By Phil Whipple
\nStaff Writer<\/p>\n
BARRE, Vermont — Former track champion David Pembroke got the advantage on a late restart, then held off the challenge of defending King of the Road Nick Sweet to claim the Times Argus Trophy Dash Thursday evening at the famed Thunder Road International Speedbowl.<\/p>\n
Pembroke, of Montpelier, took over the point at lap 68 and hung on for top honors. Sweet settled for second, while 2010 Rookie of the Year Cody Blake came home third. Marcel Gravel and Grant Folsom completed the top five.
\n
\nEverything changed up front in this one when a hard-charging John Donahue got into leader Phil Scott going down the backstretch on lap 67. Donahue is the current point leader at Thunder Road, and wanted another win badly. His aggressive driving got him sent to the rear, while Pembroke saw an opportunity come knocking. The win was his second in as many weeks. <\/p>\n
“That was the most fun I’ve had racing in a long time,” Pembroke said. “We struggled for quite a while this season, but we’ve really turned things around these last two weeks. I wish I knew exactly how, but things have just started coming together. I know it sure feels good to have things going our way again. It’s tough to win one of these things, and two straight is quite a
\ndeal. With double points awarded tonight, this is great timing. I hope we can win a couple more before it’s all over.” <\/p>\n
Sweet was gracious in post-race interviews, yet it was clear he had his sights set squarely on a victory. <\/p>\n
“Our car was fast tonight, just not quite fast enough to win,” Sweet said. “My hat is off to David, he had a strong car and was super-smooth out there. I thought we might have had something for him in the closing laps, but he was too slick. I’m still happy with the way we ran, we’re bound to get our chance at a victory again one of these nights.”<\/p>\n
Chip Grenier led the first 67 circuits until he got together with the lapped car of David Wilcox and spun into the infield. This was the first time the race totally changed complexion, since Grenier had sailed off into the sunset during the first 50 laps or so. When Blake inherited the lead at that point, it looked as if he might be on the cusp of a win. <\/p>\n
Yet the “big guns” of Thunder Road (Pembroke and Sweet) had other ideas. With 150 points awarded to the winner, this night was make-or-break for those in true title contention. <\/p>\n
Finishing sixth through 10th in the 75-lap Times Argus Trophy Dash was Brett Wheeler, Scott Payea, Michael Bailey, Jimmy Hebert and Reno Gervais. Only two cautions slowed the pace, neither for serious incident. Yellow waved for the first time when Cris Michaud spun off the top of Turn 3. It was brought out once again when Grenier got together with Wilcox. Aside from that, this one was wide-open, side-by-side racing all around the speedway. <\/p>\n
In earlier feature action, Scott Coburn brought the T-Road faithful to their feet with a thrilling last-lap pass on Chris Pelkey to steal the Tiger Sportsman victory. Coburn’s 2010 season ended early after a bad wreck, and 2011 got off to a slow start, as well. <\/p>\n
“We’re a low-buck, hodge-podge team that really needed a win,” Coburn told me in the pit area after post-race technical inspection. “My Dad and friends keep the car maintained, and they work pretty hard at it. I appreciate all they do, and they should be proud we had a car capable of that outside pass to win. This feels fantastic.” <\/p>\n
No matter how you slice it, Thunder Road continues to host some of the hottest short track action on the planet. In the first eight races of 2011, there were seven different winners. Fresh faces in Victory Lane keeps fans coming back each week. I’ve seen a ton of great short track battles, and most of them happened right here on the Barre high-banks. <\/p>\n
Thunder Road International Speedbowl returns to action next Thursday night, July 21, when Casella Waste Management presents a full card of racing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Phil Whipple Staff Writer BARRE, Vermont — Former track champion David Pembroke got the advantage on a late restart, then held off the challenge of defending King of the Road Nick Sweet to claim the Times Argus Trophy Dash Thursday evening at the famed Thunder Road International Speedbowl. Pembroke, of Montpelier, took over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,200],"tags":[15771],"class_list":["post-6249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thunder-road","category-vermont","tag-thunder-road"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}