{"id":21629,"date":"2017-04-28T07:30:14","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T11:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=21629"},"modified":"2017-04-27T20:31:27","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T00:31:27","slug":"thunder-road-welcomes-act-tour-for-merchants-bank-150-season-opener-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2017\/04\/thunder-road-welcomes-act-tour-for-merchants-bank-150-season-opener-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder Road Welcomes ACT Tour for Merchants Bank 150 Season Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Thunder Road Welcomes ACT Tour for Merchants Bank 150 Season Opener<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Barre, Vt. \u2013 The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) returns to Barre, Vt.\u2019s Thunder Road Speedbowl this Sunday, April 30 for the 19th Merchants Bank 150. The event kicks off the 58th season of competition on the quarter-mile oval and is the first of two visits this year for the ACT Late Model Tour.<\/p>\n<p>A pair of multi-time Merchants Bank 150 winners will lead the charge into this year\u2019s event. Three-time and defending event champion Nick Sweet of Barre will look to go back-to-back, while two-time event champion Scott Payea of Colchester is attempting to match Sweet in the record books.<br \/>\n <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Payea will also be trying to use the second event of the ACT season as a springboard to his first championship after his RPM Racing team finished second to Sweet in last year\u2019s standings. It was the fourth time in Payea\u2019s career that he has finished runner-up in the final ACT tally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThunder Road is our home track, and it\u2019s always a great turnout for both cars and fans,\u201d Payea said. \u201cMerchants Bank has been a great sponsor for a long time. We\u2019ve won the event a couple of times, and we\u2019ve always run up front there \u2013 it\u2019s been a really good race for us. It\u2019s a 10-race Tour schedule, so every race is very important, and we want to start the season out doing as well as possible and not be behind the eight-ball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A number of other ACT regulars will look to triumph in the Tour\u2019s 68th official visit to Thunder Road. Waterford, Conn.\u2019s Dillon Moltz is coming off a dominating victory in the ACT season opener at Lee USA Speedway, while multi-time Tour winner Bobby Therrien of Hinesburg is looking for his first triumph in Barre. Williamstown\u2019s Jimmy Hebert and Barre Town\u2019s Mike Ziter are also looking for strong showings on their home track. Top-10 point finishers Rich Dubeau and Rowland Robinson, Jr. have returned to the Tour, while two-time Devil\u2019s Bowl Speedway Late Model Champion Josh Masterson has also filed a full-season entry.<\/p>\n<p>Many Thunder Road standouts will be in attendance as well and hope to use their local knowledge to find Victory Lane. Defending \u201cKing of the Road\u201d Scott Dragon and multi-time Late Model winner Jason Corliss will be chasing the 2017 ACT crown, giving them extra motivation to go for the win. Former weekly winners Trampas Demers, Cody Blake, Shawn Fleury, and Tyler Cahoon all attended the season\u2019s opening practice session in search of an additional edge come race day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe locals are really good there,\u201d Payea added. \u201cThunder Road\u2019s a tough track, and they have the advantage of running there all the time. I\u2019m pretty fortunate to have spent a lot of time there and gotten a lot of laps there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2017 Thunder Road season gets underway Sunday, April 30 with the 19th Merchants Bank 150 for the ACT Late Model Tour. The Flying Tigers and Allen Lumber Street Stocks will also be in action with a 1:00pm post time. Admission is $25 for adults and free for kids 12 and under. Saturday, April 29 will see the annual Downtown Barre Car Show for all divisions from 9:00am-12:00pm, followed by a parade up Quarry Hill and an open practice session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thunder Road Welcomes ACT Tour for Merchants Bank 150 Season Opener Barre, Vt. \u2013 The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) returns to Barre, Vt.\u2019s Thunder Road Speedbowl this Sunday, April 30 for the 19th Merchants Bank 150. The event kicks off the 58th season of competition on the quarter-mile oval and is the first of two visits [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,26,16,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-thunder-road","category-touring-series-news","category-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21630,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21629\/revisions\/21630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}