{"id":23242,"date":"2018-05-22T20:34:42","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T00:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=23242"},"modified":"2018-05-22T20:34:42","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T00:34:42","slug":"thunder-road-to-crown-new-king-of-the-road-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2018\/05\/thunder-road-to-crown-new-king-of-the-road-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder Road to Crown New \u201cKing of the Road\u201d in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Thunder Road to Crown New \u201cKing of the Road\u201d in 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barre, VT \u2013 While the Thunder Road season has already officially opened, things will get serious for the Maplewood\/Irving Late Model division this Sunday, May 27. The 56th Mekkelsen RV Memorial Day Classic opens the 2018 \u201cKing of the Road\u201d chase with a special 100-lap event for the track\u2019s local stars.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Entering the Late Model season, the only certainty is that there will not be a back-to-back champion. Reigning \u201cKing of the Road\u201d Bobby Therrien stated recently that he is running a limited Thunder Road schedule in 2018 and will not defend the title.<\/p>\n

This leaves the door open for a number of contenders to climb atop the throne. Barre\u2019s Jason Corliss already has a win at Thunder Road this year in the Community Bank 150 for the American-Canadian Tour. He also won four features at Thunder Road last year. South Burlington\u2019s Trampas Demers had the best season of his career in 2017. He finished second to Therrien in points and will try to finish this season one spot higher.<\/p>\n

Milton\u2019s Scott Dragon hopes to become a multi-time champion in 2018. The 2016 \u201cKing of the Road\u201d is ready to rebound after slipping to fourth in points last year. Barre\u2019s Cody Blake may have been the hottest driver at Thunder Road in the second half of the 2017 season and began carrying the momentum into the new year with a third-place effort on Opening Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think we have a shot,\u201d Blake said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in the top-5 in points four of the last six years. And I feel like the improvements we\u2019ve made this past year are better than any other year. But everybody would agree with me when I say that you need a lot of luck. You can be the fastest car there every week, and you can still finish fifth overall because you had bad luck throughout the season. I like to say that if you have two DNFs (did not finish), then you\u2019re in trouble. So you have to try and find yourself there at the end of every race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others could enter the fray with the right breaks. Danville\u2019s Tyler Cahoon had a similar hot streak to Blake late last year and believes he can contend for the title. Milton\u2019s Eric Chase returns with 2-time track champion Nick Sweet as his crew chief after a career year in 2017. Marcel J. Gravel, Kyle Pembroke, Darrell Morin, and Stephen Donahue lead a group of younger racers who have had impressive stretches and hope to put things together for the full season.<\/p>\n

The Late Models come off a year that saw 11 different drivers visit Victory Lane in weekly competition. Expectations are that the racing could be even more intense this season thanks in part to a year-old track surface that received strong reviews following the opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no tire issues in 150 laps, which is a big confidence booster to a lot of the racers,\u201d Blake said. \u201cI think that\u2019s going to lead to better racing. Instead of people backing off trying to save tires, they\u2019re going to be 100 percent all the time. Now that I don\u2019t have to worry about overworking the right front, I\u2019m going to drive a heck of a lot harder to get to the front quicker. It\u2019ll be a lot more fun to watch, I\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drivers mentioned here and many others are expected to take the green flag in the 56th Mekkelsen RV Memorial Day Classic this Sunday, May 27. The Maplewood\/Irving Late Models will be part of a 5-division card that includes a 150-lap event for the Pro All Stars Series Super Late Models along with Thunder Road\u2019s Lenny\u2019s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tigers, Allen Lumber Street Stocks, and Burnett Scrap Metals Road Warriors. Post time for the holiday program is 1:30pm. Admission is $25 for adults and free for kids ages 12 and under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thunder Road to Crown New \u201cKing of the Road\u201d in 2018 Barre, VT \u2013 While the Thunder Road season has already officially opened, things will get serious for the Maplewood\/Irving Late Model division this Sunday, May 27. The 56th Mekkelsen RV Memorial Day Classic opens the 2018 \u201cKing of the Road\u201d chase with a special […]<\/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":[26,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thunder-road","category-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23242","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=23242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23243,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23242\/revisions\/23243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}