Barre, VT \u2013 This year, the thirst for victory in the Milk Bowl will extend far beyond the Northeast. West Des Moines, Iowa\u2019s Mason Mitchell, the 2014 ARCA Racing Series Champion, has officially entered the 56th Vermont Milk Bowl presented by Northfield Savings Bank and will look to bring the famed milk can trophy back to the heartland.
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Mitchell will make his debut on the Barre high banks in the prestigious event on Saturday, September 29 and Sunday, September 30 as first reported by Speed51.com. He will drive a car owned by 7-time White Mountain Motorsports Park Late Model Champion Quinny Welch and prepared by Crazy Horse Racing, a premier American-Canadian Tour (ACT) chassis builder based in South Paris, Maine.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old has become familiar with Thunder Road through his own interest in short track racing and his friendship with Austin Theriault, the 2017 ARCA Champion and a former ACT competitor. He said he started talking about entering the event months ago, but admitted \u201cyour answer is as good as mine\u201d as to how the idea came about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known of the track for a long time, and I know it\u2019s a special race that\u2019s coming up,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cAnd with my current situation, I thought, \u2018Heck, why not? Let put something together.\u2019 It\u2019s going to be totally random, but I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to being his first visit to Thunder Road, the Milk Bowl will also be Mitchell\u2019s first time behind the wheel of an ACT Late Model. He has been doing his homework on both the cars and the track in preparation for his debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been watching film as much as I can and taking notes,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been talking to a few local drivers that have been more than helpful with any questions I\u2019ve had. The team I\u2019m running for obviously has a lot of experience, so I\u2019m leaning on those guys as much as I can to help me get up to speed as soon as I can. I\u2019ve just been using all of the friends and resources I can to help me learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe track and the competitors are no slouches,\u201d Mitchell added. \u201cI have huge respect for everybody who races the event and for the guys who race weekly there. The track looks like a blast to drive. It\u2019s a short track, but it looks like it you have to have a lot of discipline, or it can come out and bite you. It puts on some great races \u2013 I\u2019ve watched a ton of video on YouTube. And it\u2019s great to see how the fans come out and support it. You don\u2019t see that (in short track racing) as much as you used to. It\u2019s cool to see that interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Mitchell, the event is also the first major step in getting back to what he loves about racing. Since winning the ARCA championship, Mitchell had competed on an increasingly sporadic basis behind the wheel while running his Mason Mitchell Motorsports team. Mitchell elected to shut the team down this past July and is looking forward to just enjoying racing at Milk Bowl Weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might seem like a negative, but (shutting down my team) was actually a positive for me,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIt\u2019s allowing me to regroup and refocus so I can get myself behind the wheel. With the situation I was in with my team, we had a lot of success, but I wasn\u2019t able to drive. And the reason I got involved with racing was so I could be driving and enjoy it, and I just wasn\u2019t enjoying it doing what I was doing. So I decided to shut my team down and regroup and get back behind the wheel. This is really the first opportunity I\u2019ve had and position I\u2019ve been able to put myself in to get to racing again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sounds crazy, but I haven\u2019t been this excited to go a race track and race probably since my ARCA debut,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s more than just going to a race for me. It\u2019s the whole element of going up there, racing for a team, enjoying myself, and being able to focus on just one thing, and that\u2019s doing the best job I can possibly do for the team and for the people that helped me put this whole deal together. For all the years that I raced ARCA \u2013 except for when I first started \u2013 I was always racing for myself. When you\u2019re doing that, the ups are probably more enjoyable than anything you can ever do in life, but the downs are just an awful experience, and you\u2019ve got so much on your plate to deal with all the time. It\u2019s way more than just focusing on racing. You\u2019ve got to do so much more, so it takes a lot of the fun out of it. This is just so much more fun. We\u2019ve been working on this for a long time, we\u2019ve known we\u2019ve been wanting to do the event for a while, and we put it together a long time ago. I\u2019ve been so anxious, pumped up, and excited to do this race for months now, and it\u2019s right around the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell\u2019s quest to take home the 56th Vermont Milk Bowl begins with Booth Bros.\/H.P. Hood Qualifying Day on Saturday, September 29 at 1:00pm. The Maplewood\/Irving Oil Late Models will set the first 22 spots on the 26-car starting grid with Time Trials and 50-lap qualifying races to help set the 26-car starting field. Sunday, September 30 will see the Last Chance \u201cB\u201d Feature at 12:15pm followed by Milk Bowl Opening Ceremonies at 1:00pm. The Lenny\u2019s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tigers, Allen Lumber Street Stocks, and New England Dwarf Cars are also on the schedule for both Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n
Adult admission for the 56th Vermont Milk Bowl is $30 for a 2-day Saturday\/Sunday ticket and $10 for Saturday only. Kids age 12 and under will be admitted free on both days. The front gates open at 10:00am on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barre, VT \u2013 This year, the thirst for victory in the Milk Bowl will extend far beyond the Northeast. West Des Moines, Iowa\u2019s Mason Mitchell, the 2014 ARCA Racing Series Champion, has officially entered the 56th Vermont Milk Bowl presented by Northfield Savings Bank and will look to bring the famed milk can trophy back […]<\/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-24094","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\/24094","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=24094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24095,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24094\/revisions\/24095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}