By Lou Modestino
Could the Pro Stocks be making a comeback in New England? Consider the fact that last Saturday night the PASS Tour, based in Maine, managed to bring to Seekonk Speedway some 27 entries for their annual appearance at the Cement Palace. The teams came from New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire and Quebec to challenge the dominant Pro Stock drivers from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Last month the PASS Tour was able to muster another good field the night before the TD Bank Oxford 250 at the Oxford Plains Speedway. All that in spite of high fuel prices! No doubt the $20,000 purse posted by Seekonk Speedway had a lot to do with motivating those North Country and Canadian drivers to make the long trip south.
In the end Johnny Clark of Hallowell, Maine, worked his way through the pack to challenge leader Joey Polewarczyk of Hudson, NH and take over the lead into lap 141, then charge home for the win. Clark had started 14th on the gird. Worcester’s Derek Ramstrom, who had been the car ahead of Clark at the green flag, pried his way past Pole with two laps to go for second. Pole, Lonnie Sommerville of New Brunswick and Ben Rowe of Turner, ME rounded out the top five.
In victory lane Clark was very pleased at his performance. “I’d like to thank all of my sponsors for their support. Seekonk is a fun track and I’d like to thank all of the fans who turned out tonight.” Clark also went on to say “When we got here we checked out the track and my crew ended up making many changes to the car.” Obviously, every thing his crew did turned out well. What also helped was the fact that Clark stayed out of trouble, during the 150 laps, and made his bid for the lead with just nine laps remaining.
The Street Stock feature, earlier in the evening, proved to be another competitive race. Mike Mitchell of Cumberland, RI, coming from eighth place and took aim at current point leader Ryan Lineman of Coventry, RI. He finally got by his rival as they came down for the checkered flag in one very close finish and won over Lineman by half-a-fender! Getting the leftovers were; George Rego of Dartmouth, Scott Cestodio of Swansea and Joe Kohler of Johnston, RI for the top five.
Bob Pelland, III of Cranston, RI won his second Late Model Feature of the season but had to get by Jaramee Lillie of W. Warwick, RI and then hold off Tyler Thompson of Somerset before he could go to victory lane. Thompson settled for second. Next were; Dylan Estrella of N. Attleboro, Gary DeGasparre, Jr. of Pawtucket, RI and Kyle Casper of Somerset.
Hometown driver Mike Cavallaro had a close call early in the Sport Truck main event. With all that behind him he came up to third place in the early going. Cavallaro then capitalized on a restart with nine laps remaining in the feature and made his bid with Ed Cannon of Fall River in hot pursuit. Gannon made several attempts to get by Cavallaro. But Cavallaro would have none of that and held off the challenger to record his sixth win. Cannon had to settle for second best followed by Robert Andreozzi of Portsmouth, RI and Dan Leach of N. Dighton.