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American Canadian Tour<\/p><\/div>Payea Cousins Both Finding ACT Success at Halfway Mark<\/strong><\/p>\n Waterbury, VT \u2013 With the American-Canadian Tour (ACT) season now at its halfway point, the Payea name is standing at the forefront in more ways than one.<\/p>\n Cousins Scott Payea of Colchester, VT and Dylan Payea of Milton, VT are at different points of their lives and of their Late Model careers. But what both have in common is that they are on pace to accomplish big things in the 2018 ACT season. As many fans anticipated, Scott stands atop the ACT Late Model Tour standings with five events in the book. The defending champion already has two wins to his name, including a $5,000 score in the Summer Showdown Series event at Connecticut\u2019s New London-Waterford Speedbowl.<\/p>\n Scott has also has posted two runner-up finishes and hasn\u2019t finished worse than fifth this year. This incredible run has pushed the veteran to a 43-point advantage over Eddie MacDonald.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a team, we\u2019re firing on all cylinders right now,\u201d Scott said. \u201cIt always takes racing luck as well as having a well-prepared car and a good team. So far this year we\u2019ve been fortunate to score several good finishes, and we\u2019ve eluded some bad luck.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, younger cousin Dylan is making waves of his own in his first ACT season. He has opened up a big lead in the 2018 Rookie of the Year chase and sits tied for eighth in the overall standings. Dylan has gotten stronger as the season has gone along, posting top-10 finishes in the last two events.<\/p>\n These accomplishments are even more impressive when you consider Dylan\u2019s limited Late Model experience prior to this season. Four of ACT\u2019s first five events so far this year were at tracks where he was making his first visit with a Late Model.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be a little bit overwhelming at some tracks \u2013 some days more than others,\u201d Dylan said. \u201cYou can get a little nervous. I don\u2019t want to be in the way, and I don\u2019t want to be an embarrassment on the track. I\u2019m trying to compete against guys like my cousin, and Eddie MacDonald, and Jimmy Hebert that are fast everywhere they go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis season has definitely been an eye-opener about how much work goes into running the Tour,\u201d Dylan added. \u201cPreparing the car for each track, figuring out the differences in setup. We struggled a little bit at the beginning of the year just because I really only had one track worth of experience at Devil\u2019s Bowl. So we were kind of lost on setups.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only are the Payea cousins at different points in their careers, but they are driving for very different teams. Since 2016, Scott has been behind the wheel for Rick Paya\u2019s RPM Motorsports, which now has nine ACT championships after last season\u2019s title. Their Dodge Charger also carries major sponsorship from Harrison Concrete & Redi-Mix.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone clicks really well,\u201d Scott said of his RPM team. \u201cPeople have really found their groove within the team, and we can really rely on each other to get the job done. We have a lot of trust and a lot of faith in each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Dylan, on the other hand, is piloting an unsponsored family-owned Chevrolet. His race-day crew primarily consists of his father, stepmother, and her father. The limited levels of funding and personnel have forced the younger Payea to make due with less as he gains experience.<\/p>\n \u201cIt also changes my driving style on the track,\u201d Dylan noted. \u201cAt Waterford, I could have finished 8th or 9th if I\u2019d pushed the issue with the guys in front of me. I was faster than them, but I didn\u2019t want to get taken out with 20 laps to go, or lose a fender, lose a door, and not be able to buy tires at the next race.\u201d<\/p>\n But even as they compete against each other on the track, the Payea\u2019s look out for each other off the track. Dylan credits Scott with convincing him to run the ACT Late Model Tour full-time this season. And Scott believes Dylan is approaching the year exactly as he should.<\/p>\n \u201cI think right now the Tour is in a good place,\u201d Scott said. \u201cWe have a good amount of cars, but there\u2019s a little less stress about getting into the show. You can just focus on having a good car and settling in for a good run. Dylan\u2019s got a small team, and he\u2019s doing the right things \u2013 learning, asking questions, and just going out and keeping his nose clean.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn days where (RPM is) fast out of the gate and they don\u2019t really touch a bolt on the car, I can go over and ask Scott for advice,\u201d Dylan added. \u201cHe\u2019s definitely open to helping. If me and my dad are unsure about a change, I\u2019ll go over and I\u2019ll tell Scott what we\u2019re thinking about doing, and he\u2019ll say \u2018yes\u2019 or \u2018no\u2019. He won\u2019t necessarily tell us what to do, but he\u2019ll tell us what direction to go in. With his experience, I take everything he says very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n Both drivers will be looking to finish what they\u2019ve started in second half of the season. Scott is on pace to become the first driver to win back-to-back ACT titles since Wayne Helliwell, Jr. in 2012 and 2013. But he knows the importance of not looking ahead in his quest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe approach every race individually,\u201d Scott said. \u201cWe just go out and try to have a great car and a great race on that day, and things will sort themselves out in the end. We\u2019re only halfway through, so we\u2019ll just keep plugging away, and hopefully when we get to Thompson at the end of the year, we\u2019re in a position to win again.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Dylan hopes that lessons learned on the first half the year will pay off. The Tour will make return visits to three different tracks, which means he will now have experience to draw from. And their recently improved efforts at have given the team renewed optimism.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that our results are getting better, I\u2019ll have some more confidence, and our team has some more confidence,\u201d Dylan said. \u201cWe know what certain adjustments do now. At the first Thunder Road race, we didn\u2019t know what moving the Panhard bar did, and we didn\u2019t know what changing your upper angles did. Now that we know what they do, I definitely have more expectations. I hope to get a top-5 finish by the end of the year \u2013 that would be awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n The Payea\u2019s, along with the other stars of the ACT Late Model Tour, will return from their mid-summer break on Saturday, July 14 at Groveton, NH\u2019s Speedway 51 for the J.P. Sicard\/Kingdom Gravel 151. Post time is 6:00pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Payea Cousins Both Finding ACT Success at Halfway Mark Waterbury, VT \u2013 With the American-Canadian Tour (ACT) season now at its halfway point, the Payea name is standing at the forefront in more ways than one. Cousins Scott Payea of Colchester, VT and Dylan Payea of Milton, VT are at different points of their lives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[1305,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-act","category-latest-touring-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19352","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19353,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19352\/revisions\/19353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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