{"id":17931,"date":"2017-10-15T21:20:59","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T01:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maineracing.com\/wp\/?p=17931"},"modified":"2017-10-15T21:20:59","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T01:20:59","slug":"macdonald-wins-thompson-payea-reigns-elusive-1st-act-championship-payea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/2017\/10\/macdonald-wins-thompson-payea-reigns-elusive-1st-act-championship-payea\/","title":{"rendered":"MacDonald wins at Thompson, Payea reigns Elusive 1st ACT Championship for Payea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Thompson, Ct. \u2013 Eddie MacDonald took control of the American Canadian Tour (ACT) 75-lap season finale at Thompson Speedway\u00a0Saturday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and sped off to a dominant win.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Four spots back, Scott Payea nailed down the 2017 ACT championship in the Harrison Redi-Mix No. 37. With his eighth top-five finish in nine races.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MacDonald, driving the Hancock Electric No. 17, took the lead briefly from Thompson regular William Wall on lap 12, regained it for keeps on lap 19 and then survived four restarts before drawing away once the race stayed under green.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an awesome way to end the season for us,\u201d MacDonald said. \u201cWe finally got a Late Model win here.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe restarts grouped things up and made it tough for a while,\u201d MacDonald added, \u201cbut it was definitely fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Woody Pitkat was a stout but distant runner-up several car-lengths ahead of a racy, close-quarters duel between third-place Jean-Francois Dery and Dillon Moltz.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Payea started 15th. He drew close for a ringside seat to the Dery\/Moltz battle, but with a championship in hand, didn\u2019t force the issue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Positions 6-10 went to Wall, Ray Parent, Glenn Boss, Tom Carey III and Rowland Robinson, who raced back up through the 28-car field after a spinout on lap 28.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a great car,\u201d Payea said. \u201cI just had to play it smart and bring it home. When I got up to 8th, all the cars were dicing pretty hard. There were a lot of unknowns. It was no time to get greedy. On the last run, it stretched out and you could relax a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Payea\u2019s well-earned championship season included five wins and eight top-5\u2019s in nine starts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d Payea said. \u201cIt was a phenomenal season. Every week I had a car to win. It was always – the bridesmaid – and now it\u2019s the bride. It finally happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dery\u2019s run began from sixth on the grid. He was third by lap 12 and held second until Pitkat slipped by him on lap 30. Moltz \u2013 the 2017 ACT Runner-up \u2013 wound up the year with two wins and six top-5\u2019s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Macdonald\u2019s win was his 16th ACT career victory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ACT World Series 75 at Thompson Speedway \u2013 start in (*)<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Eddie MacDonald (5) 2.Woody Pitkat (9) 3. Jean-Francois Dery (6) 4. Dillon Moltz (11) 5. Scott Payea (15) 6. William Wall (1) 7. Ray Parent (7) 8. Glenn Boss (4) 9. Tom Carey III (12) 10. Rowland Robinson Jr. (3) 11. Josh Masterson(16) 12. Jimmy Hebert (2) 13. Jason Corliss (13) 14. Rich Dubeau (8) 15. Matthew Lowinski-Loh (10) 16. Ray Christian III (19) 17. Mark Jenison (25) 18. John Warren (22) 19. CJ McLaughlin (24) 20. Mark Hudson (27) 21. Ryan Morgan (17) 22. Vincent Arrenegado Jr.(28) 23. Ryan Kuhn (20) 24. Jimmy Linardy (23) 25. Jared Materas (18) 26. Michael Benevider (14) 27. James Capps III (26) 28. Walter Sutcliffe (21)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Thompson, Ct. \u2013 Eddie MacDonald took control of the American Canadian Tour (ACT) 75-lap season finale at Thompson Speedway\u00a0Saturday\u00a0and sped off to a dominant win.   Four spots back, Scott Payea nailed down the 2017 ACT championship in the Harrison Redi-Mix No. 37. With his eighth top-five finish in nine races.   MacDonald, driving the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1305,6,48,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-new-england-racing-news","category-thompson","category-latest-touring-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17933,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17931\/revisions\/17933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}