Blake Set To Go From Contender To Champion In 2015
Barre, VT – Barre’s Cody Blake, at the age of 23, already has a growing list of accomplishments at Barre’s Thunder Road Speedbowl. This year, he hopes to become the “King of the Road.”
Blake was sixth in the final Thunder Road Late Model point standings in 2014, his fourth straight season finishing eighth or better. He stood atop the standings after six races before a hard crash bent his car’s A-frame and his team spent the rest of the year struggling to get the car dialed back in. Now entering his sixth year in the lead division, Blake hopes that a new car and 16 years’ worth of maturity behind the wheel will be a championship combination.
“The one thing we haven’t done yet in a Late Model is win multiple races and the championship,” Blake said. “Those are both things we want to do this year. We didn’t really have any goals when we first started out in Late Models, but I think everybody knows now that we’re at the track each week.”
Blake has now fulfilled a lifelong dream by taking full ownership of his own racing operation. He previously raced for MikelJon Mascitti and Jason Allen. Blake will drive a new car in 2015 built by former Oxford Plains Speedway Champion T.J. Brackett.
“For whatever reason we seem to do well in the first three races, and from then on we start out back each week,” Blake noted. “It’s hard to pass 15 or 16 cars in a 50-lap race. I don’t want to stroke it in the first part of the year though – I’d rather not have as many wins than do that.”
With a title, the second-generation driver would join his father, Greg “Burger” Blake, as a lead division champion. The elder Blake was the 1989 Vermont State Flying Tiger Champion, and bought Cody his first go-kart at age seven. Among other drivers that Blake competed against in the go-karts were current American-Canadian Tour (ACT) contender Jimmy Hebert and former Tiger Sportsman driver Alex Ferno.
Blake has come a long way since that first go-kart. He first wheeled a stock car on the Thunder Road high banks in the Tiger Sportsmen in 2008 and 2009, and was the Late Model Rookie of the Year in 2010. Blake scored his first victory in the 2013 Vermont Governor’s Cup 150 with NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer among the challengers.
“It’s just been fun for us, because we race together, and then off the track we go snow-machining together and hang out, and we’re good friends away from the race track,” Hebert said. “There’s not too many racers you do that with, because usually you try and keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But in our case we’re actually friends away from the race track too. It seems like we tend to race each other harder than anybody else, but at the end of the day we usually laugh about it.”
Cody said that there is no pressure from his title-winning father or any other family members to succeed. In fact, Greg Blake has given Cody multiple opportunities to get out of racing, only to see Cody eagerly stay behind the wheel each time.
“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” Blake says.
Blake and the rest of the Thunder Road weekly competitors will take on the stars of the ACT Late Model Tour on Sunday, May 3 in the Merchant’s Bank 150 as part the 56th season of racing at Thunder Road. The weekend will kick off on Saturday, May 2 with the annual Thunder Road Car Show on Main Street in Barre, VT from 9:00am-12:00pm and subsequent stock car parade up Quarry Hill to the track. A practice session for all divisions will follow and is open to the public. Class Day ceremonies will begin on Sunday at 1:00pm.