With a bunch of new cars in the pits the NEMST rolled into PASS 400 Weekend at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway. The NEMST was very excited to be a part of the biggest race weekend in Maine. The heat races rolled off at 12:15 and featured Ashley Marshall, the 2010 Oxford Champion, and Tim Collins taking home their respective heat wins.
After the PASS Modified feature it was time for the thundering mini stocks to steal their part of the show. With Nik Coates and Jeff Hebert starting on front row of the 18 car field the point leaders would have a long ways to get to the front.
Jeff Hebert broke out to the quick lead and tried to put some ground in between him and the rest of the field. Defending champion Emerson Cayer was putting on quite a show by slicing and dicing his way towards the top spot but shortly before halfway suffered motor issues and nursed it to the finish no longer being a factor in the race. Meanwhile Dylan Lancaster and Joe Turner chased down the quick Honda of Hebert and overtook the top spot while current point leader Chris McKinstry made up ground quickly.
On lap 16 the 8 car of Chris McKinstry poked into the inside and slid around the 09 of Turner for the lead and never looked back. With tough battles all race there was something to watch lap after lap. On lap 25 the top 5 were, 8 90 34 09 81. While the 34 car of Rhode Island’s Roger Ducharme proved an impressive run all the way up to third place he suffered a pinion failure on lap 34 and was not able to compete any further. Fighting a skipping engine Ashley Marshall jockeyed his Mustang all the way up to 4th place by the time the race was over.
When the Checkered flag flew from Jordan Harnish it was the 8 car of McKinstry taking home his 5th win of the season while the 90 car of Tim Boyle crossed the line in second place he would not make it through technical inspection and was assessed a one lap penalty moving Calvin rose into that place. Ashley marshall ended up bring home the third place hardware while Joe Turner continued his recent strong runs with another 4th place finish, and in his third NEMST start Dylan Lancaster brought home his second top 5.
For the NEMST Technical Inspection tour officials had the top 3 pull off the cylinder heads for a number of check including bore, stroke, ports, valves, intakes, and headers. While the 90 car of Tim Boyle was found with a slightly ported intake manifold and was placed at the tail end of the 1 lap down cars. All other cars went through tech inspection with no issues.
1. 8 Chris McKinstry
2. 81 Calvin Rose
3. 77 Ashley Marshall
4. 09 Joe Turner
5. 1 Dylan Lancaster
6. 18 Tim Collins
7. 41 Loren Smith
8. 18x Nik Coates
9. 88 Emerson Cayer
10. 4 Rob Gioia
11. 86 Jeff Hebert
12. 3 Kevin Bishop
13. 90 Tim Boyle
14. 34 Roger Ducharme
15. 41M Larry Melcher
16. 2 Rob Greenleaf
17. 31 Adam Armstrong
18. 10 Jimmy Childs
DNS 42 Loren Smith Jr.
DNS 95 Bruce Knowles
