Austin Theriault: ACT Late Model Tour
Devil’s Bowl Speedway Race Preview
THE STORY
FORT KENT, Maine – Austin Theriault of Fort Kent, Maine, will tackle Devil’s Bowl Speedway in West Haven, Vt., for the first time with his family-owned team in the ACT Late Model Tour Spring Green 112 on Sunday, May 6. The 18-year-old high school senior and Brad Keselowski Racing development driver has finished in the Top-10 in eight consecutive ACT races dating back to July of 2011, and he’s hoping to rebound from a tough day at Thunder Road International Speedbowl last weekend. While driving for RPM Motorsports in the 2011 Spring Green, Theriault was caught up in two separate incidents that forced him to retire early from the event after qualifying on the outside of the second row.
WHO: Austin Theriault, Fort Kent, Maine
TEAM: AT Racing No. 57 Pelletier Ford Ford Fusion
CREW CHIEF: Mickey Green, South Paris, Maine
BEST CAREER DEVIL’S BOWL FINISH: 25th (May 2011)
LAST RACE AT DEVIL’S BOWL: 25th (May 2011)
WHAT: ACT Late Model Tour Spring Green 112
WHERE: Devil’s Bowl Speedway, West Haven, Vt. (.500-mile flat oval)
WHEN: Sunday, May 6 – Practice, 11 a.m; Qualifying, 2 p.m.; Race, approx. 4:30 p.m.
ACT Late Model Tour
LAST RACE: April 29, Merchants Bank 150, Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl, Barre, Vt. (9th)
NEXT RACE: May 20, Oxford 150, Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Maine (.375-mile oval)
CURRENT POINTS POSITION: 4th
DID YOU KNOW?
Austin Theriault has posted Top-5 finishes in seven of his last eight ACT Late Model Tour starts dating back to July of last season.
Austin Theriault finished a career-best fifth in a Super Late Model while driving for BKR in the Papa John’s 100 at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., on April 27.
Austin Theriault will graduate from Fort Kent Community High School this June.
Austin Theriault has not been outside the Top-5 in the ACT Late Model Tour standings since finishing second at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in August of 2011.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
AUSTIN THERIAULT, Driver of the AT Racing No. 57 Pelletier Ford Ford Fusion, On heading back to the track after finishing ninth in the Merchants Bank 150 at Thunder Road last weekend: “I’m anxious to turn around from this past weekend and wipe the bad luck off and see if we can wipe the slate clean and get things turned around.
“It wasn’t a terrible weekend (at Thunder Road) – it could have gone way worse. It just didn’t go perfect. We can recover. I don’t think it means a whole lot for the rest of the year, but it can be a challenge. If the team’s disappointed, it can be hard to recover. Still, we’ve moved on, and that’s what you have to do. You can’t dwell on it and be moving forward. It just doesn’t work that way. We’re still working on it. We’re still working on becoming a better team. You’re never perfect; if you think you’re perfect, you’d best move on to other things.”
On his impressions of Devil’s Bowl Speedway: “It’s a pretty fast place, and it’s a flat half-mile. You’ve really got to get the car whoaed down into (turns) one and three. There’s a lot of two-by-two racing, because I think it races pretty good. We had a good run going last year, but we got wrecked. We got turned on Lap 2 and then got it again later on.
“I have experience there, but we don’t have any with our setup or with our car. I’m comfortable racing there. I think I have the groove pretty much down pat – but it will be a challenge to get the car where we need it. I went testing with RPM there last year, and they’re pretty comfortable there. We’ll just have to work on it. We’ve got plenty of time.”
MICKEY GREEN, Crew chief of the AT Racing No. 57 Pelletier Ford Ford Fusion, On the team’s outlook for the Spring Green 112: “We’re going in blind to a certain extent, having not been there as a team before. I’ve got a good idea of what we can do, though, and Austin really really likes the track. I’m confident we’ll be fine. I think we can run for a Top-3. I don’t see why we can’t.
“But I’d say this is a test for us. In my opinion, we’re going to see what kind of team we are. We’ll see if we can bounce back from what we think was a disappointing weekend at Thunder Road. We’ll go from there.”
UP NEXT
The ACT Late Model Tour takes a week off before heading to Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, Maine, for the Oxford 150 on Sunday, May 20… Austin Theriault finished third in the TD Bank 250 at the track last July, and he considers Oxford his “home” track despite it being roughly 300 miles from his home in Fort Kent. It is the track where Theriault made his ACT Late Model Tour debut in 2009.
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