Nick Sweet: ACT Late Model Tour
Riverside Speedway Race Preview
THE STORY
Nick Sweet of Barre, Vt., makes his first visit to Riverside Speedway in St. Croix, Que., when the ACT Late Model Tour competes in the Can-Am 200 on Saturday, August 27. It will be the second turn in the RPM Motorsports No. 57 RPM Racing Engines Ford for Sweet, who finished 12th in his debut with the team last weekend at Oxford Plains Speedway. The race on the unique .625-mile odd-shaped oval is a combination event with the Canadian-based ACT Castrol Series.
THE FACTS
WHO: Nick Sweet, Barre, Vt.
TEAM: RPM Motorsports No. 57 RPM Racing Engines Ford
CREW CHIEF: Andrew Hill, Georgia, Vt.
BEST CAREER RIVERSIDE SPEEDWAY FINISH: N/A
LAST RACE AT RIVERSIDE SPEEDWAY: N/A
WHAT: ACT Late Model Tour Can-Am 200
WHERE: Riverside Speedway, St. Croix, Quebec (.625-mile oval)
WHEN: 6 p.m., Saturday, August 27
ACT LATE MODEL TOUR
LAST RACE: August 20, Q 97.9 FM 150, Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Maine (12th)
NEXT RACE: September 4, Labor Day Classic 200, Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl, Barre, Vt. (.25-mile oval)
DID YOU KNOW?
Nick Sweet won the 2010 “King Of The Road” title at Thunder Road International Speedbowl.
RPM Motorsports has seven ACT Late Model Tour championships, and current RPM driver Brian Hoar has 32 career victories – the most by any driver in Tour history.
Nick Sweet won the Merchants Bank 150 at Thunder Road back in May, the second event of the season for the ACT Late Model Tour, and finished second in the TD Bank Oxford 250 while driving for his own team.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
NICK SWEET, Driver of the No. 57 RPM Racing Engines Ford, on his RPM Motorsports debut at Oxford last weekend: “All in all, for the first time in car and not getting much practice (because of rain), it wasn’t a terrible, terrible night. I expected better numbers, but we’re going to stay positive and try to get better.
“We didn’t really get much practice – the rain kind of hurt us on that. We had a decent car. I got caught up in a restart with two cars in front of me tangled up – so I just kind of had nowhere to go. The guy behind me drove over the hood, and that didn’t help.
“It’s been a long time since I raced (at Oxford) under the lights. We pitted twice and got the car decent, and we got up to 12th and that was as good as we were going get up to. It was good to get that considering all the time we spent working on it – we passed a lot of cars, but they were the same cars over and over.”
On heading to Riverside Speedway this weekend: “I have never even seen the place. Brian (Hoar) gave me a brief description when we were in the hauler during one of the rain delays last weekend. He said it was kind of like a trapezoid.
“I know it’s a little bit over a half-mile, and that’s about it. It should be interesting. I like going to new places. It’s another challenge on top of everything else. I know the car’s going to be good, so just hopefully we can unload close so I can learn the place and learn the scenarios with the race car. Obviously, last week helped me out with that. I’ve been in a couple different cars the last couple of weeks, and the hardest thing is just learning everything about each individual car.”
On his goals for the weekend at Riverside: “The biggest goal is to go out and qualify and then to finish the race, and if you can do that then you set your goals higher. It would be nice to get a Top-10 for the team. For myself, it was a little disappointing (last week). I know (team owner Rick Paya) wasn’t disappointed, but I expect more out of me.”
On his impressions of working with RPM last weekend: “They are a bunch of great guys. Very well organized. Great team. We just didn’t have time to practice, so I didn’t have a lot of time to give feedback.
“When you get in other cars, I can tell what the car’s doing in the corner, but it’s not as easy to know every nut and bolt and what to do. That’s the biggest thing, is getting comfortable enough to be able to give good feedback.
“That’s all learning. Not much time to learn with four races, but I’ll try and do my best.”
UP NEXT
The ACT Late Model Tour heads back to Thunder Road International Speedbowl for the Labor Day Classic 200 on Sunday, September 4… Nick Sweet won the Merchants Bank 150 at the track, the last time the ACT Tour competed there in a points race.