{"id":18718,"date":"2015-05-02T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T16:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18718"},"modified":"2015-05-02T09:15:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T13:15:24","slug":"helliwell-act-tour-take-on-local-stars-in-merchants-bank-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/helliwell-act-tour-take-on-local-stars-in-merchants-bank-150\/","title":{"rendered":"Helliwell, ACT Tour Take on Local Stars in Merchants Bank 150"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hfghfgh\"<\/a>Barre, VT\u2014The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) will help Barre, VT\u2019s Thunder Road open its 56th season of competition on Sunday, May 3 with the 17th Annual Merchants Bank 150. Wayne Helliwell Jr. will be going for his second straight win in the event, but a host of ACT Tour and local Thunder Road Late Model drivers are looking to take the trophy home.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dover, NH\u2019s Helliwell picked up his first Thunder Road win in last year\u2019s Merchants Bank 150, taking the lead using a crossover move on Jimmy Hebert with 16 laps remaining. The two-time ACT Tour Champion became the 11th different winner in 16 editions of the event. Helliwell and his Bruce Bernhardt\u2013owned team come into this year\u2019s event with the ACT Tour point lead after their victory in last Sunday\u2019s New Hampshire Governor\u2019s Cup 150 at Lee USA Speedway in Lee, NH.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was more luck than anything last year, but we\u2019re definitely proud of that win,\u201d Helliwell said. \u201cThat race is always tough, and restarts are really critical. If we can get the car working on the bottom like it was last time, I think we\u2019ll have something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helliwell will have to contend with New Hamphire rival and defending ACT Tour Champion Joey Polewarczyk Jr. \u201cJoey Pole\u201d sits second in the standings, nine points behind Helliwell, after rallying from a late-race spin at Lee USA. Top Tour runners Jimmy Hebert, Jeff White, Emily Packard, and Brad Babb will also be on hand. Nick Sweet, who ran the first two Tour events for Eric Chase\u2019s #40VT team, will be back behind the wheel of his weekly #88VT mount.<\/p>\n

Many of the weekly Thunder Road Late Model competitors will be racing as well. Multi-time Champions Derrick O\u2019Donnell, David Pembroke, and Phil Scott all attended an open practice session on Tuesday, April 28 to get their cars dialed in. Local Barre driver Jason Corliss was the first Thunder Road competitor to enter the event, while Brooks Clark, Josh Demers, and Chip Grenier have also filed entries.<\/p>\n

The Merchants Bank 150 offers a chance for local racers to take on the stars of the ACT Tour while getting an early start to their season. 2014 Rookie of the Year Eric Badore hopes to use the event as a springboard for a top-five finish in the 2015 point standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s pretty cool to run against Joey Pole, Wayne Helliwell, and all those top runners that are winning on a weekly basis,\u201d Badore said. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to race against them. You can learn a little something different from those guys, because we don\u2019t run 150 laps every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just makes it that much tougher, because the locals run there weekly or have run there for years,\u201d Helliwell added. \u201cWe come in maybe once or twice a year, so it\u2019s definitely tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thunder Road\u2019s 56th season-opening weekend begins on Saturday, May 2 with the annual Thunder Road Car Show on Main Street in Barre from 9:00am to 12:00pm, followed by the race car parade up Quarry Hill to the track featuring the Catamount Pipe Band, the \u201cWarpipes of Thunder Road.\u201d An open practice session for all divisions will follow and is open to the public. Post time for the Merchants Bank 150 on Sunday, May 3 is 1:00pm. Admission is $25 for adults with kids 12 and under admitted free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barre, VT\u2014The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) will help Barre, VT\u2019s Thunder Road open its 56th season of competition on Sunday, May 3 with the 17th Annual Merchants Bank 150. Wayne Helliwell Jr. will be going for his second straight win in the event, but a host of ACT Tour and local Thunder Road Late Model drivers […]<\/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":[15778],"class_list":["post-18718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-touring-series-news","tag-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18718","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=18718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18719,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18718\/revisions\/18719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}