quit altogether. With the feature going caution-free, it became a race against fatigue for Gravel as much as it was a race against the field.
As Morin and Pelkey battled, defending “King of the Road” Corliss entered the picture from his eighth starting spot. At the same time Gravel’s power steering started going away, Pelkey finally cleared Morin for second, with Corliss quickly following him around the outside.
Corliss then dispatched of Pelkey on lap 18 and set his sights on Gravel. But while Corliss was able to cut the gap to a few car lengths in lapped traffic as the race wound down, the weary Gravel had enough left in the tank to hold on for the win.
Pelkey held off Morin and a late charge from Kyle Pembroke to finish third. Trampas Demers, Matt White, Tyler Cahoon, Bobby Therrien, and Scott Dragon rounded out the top 10.
Mike Billado took advantage of a series of late cautions to nab his 10th career Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tiger victory.
Billado was running a distant second to Bucker Hodgdon with 10 laps to go in the 40-lap feature when the field got stacked up mid-pack, sending Cooper Bouchard hard into the turn one tire barriers and bunching the leaders up again.
After another yellow on the restart when Sam Caron blew a tire, Hodgdon and Billado went wheel-to-wheel for the top spot. When the final caution flew on lap 34 for Mike Martin’s spin, Billado had the nose in front, giving him the inside line for the restart. While Hodgdon faded on the outside, Billado was able to fend off a challenge from Colin Cornell in the closing circuits for the win.
Robert Gordon took third with Jason Pelkey fourth.
Tim Hunt raced to his third career victory in the 25-lap Allen Lumber Street Stock feature. Hunt was part of a pack putting the pressure on polesitter Scott Weston when the leaders approached lapped traffic with eight laps remaining. As Weston tried to slice through the slower cars, he got together with Josh Poirier on the backstretch, and both cars ended up in the wall.
Hunt then inherited the lead and went door-to-door with Jamie Davis for several laps before finally clearing him with three to go. Brandon Gray followed Hunt through for second, but while Gray put the pressure on in the closing laps, Hunt held him off for the win.
Chris Davis waited until the last second to grab his second career win in the Burnett Scrap Metals Road Warriors. Davis moved into the second spot following a restart just before the halfway mark of the 20-lap feature and almost immediately starting pressuring leader Brian Putney.
look to the inside multiple times, Putney was able to hold off Davis until he got sideways in turn two on the final lap. Davis filled the hole that time and went sliding past for the victory.
- Corinth’s Putney settled for second while Dan Garrett Jr. completed the podium. Sean McCarthy, Fred Fleury, Mike Mitchell, Haidyn Pearce, Justin Prescott, Jamie York, and Steve Reno also earned top-10 finishes.