{"id":18737,"date":"2015-05-08T02:32:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T06:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18737"},"modified":"2015-05-08T00:43:48","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T04:43:48","slug":"babb-scores-emotional-first-act-win-in-merchants-bank-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/babb-scores-emotional-first-act-win-in-merchants-bank-150\/","title":{"rendered":"Babb Scores Emotional First ACT Win in Merchants Bank 150"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gdfbdcbc\"<\/a>Barre, VT\u2014Brad Babb came into the season looking for his first career American-Canadian Tour victory. He and his Joey Laquerre\u2013owned team earned it in perhaps the most dramatic way possible on Sunday, May 3.<\/p>\n

Babb took the lead from Scott Dragon with 18 laps to go and went on to win the Merchants Bank 150 at Barre, VT\u2019s Thunder Road. The win came following a pre-race tribute to Laquerre\u2019s late grandson Joey M. Laquerre, leading to an emotional celebration in Victory Lane.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t believe we won at Thunder Road,\u201d Windham, ME\u2019s Babb said. \u201cIt means the world to me. I can\u2019t even describe it. This is 100% for Lil Joey. I couldn\u2019t do it without Big Joey.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s beyond words,\u201d the elder Laquerre added. \u201cWe\u2019re so excited about it. It\u2019s duly needed. If Lil Joey was here, he\u2019d be very proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two-time defending \u201cKing of the Road\u201d Derrick O\u2019Donnell starting on the pole and lead 25 of the first 26 laps, with ACT Tour point Leader Wayne Helliwell Jr. nosing ahead for a single circuit following a lap 5 restart. However, O\u2019Donnell fell off the pace following the race\u2019s second and final restart on lap 26 with an apparent suspension problem and retired soon after.<\/p>\n

Milton, VT\u2019s Dragon came to life on the same restart and swung around Helliwell\u2019s outside to take the lead on lap 33, only to see Graniteville, VT\u2019s Chip Grenier perform the same move on him seven laps later. Grenier darted out to a big lead, but lapped traffic helped to make it a four car race between Grenier, Dragon, Helliwell, and Babb.<\/p>\n

Grenier, who had been rim-riding the outside, slipped up in turns 1 and 2 on lap 108 and allowed Dragon to retake the lead. Babb followed through soon after and methodically tracked down Dragon, eventually getting underneath him for the win. Babb also became the first driver to claim the Bond Auto Parts New Champions \u201cBreakout Award\u201d for winning an event and unofficially took the lead in the New Champions point standings.<\/p>\n

Helliwell caught Dragon in the final laps for second, while Dragon settled for third. Joey Polewarczyk Jr., Grenier, Emily Packard, Brandon Atkins, Travis Stearns, Tyler Cahoon, and Cody Blake rounded out the top-10.<\/p>\n

Christopher Pelkey scored a dominating victory in the Bond Auto Tiger Sportsman feature. The S. Barre, VT driver started on the pole and was never seriously challenged in the 35-lap event en route to his fifth career Tiger win.<\/p>\n

Former Champion \u201cDouble-O\u201d Joe Steffen finished second, with Mike Martin in third. Doug Crownshield inherited the fourth spot after Camoron Ouellette was disqualified for a suspension violation. Caleb Nelson, Dylan Payea, Eric Johnson, Jason Woodard, Stephen Donahue, and Jeffrey Bousquet completed the top-10.<\/p>\n

Tyler Austin scored his second career victory in the 25-lap Allen Lumber Street Stock feature. Austin, sporting a paint scheme in tribute to Joey M. Laquerre, took the lead early and drove away to the win. Patrick Tibbetts finished second, followed by Gary Mullen, Jamon Perry, Brandon Gray, Jaden Perry, Donny Yates, David Whitcomb, Chris LaForest, and Alan Maynard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barre, VT\u2014Brad Babb came into the season looking for his first career American-Canadian Tour victory. He and his Joey Laquerre\u2013owned team earned it in perhaps the most dramatic way possible on Sunday, May 3. Babb took the lead from Scott Dragon with 18 laps to go and went on to win the Merchants Bank 150 […]<\/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":[55,26,14972,200],"tags":[8691],"class_list":["post-18737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-thunder-road","category-touring-series-news","category-vermont","tag-american-canadian-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18737","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=18737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18739,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18737\/revisions\/18739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}