Lee, NH – It was a great night for the Helliwell family at Lee USA Speedway
on Friday night, with brothers George and Wayne, Jr. finding themselves
among the winners sharing the spotlight in NASCAR Whelen All-American Series
victory lane.
Repeating his performance from a week earlier, Helliwell, Jr. continued his
charge for the 2009 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model
championship in fine fashion, scoring his fourth win of the season in E Keys
4 Cars sponsored feature event.
Moe Lattime broke out of the pack when flagman Bryon Callen let the Late
Models loose, setting the pace for the first five laps before Bobby
Baillargeon blasted past to take over the point from there.
On lap nine, Jeffrey Labrecque, Jr. moved past Lattime to claim second, and
he quickly went to work on Baillargeon for the lead. After several laps of
battling side-by-side, Labrecque took command of the race, moving out to
lead by a couple of car lengths.
Several hard crashes slowed the second half of the race, the first of which
sent Katrina Canney to the pits after she got out of shape, and collected
Colin Arey II, sending her into the retaining wall between turns three and
four.
The next incident ended with Baillargeon taking a hard hit into the
backstretch wall, and Jeremy Harclerode slamming the concrete hard at the
entrance to turn three. Both cars received heavy damage in the incident.
Two laps later, Dean Weber got turned around coming off turn four, and he
collected Joe Amour, who went for a wild ride up and over Weber. Weber's
car careened through the infield grass, and slammed the inner wall,
sustaining heavy damage.
With several cars out of action for the night, Labrecque set the pace with
Helliwell outside for the restart, and Helliwell quickly completed his march
to front, running the high line past Labrecque to the lead.
Helliwell went on to easily score the win, with Labrecque, J.R. Baril, Bryan
Kruczek, A.J. Begin, Geoff Rollins, Arey, Amour, Weber, and Baillargeon next
in the final rundown.
As Helliwell pulled into post-race tech, the Planet Aid Hobby Stocks took to
the speedway with his brother George leading the field to the start, sitting
on the pole for the night's feature event.
Helliwell beat outside front row starter Ron Washburn to establish himself
as the man to beat, but there was nobody in the field who could. Despite
heavy pressure late in the race from the division's big dogs, Helliwell held
his line and continued to lead the way.
Jim Shorey and Jim Russell challenged Helliwell for several laps, with Todd
Bregy joining the lead battle with the laps winding down, but Helliwell held
them all off to score his first-career Hobby Stock win.
Shorey had to settle for runner-up honors in the Jeff and Nancy Trask entry,
followed by Bregy, Russell, A.J. Panessiti, Washburn, Patrick Tanguay, Bobby
Glass, Kenny "Caveman" Scott, and Mark Parenteau.
The Pro-4 Modifieds ran the second race of the R.F Logic/Bot-L-Gas Triple
Crown; it was Norm Wrenn taking down the win, and Cory Cleary beating out
Frankie Perry for runner-up.
The Prime Storage Late Model Sportsmen ran a pair of feature events on the
night, with Grant Aither padding his points lead with a win in the race held
over due to rain the previous week.
Early-race leader Bill Ahern held on for a solid runner-up finish, with
Bobby Melvin, rookie Ryan Green, Pete Evans, Jesse Bousquet, Timmy Johnson,
Gary Beauregard, Frankie Eldredge, and Michele Fushpanski the rest of the
top ten.
In the regularly-scheduled feature, Evans led the first five laps before
Melvin got by, and Melvin ran off to score win number three on the season.
Evans, Aither, Beauregard, Bousquet, Ahern, Fushpanski, Johnson, Eldredge,
and Kevin Aberle were second through tenth.
In the David's Race Cars and Components Roadrunner main, Anthony Nadeau
recovered from a spin on the initial start to drive through the field to
victory in the Full Throttle Racing entry.
Points leader Jim Piaseczny grabbed the second spot, with Steve Nichols,
Dana Faulkner, Billy Osborn, Nick Manyati, Aaron Day, Bruce Knowles, James
Fitzgerald, and Cris King rounding out the top ten.
Nadeau's Full Throttle teammate Crystal Brown also won her feature in the
American Auto Parts Ironman main, with points leader Tom Harton, Kevin
Emery, Warren Harvey, Troy Washburn, Shane Horvath, Jason Castillo, Matt
Bakutis, and Matt Lambert the rest of the top ten.