Brent Dragon: ACT Late Model Tour
Riverside Speedway Race Preview
THE STORY
Brent Dragon of Milton, Vt., looks to break a run of bad luck when the ACT Late Model Tour joins the ACT Castrol Series for the combination Can-Am 200 at Riverside Speedway in St. Croix, Que., on Saturday, August 27. Dragon finished fifth in 2010 at Riverside, an oddly-shaped, flat .625-mile oval. Dragon will be taking his own Dragon Motorsports car to the event, hoping to rebound from a 17th-place run at Oxford Plains Speedway last weekend – after which he found a mechanical issue that had led to the car’s recent handling issues.
THE FACTS
WHO: Brent Dragon, Milton, Vt.
TEAM: Dragon Motorsports No. 55 Beverage Mart/Furniture World of VT/Charlesbois Freightliner Chevrolet
CREW CHIEF: Donnie Avery, Ashland, N.H.
BEST CAREER RIVERSIDE SPEEDWAY FINISH: 5th (August 2010)
LAST RACE AT RIVERSIDE SPEEDWAY: 5th (August 2010)
WHAT: ACT Late Model Tour Can-Am 200
WHERE: Riverside Speedway, St. Croix, Quebec (.625-mile oval)
WHEN: 6 p.m., Saturday, August 27
ACT LATE MODEL TOUR
LAST RACE: August 20, Q 97.9 FM 150, Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Maine (17th)
NEXT RACE: September 4, Labor Day Classic 200, Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl, Barre, Vt. (.25-mile oval)
POINTS POSITION: 7th
DID YOU KNOW?
Brent Dragon has competed in just five races this season with his own car, splitting the season in his own ride and the Avery Motorsports No. 55.
Brent Dragon has a pair of Top-5 finishes on the ACT Late Model Tour this season, both of them coming in the car he will drive this weekend at Riverside Speedway.
Brent Dragon has finished in the Top-5 in the final ACT standings in nine straight seasons.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
BRENT DRAGON, Driver of the No. 55 Beverage Mart/Furniture World of VT/Charlesbois Freightliner, On racing at Riverside Speedway: “I’ve done a lot better there than at some of the other tracks on the schedule. It reminds me a lot of the old Airborne Speedway. It’s a fast, old race track. It’s a lot of fun.
“It’s the kind of place that fits my driving style. You drive into the corners really hard, use a lot of brake to try and get the car to turn good in the middle, and then you try to get on the gas to get off the corners as best you can. That’s the kind of track I started out racing on, and I always like places like that.”
On why trying to win races has replaces racing for points for the last few events: “That’s basically it. We have nothing to gain. We’re not in the points, anymore. We’re going to try and use these races to make the car better for next year. This is our sixth time out with this car – I’d rather take the chance at winning and fall out then not go out and be competitive and try to learn some new things.
“This is the time to turn it around. Usually, we’ve had a pretty good run around this time of year, and when the big races come at the end of the season we’ve fallen off. Maybe we’re going to do something different this year. I want to run up front again, I know that.”
On what he’s focused on during the recent run of bad luck: “We’ve started all over. (Car builder Jeff Taylor of Distance Racing) has done a lot of work over the last couple of weeks on it. It really goes back to some things he learned at Beech Ridge a year ago. – he’s worked a lot of Saturday nights at Oxford, obviously, and it shows. He’s really good on those kind of flat tracks. Jeff White’s really good. Glen Luce is really good, too, at those places.
“We’ve just tried to go over every little detail and see where we can get better. It’s not easy – there’s so many pieces to the whole puzzle. But I think we’ve found some things that we fixed, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the track this weekend.”
UP NEXT
The ACT Late Model Tour heads back to Thunder Road International Speedbowl for the Labor Day Classic 200 on Sunday, September 4… Brent Dragon joined father Beaver Dragon and uncle Bobby Dragon as a winner of the event when he took the checkered flag in 2004.