Riding the Rain Belt into July

Let’s call it like it is. The front half of last weekend was wet. This coming weekend looks touch and go. It is Spring (and early Summer) in the Maritimes, we should expect this. Summer is coming though and we are in for some great racing action.

Coming off FanFest and into Kiddie Night is great for our drivers and fans alike at the Speedworld. With an unscheduled week off in between, it only makes our hunger as race fans bigger to see some great racing action. Sure, once the rain pushed off last week we saw some tremendous racing with the Passione Flooring & Interiors East Coast Mini Stock Tour and the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour, but it is just something about racing under the Friday night lights that makes it special.

The Toursec Lightning cars were scheduled to have a week off last week prior to the rain anyway, so it is like they really never missed a beat. Their off-weeks were scheduled early in the season with the way management laid out the year, which I think will create an exciting stretch drive for one of our biggest single divisions in the CARSTAR Weekly Racing Series. In fact, beside the Mid Season Break, their next off weekend is August 9th, which means they’ll go five straight weeks to the end of the year and are scheduled for the next five Friday night cards leading into that Toromont Cat 250 weekend.

Now, not much has changed in the division since we last put the spotlight on them in this space leading into the Toursec 50s. “Rational” Richard Drake has won three of the four races and while that is a big number on paper, the field has been close in those races. Behind Drake are three drivers that have finished in the top five three of the four races, including Lightning on the Hill winner Matt Barkhouse, Chevy MacDonald and Travis Keefe. For Barkhouse, he’s turned in four races with four top four finishes. Ironically, he’s finished in each of the top four spots in the first four features. There’s a quirky little stat for you.

I want to step back and think about something Matt Vaughan told me a couple weeks ago when he finished third during FanFest in his Sportsman car. In the first two Sportsman features, Deven Smith, Jordan Veinotte and Vaughan have been on the podium. What Matt has said was that those three work on their race cars hard, put hours in at the shop and it was no fluke that those three ended up on the podium for two straight weeks. Now, there were other drivers that had strong runs and deserve to be there, guys like Pete Miller and Richard Salter come to mind off the top. Racing is a fickle sport and things can happen quickly. But you look at the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour podium from last week’s Nova Truck Centres Make A Wish 150 and the Cummins 150 at the start of the month and you find the same three cars on that podium too. Sure, Cole Butcher broke from the top three in both races, Kent Vincent and Lonnie Sommerville both had strong cars and did not finish one race or the other.

I guess what I’m trying to say in a round about way, what Matt had said during his post race interview at FanFest has a lot of weight. Circle back to the Toursec Lightning class that has an average car count of 17 over four races and a handful of fast cars, to have those four cars break away early shows they’re both had luck, been in the right place at the right time but have also put the work in away from the track to make those runs happen.

Now, that’s not meaning there haven’t been drivers that have put in that work without showing results. Steve Matthews has had the absolute worst luck I’ve seen any race car driver have coming off a championship season. Two weeks ago, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the opening laps and he’s had a couple mechanical issues plague him in the opening weeks of the season. Mike and David Jollimore have both ran well but are still looking for the consistency to be up in that top four group in the point standings, same can be said for Jamie Dillman. Marshall Bezanson is still trying to dig out of the hole from Week One and his brother Garth is in the same boat. Ken-etic Auto teammates Bruce Larter and Paige Drake both showed speed last week and it wouldn’t surprise me to see them knocking on the door of a podium finish before we get to the end of the year.

I’m also a firm believer, also with only four races in, that what was done can be undone this early in the year. Sure, most champions find at least one hiccup along the way in a 12+ race season. Drake and Barkhouse will likely find a bump in a road at some point, so if Matthews or the Bezanson brothers can piece together a great second two thirds of the year, we could be writing about them as title contenders in September.

The same can be said in the Sportsman division at Scotia Speedworld. You look at Miller, Megan Parrott, Brentley Pirri and especially Alex Johnson with his mechanical issues in the two feature races we’ve run. They haven’t had the finishes they wanted or are indicative of how they ran in those first two races of the year but Friday is a new day. With this being the final tuneup ahead of the 25th Annual Shriners Classic, you best believe that these drivers will want to be on their game to dial in their cars ahead of next week.

Darren Flemming finished fifth on FanFest after winning the first two Toursec Thunder car races of the season and it closed up the top five in the standings. Jesse Deveau, who won on FanFest, is tied with three-time champion Dave Matthews with Neil Miousse and Taylor McLean not far behind. It’s great to see Taylor get that strong second place run too. There’s another example of hard work in the shop paying off. I know the No. 18 car spends a lot of time at Ryan VanOirschot’s shop and Kelly has sprinkled his magic on that car. Not to mention, Taylor’s talents in just a couple seasons in a four cylinder is likely one of the most underrated in the region.

As we shift gears into July, we’ll see who can take the last checkered flags of the month of June at Scotia Speedworld to set themselves up for a Summer drive!

Let’s hope we can beat Mother Nature - fingers are crossed.

Until Friday, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!