WINCHESTER—The weather finally cooperated this past Saturday at Monadnock Speedway this past Saturday, where there was a packed crowd for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tours’ O’Reilly Auto Parts 200.
Prior to racing action the Boniface Award Winners from last week were presented with their prizes for their performance in the most recent Sportsman Modified feature.
Scott McMichael and Keith Carzello won the “Hard Charger” award.
Tyler Jarvenpaa was awarded the “Hard Luck” award.
Eric LeClaire was awarded the “Crazy 8” award for coming in 8th place.
At the last event, the story of bad wrecks ruled the page. This week, the Young Guns got right back at it with another terrifying accident in the opening heat race.
The non-point division at the track saw the 29x of Haley Guy take the point for most of the 8 lap heat race. Coming to the white flag, Guy spun exiting turn four, washing up the racetrack and into the path of Mariah Stebbins, clipping the left front of the #10 with the right rear, sending Stebbins’ car completely airborne and into the outside wall, crumpling the right side.
Stebbins then slid down the track and was run into on the driver’s side.
Despite the hard, scary hit, the young Stebbins was ok after the wreck, though her car was unable to be fixed in time for the feature.
The big story from the heats was Scott McMichael, driver of the #7 Sportsman Modified, blew his engine early and in the day and ended up missing his heat race changing his motor.
This allowed veteran driver Bill Kimball to take advantage of the situation and save his tires, only taking the green in his heat and bringing his car to the pits after one lap.
Alexander Pearl walked away with the Young Guns 15 lap feature for his first win. Chase Curtis and Daniel Starkweather joined Pearl on the podium.
Pat Houle took his Lightning Stock to victory lane. The 57X was able to hold off the hard charging CJ Johnson and the late challenge of Kyle Boniface to bring home the win.
Joel Monahan won the Mini Stock feature in one of the most entertaining races all year. Monahan held the low line to fend off the fast Julia Raymond who was making it work on the outside. Monahan and Raymond battled for the lead for nearly 10 laps, Matt Gauffin saw it all go down in front of him from third place.
John Lavoie took home first in the Super Stock feature. Chris Curtis and Dennis Stange also found themselves on the podium after finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Bill Kimball’s veteran move to sit out the heats paid off in the end, as Kimball’s hot-rod was fastest in the Sportsman Mods.
He knew it was a must win this past Saturday and Kimball pulled out all the stops to ensure his trip to victory lane.
“Summer break is over,” said Kimball after the win, “Now it’s time to get down to business.”
The #43 was on all business as Kimball walked away with the win.
A late caution tightened things up, but nobody had a challenge for Kimball as his tires were 8 laps fresher than everyone else. Tyler Jarvenpaa had a strong run finishing 2nd with young TJ Bleau landing on the podium in third place.
Keith Carzello and Brett Gonyaw had strong runs to round out the top 5.
With the win, Kimball takes over the point lead for the Sportsman Modified Division.
David Greenslit won in the Thunder Stock Division for the first time since May, taking the checkered in front of a hard charging Craig Chaffee. Point leader Marshal Usher finished in third place.
A year ago in the 200 Lap O’Reilly Auto Parts 200, the race went green-checkered without yellow ever gracing the track.
That wasn’t the case this year, as the caution came out six times throughout the night for a total of 44 yellow flag laps.
Points leader Ryan Preece ran the fastest time trial lap and sat on the pole for the big event. Preece led the first 44 laps before handing the lead off to eventual winner, two-time NASCAR Whelen Champion Doug Coby.
Coby led from lap 45-200, holding the lead 5 times on restarts.
Woody Pitkat came home 2nd at Monadnock on Saturday and took over the NASCAR Whelen Tour points lead. For Pitkat, it was his series leading 7th top 5 of the season. Justin Bonsignore finished third, Todd Szegedy fourth, and rookie Troy Talman came in 5th to round out the top 5 in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 200.
Next week at Monadnock will be full of excitement as Sportman Mods, Super Stocks, and Thunder Stocks all run double features. Pit gates open at 2pm with practice to begin at 3:30pm.
Young Guns Unofficial Finish: Alex Pearl, Chase Curtis, Dan Starkweather, Justin Littlewood, Dylan Morse, Chris Buffone, Hailey Guy, Mariah Stebbins
Lightning Stocks Unofficial Finish: Pat Houle, CJ Johnson, Kyle Boniface, Cole Littlewood, Richard Whipple, Tim Paquette, Kris Kristolaitis, Eric Silvernale, Craig Smith, Tim Leblanc, Steve Fucile, Jim Drew, George Morgan, Hillary Renaud
Thunder Stock Unofficial Finish: Dave Greenslit, Craig Chaffee, Marshall Usher, Paul Barnard, Joe Ethier, Chris Lawrence, Gary Colburn, Ben Williams, Richard Vincent, Daniel Comeau, Michelle Leh, James Nowakowski
Mini Stocks Unofficial Finish: Joel Monahan, Julia Raymond, Matt Gauffin, Solomon Brow, Eric Pomasko, DJ Lazelle, Kevin KcKnight, Cameron Sontag, Justin Faford, Matt Kimball, Louis Maher, Mike McGoldrick
Super Stock Unofficial Finish: John Lavoie, Chris Curtis, Dennis Stange, Leo Martin, Joel Monahan, Ken Springer, Duane Noll, Scott Beck, Glen Noll, Ian MacDonald, Dave Striebel, Tyler Leary, Tyler Lescord, Nancy Muni
Sportsman Modified Unofficial Finish: Bill Kimball, Tyler Jarvenpaa, Trevor Bleau, Keith Carzello, Brett Gonyaw, Kim Rivet, Scott MacMichael, Brian Chapin, Eric LeClair, Scott Nordman, Ben Byrne, Casey Ouellette, Jason Barden, Brian Robie