{"id":18545,"date":"2015-04-16T09:35:36","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T13:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18545"},"modified":"2015-04-16T09:35:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T13:35:36","slug":"corliss-making-his-mark-in-thunder-road-late-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/corliss-making-his-mark-in-thunder-road-late-models\/","title":{"rendered":"Corliss Making His Mark in Thunder Road Late Models"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"thunder\"<\/a>Corliss Making His Mark in Thunder Road Late Models<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barre, VT \u2013 Before his 2013 rookie season in the Thunder Road Late Models, Barre\u2019s Jason Corliss hoped that his team would be a championship contender in five years\u2019 time. Corliss is now entering his third year in the top division, and already finds himself high on the list of title threats.<\/p>\n

\"ACT\"<\/a>Corliss enters the upcoming season after a 2014 campaign in which he captured the first two wins of his American-Canadian Tour (ACT) Late Model championship career. He finished fourth in the point standings. His defining moment came at the Mekkelsen RV Memorial Day Classic. Corliss muscled underneath two-time \u201cKing of the Road\u201d Nick Sweet on the final circuit of the 100-lap event, beating him to the checkered flag by a bumper for his first win. The victory sent a message: he and his Chris Burnett\u2013owned team have arrived.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal this year is definitely to race and compete for the title,\u201d Corliss said. \u201cThat\u2019s where our sights are set on. It\u2019s what we\u2019re working and have worked all winter for. We feel that, with the season we had last year, we\u2019re in a really good place as a team to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corliss and Burnett moved up to the Late Models from the Bond Auto Tiger Sportsmen after the 2012 season. They showed flashes of potential in 2013, posting three top-5 finishes in their rookie year. At the end of the season, the team purchased an RPM Motorsports car formerly driven by 8-time American-Canadian Tour (ACT) Champion Brian Hoar, setting up their standout 2014 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first car we bought was kind of just dipping our toes in it, and let\u2019s do it and have fun,\u201d Corliss recalled. \u201cObviously we\u2019re there to be competitive and race to win, but it just wasn\u2019t the same car that I\u2019m racing now. When they decided to purchase the (current) car, that\u2019s really when things got serious with our program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just equipment. You can\u2019t just throw anybody or any team against a race car and expect results. But we gained crew members, and we just put a lot more effort into our program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corliss is a former basketball player at Twinfield High School whose character is exemplified by the Vermont Principal\u2019s Association award he received for conduct on and off the court. The self-described \u201chyper-competitive\u201d racer got his start as a crew member for three-time Thunder Road Late Model Champion Cris Michaud. Jason\u2019s father Jim first joined Michaud\u2019s crew after competing in the Allen Lumber Street Stocks, and soon got Jason involved as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s come up through Tom Curley\u2019s system, which so many of us believe in,\u201d said Michaud, who is now Thunder Road\u2019s race director. \u201cHe\u2019s done the whole ladder from the beginning. He hasn\u2019t had the big sponsors. He\u2019s worked hard, started out with low or medium equipment and just worked his way up. A lot of his edge was his driving ability. He didn\u2019t have the silver spoon. He\u2019s worked hard for his talent and success in racing.\u201d
\nWhen he turned 16, Corliss jumped into a 4-cylinder Street Stock for the 2005 season. He progressed and eventually won the 2008 Street Stock championship. Corliss moved up to the V8-powered Tiger Sportsmen in 2010 and won the Rookie of the Year Award. A hard crash late that year led to his partnership with Burnett. Corliss finished in the top-10 in points in both the 2011 and 2012 seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always those teams that surprise you,\u201d two-time Late Model Champion Nick Sweet said. \u201cLast year I thought it was the Corliss team. They might not have won the championship, but they did a phenomenal job coming on. It was great to see them make strides.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work has paid off to date. Corliss is eager to start the season \u2013 so much so he was the first Thunder Road competitor to enter the season-opening Merchant\u2019s Bank 150 on Sunday, May 3.<\/p>\n

Corliss, defending track champion Derrick O\u2019Donnell, and the rest of the Thunder Road Late Model stars will take on the talent of the American-Canadian Tour on May 3, including 2014 Tour Champion Joey Polewarczyk Jr., defending Merchant\u2019s Bank 150 winner Wayne Helliwell Jr., and Milk Bowl Champion Eddie MacDonald. The weekend will begin on Saturday, May 2 with the Thunder Road Car Show in downtown Barre and race car parade up Quarry Hill, followed by an open practice for all divisions. Post time on Sunday is 1:00pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corliss Making His Mark in Thunder Road Late Models Barre, VT \u2013 Before his 2013 rookie season in the Thunder Road Late Models, Barre\u2019s Jason Corliss hoped that his team would be a championship contender in five years\u2019 time. Corliss is now entering his third year in the top division, and already finds himself high […]<\/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":[55,26,14972,200],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-thunder-road","category-touring-series-news","category-vermont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18545","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=18545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18546,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18545\/revisions\/18546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}