The Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour made its return to Canaan Fair Speedway for the first time in two years on a cold windy morning Sunday. The race at Canaan marked the ninth event in the 2012 NEMST points championship. The top 2 cars entered the event with a mere 13 point separation with Danny Field holding onto the lead after the last race at Lee USA.
Practice started shortly after noon with Matt Sonnhalter breaking out as the fastest car on the track and leaving fellow drivers in his tracks. Sonnhalter pushed his Volkswagen down into the 16 second lap times, the only car during the day to achieve that speed.
During the drivers meeting Tater’s NASCAR Merchandise awards were given out to Nic Skillings and Loren Smith drawing the $100 and $70 chips respectively. Cars were lined up for the heat races and prepared to roll out on the track for the Granite State Pro Stock Series crowd. Early front runner Sonnhalter experienced transmission issues in the third heat requiring a drivetrain swap before the heat races.
Emerson Cayer and Louis Maher had a tough fight over the first heat and it came down to a photo finish with Cayer inching Maher for the win on the outside line. John Kelly and point leader Danny Field fought for the lead in the second heat with Kelly taking the checkers and dropping the point lead to 11 for Field. During the heat Sonnhalter came onto the track and immediately exited with electrical issues
Emerson Cayer drew the inversion chip for the feature inverting the entire field of 14 cars. The car of Sonnhalter was unable to continue due to the electrical issues experienced in the heat and took the green with the 00 car of Shawn Sinclair. Cayer, Field, Kelly, and Maher made a strong run to the front as the green flag flew. Cris King improved on his recent best finishes by breaking out to the lead and carrying the field through the beginning of the race. Field and Cayer tracked down the Dodge Neon of King and stalked the driver until he got loose coming out of turn 4. On lap 15 Cayer took over the lead with Field shortly in tow. Field was all over the Mustang of Cayer but didn’t have the drive to pull alongside of the former Canaan regular. John Kelly continued to move through the field and secured the third position over King.
As laps were winding down Field continued to push Cayer and try to capitalize on any mistakes. Cayer remained flawless as he crossed the finish line right in front of Field. Kelly, King, and Maher rounded out the top five.
The point lead was shrunk to six points going into the final event of the 2012 season at Waterford Speedbowl on October 6th. The cars of Maher, Kelly, King, and Ducharme are running third to sixth in points separated by only 35. Please visit www.northeastministocktour.com or www.speedbowl.com for any additional NEMST information.
NEMST Bonus Awards
Sunoco Winners Circle Challenge: Emerson Cayer
Sunoco Hard Charge Award: Emerson Cayer
Texas Roadhouse Gas Card: Roger Ducharme
Tater’s NASCAR Merchandise Cash: Nic Skillings, Loren Smith
Racecar Engineering Gift Certificates
Emerson Cayer
Louis Maher
Josh Dunn
North East Mini Stock Tour – Feature
Finish Car No Driver Hometown
1 88NH Emerson Cayer Contoocook, NH
2 18 Danny Field Deep River, CT
3 60 John Kelly New London, CT
4 38 Cristofer King Derry, NH
5 69 Louis Maher North Brookfield, MA
6 86 Jeff Hebert Auburn, me
7 41 Loren Smith Allenstown, NH
8 34 Roger Ducharme Foster, RI
9 61 Cory Dentino Lancaster, MA
10 79 josh dunn enfield, NH
11 4 Rob Gioia East Thetford, VT
12 25 Nic Skillings Warner, NH
13 OO Matt Sonnhalter E. Thetford, VT