{"id":18485,"date":"2015-04-10T11:24:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-10T15:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18485"},"modified":"2015-04-10T07:28:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-10T11:28:46","slug":"helliwell-looks-to-reclaim-act-title-in-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/helliwell-looks-to-reclaim-act-title-in-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Helliwell Looks to Reclaim ACT Title in 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"db05051304\"<\/a>Waterbury, VT \u2013 The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) will see the return of one of the Northeast\u2019s most accomplished drivers this coming season. Wayne Helliwell Jr., the 2012 and 2013 ACT Champion, recently stated that he will be competing full-time on the Tour in 2015.<\/p>\n

The Dover, NH veteran came out on top of duels with 8-time Tour Champion Brian Hoar in 2012 and Joey Polewarczyk Jr. in 2013, respectively. Helliwell won six races over those two years, including the 2012 Fall Foliage 200 at Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh, NY and three victories at Devil\u2019s Bowl Speedway in West Haven, VT.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Helliwell ran a partial ACT schedule in 2014, but will seek a third title this year on the 13-race Tour, which will visit tracks in five U.S. states and Canada. The former Lee USA Speedway Champion is looking forward to the challenge of the Tour competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the competition is going to be even stronger than it has been,\u201d Helliwell said. \u201cYou\u2019ll have Joey (Polewarczyk Jr.) again, he\u2019s always a contender. Jimmy Hebert, Ray Parent, and some of the newcomers will be strong as well. It\u2019s never a \u2018give me\u2019 or \u2018here you go\u2019; it\u2019s going to be really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his partial schedule last season, Helliwell still captured a win in the Merchant\u2019s Bank 150 at Thunder Road Speedbowl in Barre, VT, along with five top-5 finishes. His efforts helped his Bruce Bernhardt\u2013owned team finish second in the 2014 ACT owner\u2019s point standings. Helliwell also won the 6th Annual Bond Auto ACT Invitational at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in September.<\/p>\n

A bumper crop of title contenders is shaping up for the 2015 ACT season. Helliwell will have to dethrone 2014 ACT Champion and fellow New Hampshire native Polewarczyk, his closest challenger in 2013. Vermont\u2019s Jimmy Hebert and Rhode Island\u2019s Ray Parent finished second and third in the 2014 standings and are both chasing their first championship. Maine drivers Travis Stearns, Ben Ashline, and Brad Babb are expected to be factors as well. Young up-and-comers such as Emily Packard, Brandon Atkins, and Kyle Welch will also try to stake their claims as title contenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoey (Polewarczyk) and Wayne (Helliwell) obviously right off the bat, you know those two are going to be right there,\u201d Stearns said. \u201cYou might as well consider them in the title hunt no matter what. There\u2019s a lot; you never know. Jimmy (Hebert) runs great, Ray (Parent)\u2026I honestly think there\u2019s six or seven teams that could be right in the hunt. That\u2019s a lot of what I like about the ACT Tour. I think it\u2019s underrated for some of the caliber of people we have there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waterbury, VT \u2013 The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) will see the return of one of the Northeast\u2019s most accomplished drivers this coming season. Wayne Helliwell Jr., the 2012 and 2013 ACT Champion, recently stated that he will be competing full-time on the Tour in 2015. The Dover, NH veteran came out on top of duels with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"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":[55,14972],"tags":[15684],"class_list":["post-18485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-touring-series-news","tag-waterbury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18487,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18485\/revisions\/18487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}