The weather couldn\u2019t of been any perfect in Northeast Connecticut for the Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour to make their third appearance at New England\u2019s largest short track, Thompson International Speedway. 21 tour style mini stocks rolled into the gate early Thursday afternoon along with 25 Thompson regular minis for the 3rd Annual Northern Tour Shootout.<\/p>\n
The point leader coming into the night was John Kelly fresh off of two third place finishes in the first two events of the season. John would experience motor difficulties in practice which sidelined him for the heat race. As practice continued there was definitely a battle brewing between Twin State feature event winner Emerson Cayer along with last years Thompson winner Mark Panaroni, Shawn Swallow and, last years Thompson champion Danny Field.
\n <\/p>\n
The draw was held for heat race starting spots and the Taters NASCAR Merchandise Cash Bonus went to Loren Smith winning a cool $50 cash! Shawn Swallow braved one caution flag and brought home heat #1 as well as the point lead from John Kelly\u2019s misfortune. Danny Field proved he didn\u2019t forget how to navigate the large oval by bringing home heat #2. Swallow got to draw the inversion for the feature lineup which sent him 5 rows back into the field.<\/p>\n
Due to the Inversion Chris Williams and Roger Ducharme were granted the front row honors. As the green flag flew it was the Thompson veteran Roger Ducharme from Foster, RI leading the first lap. Heat winner Danny field got mixed up with a few vehicles in turn 4 on lap 2 causing his car come to rest near the wall creating our first caution of the night. Field drove away with a flat tire and returned to competition. For intentionally bringing out the caution Field was penalized 1 lap according to NEMST officials. The battle between Williams and Ducharme lasted for four laps before they bumped in turn 2 and both went spinning to the infield, both cars continued albeit at the back of the running order. The lead battle now moved to the 88 and 51CT cars of Cayer and Panaroni where Cayer would prevail as the crossed flags signaling halfway waved over head. Cayer would hold out for the rest of the event. Danny Field wheeled his flying 18 up to second place on the track but had to settle for 15th in running order due to his earlier penalty. The rest of the top 5 were Panaroni, Michalski, Swallow, and Colvin.<\/p>\n
The special part about the Thompson night is the shootout event held later on in the night. This is a purse only event with no points on the line. The lineup is set by feature finish with NEMST taking the outside line. The score is 1-1 for the Thompson vs. Tour race in the past. Thompson winner Mike Viens led the way for the extra distance event until lap 10 when Emerson Cayer stole the lead. The car to watch all night was the 18 of Danny Field, Field started deep in the pack in 24th position but managed to be right on the tail of leader Emerson Cayer at lap 14. Diving into the corner on lap 15 Field took the top spot and never looked back. This makes the NEMST-Thompson shootout score 2-1 in favor on the touring drivers. Join us next season at the Big T to see the show in action once again.<\/p>\n
Up next for the touring series drivers is the famed New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, NH on July 7. A large car count is expected for the legendary event on their newly designed \u00bc mile mini oval. For NEMST points, results, pictures, and additional info please visit www.northeastministocktour.com or find us on facebook!<\/p>\n
Thompson Bonus Awards
\nSunoco Race Fuels Winners Circle: Emerson Cayer
\nSunoco Race Fuels Hard Charger: Chad Baxter
\nNEMST Pole Awards: Chris Williams
\nTater\u2019s NASCAR Cash: Loren Smith $50
\nTexas Roadhouse Gas Card: Cristofer King
\nRacecar Engineering Gift Certificates: Emerson Cayer, Glenn Colvin, Chris Williams, Danny Field<\/p>\n
North East Mini Stock Tour – Feature
\nFinish\tStart\tCar\tDriver\tHometown\tPoints
\n1\t8\t88NH\t Emerson Cayer\t Contoocook , Nh\t80.00
\n2\t7\t51CT\t Mark Panaroni\t Ivoryton , Ct\t75.00
\n3\t3\t51M\t Scott Michalski\t South Killingly, Ct\t72.00
\n4\t9\t04\t Shawn Swallow\t Stark , Nh\t69.00
\n5\t6\t39\t Glenn Colvin\t Clinton , Ct\t66.00
\n6\t19\t21\t Chad Baxter\t Pascoag , Ri\t63.00
\n7\t4\t69\t Louis Maher\t North Brookfield, Ma\t60.00
\n8\t21\t38\t Cristofer King\t Derry , Nh\t57.00
\n9\t12\t74\t Nick Maniatis\t Hooksett , Nh\t54.00
\n10\t1\t91CT\t Chris Williams\t Waterford , Ct\t51.00
\n11\t2\t34\t Roger Ducharme\t Foster , Ri\t48.00
\n12\t17\t61\t Cory Dentino\t Lancaster , Ma\t45.00
\n13\t14\t90\t Desmond Skillings\t Antrim , Nh\t42.00
\n14\t15\t22\t Alicia Thatcher\t Pascoag , Ri\t39.00
\n15\t10\t18\t Danny Field\t Deep River, Ct\t36.00
\n16\t16\t25\t Nic Skillings\t Warner , Nh\t33.00
\n17\t18\t60\t John Kelly\t New London, Ct\t30.00
\n18\t13\t52NH\t Ricky Labrecque\t Antrim , Nh\t27.00
\n19\t5\t33CT\t Eric Bourgeois\t , Ct\t24.00
\n20\t11\t41\t Loren Smith\t Allenstown , Nh\t0.00\tDNS
\n21\t20\t51\t Mike Mason\t Skowhegan , Me\t0.00\tDNS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2012 Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour The weather couldn\u2019t of been any perfect in Northeast Connecticut for the Texas Roadhouse North East Mini Stock Tour to make their third appearance at New England\u2019s largest short track, Thompson International Speedway. 21 tour style mini stocks rolled into the gate early Thursday afternoon along with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[196,4167,126,41,14972],"tags":[15130,15131],"class_list":["post-10185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-nemst","category-new-england","category-thompson","category-touring-series-news","tag-emerson-cayer","tag-north-east-mini-stock-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}