The North East Mini Stock Tour made its return to Lee USA Speedway memorable as another first time winner carried the checkers around the 3/8 mile oval. 16 Cars rolled through the gates in hopes of prevailing amongst the best mini stock drivers in the region. This action packed Tuesday night event was held in conjunction with the full fender flyers of the Pro All Stars Series and the Bastille 200.
After practice and a short rain shower the engines fired to life to take to the track for the first events of the night with 2 heats races. Emerson Cayer put his good luck draw to good use by hanging onto the win from the Pole Position in the first heat with Calvin Rose and Loren Smith rounding out the top 3. In the action filled second heat John Kelly and Ricky Porter battled and banged for the first 8 laps before Porter pulled off with mechanical issues giving Kelly the win. Roger Ducharme and Jeff Prindall followed Kelly across the stripe.
As the NEMST feature was getting lined up and last minute changes were being made to the cars volunteers from Methuen, MA and Newington, NH Texas Roadhouse stores were busy handing out peanuts and appetizer cards to the fans in attendance. The NEMST thundered onto the track for the beginning of their 50 lap feature. As Krysten Dermergian waved the green flag the field came up to speed and headed into turn 1. Some very quick moves on the start propelled Rob Greenleaf and Calvin Rose towards the front of the field. As Loren Smith Jr. showed the way early on the back of the pack starters of Kelly and Cayer dug their way into the top 5. By lap 4 Greenleaf made the move on Smith to put the black Dodge up front. Ricky Porter who showed a very fast car in practice was experiencing a lot of trouble passing the field and improving his position.
A lap 24 Spin from Roger Ducharme that Collected Jeff Prindall brought out the only caution of the event and bunched the top 5 back together. As the green was waved Cayer strongly moved in behind Greenleaf and began to work on the lead. Porter started to make progress towards the front as well. Kelly and Smith were dicing it up for the latter part of the top 5. Greenleaf continued to show his knowledge of 3/8 mile tracks and continued to show the way. Rose settled in behind Cayer and began to block Porter. In the final ten circuit Porter made the move on Rose and was digging hard on Cayer. While letting Emerson know he was there Porter showed extreme patience trying to get by the Former Champ.
Greenleaf welcomed the hard battle for second and began to pull away and taking home his first NEMST win. Cayer crossed the line for second with Porter, Rose, and Kelly close behind. After Texas Roadhouse victory lane the cars pulled into NEMST Techincal Inspection area where officials decided that the early finish time and nice weather was perfect to pull apart engines.
On word of techs intentions Porter refused to pull apart the borrowed Paul Brown car and relinquished his trophy position to Rose. Rose was later found out of stock and Third was given to Kelly. Details of the technical inspection process and findings will be available in the tech recap later this week.
Come see the NEMST at the Fast 5/8 mile in Thompson, CT for their next event on Thursday July 28. Check out www.NorthEastMiniStockTour.com for further news and info.
2011 North East Mini Stock Tour
7/13/2011
Lee USA Results
Feature
1. 2 Rob Greenleaf (R)
2. 88 Emerson Cayer
3. 60 John Kelly(R)
4. 41 Loren Smith
5. 38 Cristofer King (R)
6. 42 Loren Smith Jr.
7. 43 Roger Ducharme
8. 57 Ray Patriacca(R)
9. 33 Matt Sonnhalter (R)
10. 5 Jeff Prindall
DQ 3 Ricky Porter
DQ 8 Calvin Rose
DNS 51 Chris Judd
DNS 38X Jack Victoria
DNS 14 Chris Howard
DNS 69 Louis Maher