{"id":19995,"date":"2015-10-19T14:48:22","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T18:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=19995"},"modified":"2015-10-19T14:48:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T18:48:22","slug":"cabral-bigelow-best-in-nemas-shane-hammond-memorial-at-thompsons-sunoco-world-series-of-speedway-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/cabral-bigelow-best-in-nemas-shane-hammond-memorial-at-thompsons-sunoco-world-series-of-speedway-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Cabral, Bigelow Best in NEMA\u2019s Shane Hammond Memorial at Thompson\u2019s Sunoco World Series of Speedway Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NEMA-TP-NLM-5290\"<\/a>Cabral, Bigelow Best in NEMA\u2019s Shane Hammond Memorial at Thompson\u2019s Sunoco World Series of Speedway Racing
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Randy Cabral pulled off “one for the ages” coming from last place in the NEMA feature to
\npass teammate Todd Bertrand on the last lap at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park’s
\nSunoco World Series of Racing this past Saturday evening. In Lites action, Scott Bigelow
\ndominated the feature event, despite a late race charge from John Zych Jr. Zych, the
\nnight before, was crowned the NEMA champion for 2015, and his father, John Zych Sr. the
\nowner’s champion. In the Lites division, Anthony Payne won his first series championship
\nand Bigelow won the car owners title.<\/p>\n

In the NEMA feature, Todd Bertrand jumped out into the lead in the Tim Bertrand owned
\n#74 machine. He quickly paced the field, pulling out to nearly a half straightaway lead
\nat one poiNt. Further back, John Zych Jr. had charged from his ninth starting spot to
\ntake over the second spot by lap eight. Randy Cabral, who started scratch on the field,
\nwas also making his way through the field and would reach the third spot by lap
\nthirteen.
\n<\/p>\n

Bertrand’s advantage would start to fade with ten laps remaining, as he suffered a
\nbroken brake caliper bracket, sending the caliper rocketing across the track and into
\nthe first turn wall. Zych got to within three carlengths of Bertrand with five laps
\nremaining, and at that point, Cabral was right in the mix as well. With three laps to
\ngo, Cabral drove into turn one hot, on the bottom to take second away from Zych and he
\nthen set his sights on Bertrand. Coming down the back stretch with two laps to go,
\nCabral made up big ground on Bertrand and then dove in between the lapped car of Alan
\nChambers and Bertrand, drawing even coming off of turn four to take the white flag. The
\nduo raced side by side into turn one, with Cabral coming out with the advantage. He went
\non to take down the victory over Bertrand, putting both Tim Bertrand cars on the podium.<\/p>\n

Zych would finish third and would lock up the series championship, and was followed by a
\nhard charging run by Seth Carlson, Avery Stoehr, Cole Carter, Jim Chambers, Paul Scally,
\nAlan Chambers and Jake Smith.<\/p>\n

“I could see that Todd was getting loose and John was getting tight,” said Cabral. “My
\ncar was literally the same from the drop of the green until the last lap. We struggled
\nall day, with one issue after another. A bad battery in the practice, a broken u-joint
\nprior to the heat race. With only three laps on the track all day, I’m amazed the car
\nwas as good as it was. It was a great way to cap off the season,” he said.<\/p>\n

A dejected Bertrand said “I totally lost the brakes when the caliper issued occurred,
\nand just couldn’t hold the car on the bottom anymore. It was a good run, but I really
\nwanted to win,” he said.<\/p>\n

Cabral’s fastest lap of the feature came on the last circuit, a blistering 17.68 lap.<\/p>\n

In the Lites feature, Scott Bigelow blasted out into the lead from his outside pole
\nstarting spot. He wasted no time stretching out his lead, but further back Randy Cabral
\nwas maneuvering his way through the pack in his family owned #35 from the tenth starting
\nspot. John Zych Jr. driving the Frank Manafort owned #76 was also working his way to the
\nfront.<\/p>\n

Cabral would reach second by the halfway point, and was hotly pursued by Zych, as
\nBigelow continued to lead. Zych would make a run by Cabral with nine laps to go, and set
\nhis sights on Bigelow. A feature best lap of 19.70 for Zych would come shortly after,
\nbut it would not be enough to catch Bigelow, as he would go on to take down both the
\nfeature win, and clinch the owner’s title for the season.<\/p>\n

Anthony Payne would have a strong fourth place run, locking up his first ever driver’s
\nchampionship driving the Scrivani owned #21. Cabral finished second in the driver’s
\nstandings in both divisions.<\/p>\n

NEMA’s season has concluded, and the club celebrates the season at its annual awards
\nbanquet in early December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cabral, Bigelow Best in NEMA\u2019s Shane Hammond Memorial at Thompson\u2019s Sunoco World Series of Speedway Racing Randy Cabral pulled off “one for the ages” coming from last place in the NEMA feature to pass teammate Todd Bertrand on the last lap at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park’s Sunoco World Series of Racing this past Saturday evening. […]<\/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":[196,40,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-nema","category-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19995","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=19995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19997,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19995\/revisions\/19997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}