RENFREW WINS ACT FEATURE, KUHN ON TOP IN PASS RETURN TO STAR SPEEDWAY

Epping, NH — After Mother Nature pulled all her punches throughout the morning hours, the American-Canadian Tour returned to feature racing action at Star Speedway for the first time since 2019 on Saturday afternoon. Twenty-one American-Canadian Tour teams took advantage of Friday’s open practice with ten more teams rolling through the gates Saturday morning to compete in round six of the thirteen-race ACT Tour season. In the end, the Coastal Clash certainly lived up to its name!

Weather-related schedule changes were a-plenty Saturday but pushing through Cam Huntress, leading Rookie of the Year candidate Kasey Beattie and defending ACT champion D.J. Shaw pulled off the heat race victories. An extremely fast turn-around time saw the thirty-one car field take the green flag in the Coastal Clash 125, shortened from 150 laps in hopes of completing the day’s entire schedule of events.

By virtue of their +2 handicap following the heats, Gabe Brown and Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. led the field to green in a firestorm across the line. While Brown led lap one, Renfrew dove under for the preferred inside groove to lead lap two with Huntress running strong in third. What looked to be a career day for the Rochester, New Hampshire driver turned sour fast with an extruding exhaust pipe deemed unsafe for competitors and patrons alike. The first caution on lap 15 for a spinning Shawn Swallow saved Huntress but did little to stall the storm out front.

After a side-by-side battle at the head of the pack, Brown regained the lead on lap 23 with a ferocious battle for sixth developing in their rear-view mirrors. Bryan Wall Jr. and Ray Christian III fought door handle-to-door handle before Wall’s backsliding on the inside opened the door for Kaiden Fisher to join in. All eyes returned to the front of the pack by lap 50 with Brown and Renfrew navigating heavy lap traffic before the field slowed once again, this time for a stopped Aaron Fellows atop turn two.

Brown continued to hold the lead on the restart with the battle for the middle of the top-ten continuing to be as hard-nosed as ever, now with Tom Carey III, Erick Sands and Jesse Switser joining the party. As if shot from a cannon, Switser made his way around to begin stalking D.J. Shaw in third while Brown and Renfrew continued to fight hard at the front. Where Renfrew was strong in the corners of the tough old Star Speedway asphalt, Brown made up ground on the backstretch with foot to the firewall and right-side tires nearly in the dirt lap after lap.

With time running out, intensity hit an all time high. With five laps remaining Brown, Renfrew, Shaw and Switser traded lanes and paint again and again as the four top drivers gave all they had down to the final lap. Jimmy Renfrew Jr. would bring the Chad Sullivan-owned 0NH, the Eppin’ Express, across the line to take the Coastal Clash 125 with Shaw and Switser completing the top-three. A late slip found Gabe Brown in fourth with Quebec’s Alexendre ‘Fireball’ Tardif collecting fifth. Tom Carey III, rookies Fisher and Beattie, Chip Grenier and Erick Sands would round out the top-ten.

Ryan Kuhn was the dominant car of the first half of Saturday's PASS Super Late Model Series event at Star Speedway, and he ended up scoring the win, but he'll be the first to admit that it looked like he was going to come up a little bit short as the race crossed the half-way point.

"That was unbelievable. Kind of speechless, man," Kuhn stated in his victory interview. "[with] 25 [laps] to go, I thought we were done and out of it. I just wanted to ride back and manage my stuff for a late-race restart and we got that."

In racing, you never give up, because you just never know what can happen. Saturday's race at the 0.250-mile short track in Epping, New Hampshire, was a prime example of that fact.

Series points leader DJ Shaw and the hard-charging Derek Griffith muscled past Kuhn during a restart around the mid-way point of the race. And from there, it was the Shaw and Griffith show.

The battle between the two racers was entertaining as all get out, and everything you'd expect from two of Super Late Model racing's best, that is until both drivers went over the line during their duel, and ruined each other's hopes of winning the race.

Griffith shoved his way to the lead with 17 laps to go, but Shaw wasn't a fan of the move, and gave a shot of his own right back to Griffith heading into the next set of turns. The contact from Shaw sent Griffith spinning from the lead, and the caution flag would come back out.

Shaw was now the leader of the race, but under the yellow, race control would penalize Shaw with an end of line penalty for the contact, which caused Griffth to spin out.

This handed the lead to Joey Doiron, and Kuhn, who all of a sudden had new life, was alongside on the front row. Kuhn would snag the lead away with 16 laps to go, and he would hold off Doiron's final charge on a restart with 12 laps remaining to take the victory.

"Oh man, that was one heck of a battle with Joey there. You know, he's one of the best around," Kuhn gushed about his competitor for the race win.

For the 24-year-old native of East Bridgewater, MA, the win was the culmination of perserverance through some tough times recently on the race track. The 2022 PASS North Super Late Model champion concluded his victory interview by thanking his team for sticking by him through thick and thin.

"I want to thank my whole crew for sticking with me," Kuhn stated. "These last few weeks, really few months, have been really rough. We really needed this one."

The official margin of victory for Kuhn was 0.550 seconds over Doiron, the 32-year-old racer from Berwick, ME.

While Doiron, the 2015 PASS Super Late Model Series National Champion, failed to take the win on Saturday, he did pick up his second best finish of the 2024 season through the season's opening five events.

Gabe Brown, who was disappointed by a fourth-place finish after a rough and tumble battle with Jimmy Renfrew Jr. in the ACT Tour event earlier in the afternoon, came home third in the race, and Shaw rallied from the rear of the field to finish fourth.

Bryan Kruczek scored a top-five in the No. 5K machine, and Griffith's rally back through the 15-car field stalled out with a sixth-place finish.

While the ACT Tour, PASS MODS, and PASS Super Late Model events were successful in dodging the threatening weather in the area throughout the afternoon, the skies finally opened up just as Kuhn concluded his victory interview.

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The Coastal Clash 125
Star Speedway – Epping, NH
Saturday, June 22, 2024
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS
1.         0NH     Jimmy Renfrew Jr.      Candia, NH
2.         04VT    DJ Shaw                       Center Conway, NH
3.         25NH   Jesse Switser               W. Burke, VT
4.         47NH   Gabe Brown                Center Conway, NH
5.         21QC   Alexendre Tardif         Notre Dame des Pins, QC
6.         5MA    Tom Carey III               New Salem, MA
7.         18VT    #Kaiden Fisher            Shelburne, VT
8.         45NH   #Kasey Beattie            St. Johnsbury, VT
9.         9VT      Chip Grenier               E. Barre, VT
10.       36NH   Erick Sands                  Derry, NH
11.       27MA  Chase Curtis                Rutland, MA
12.       77NH   Bryan Wall Jr.              E. Kingston, NH
13.       97NH   Joey Polewarczyk        Hudson, NH
14.       27NH   Cam Huntress             Rochester, NH
15.       55MA  Randy Cole                  Middleton, MA
16.       03MA  Derek Gluchacki         Dartmouth, MA
17.       17NH   Kyle Goodbout           Lincoln, NH
18.       7MA    #Jeremy Sorel             Westfield, MA
19.       29ME   Cole Robie                  Windham, ME
20.       73MA  #Cole Littlewood        Orange, MA
21.       04NH   Shawn Swallow           Groveton, NH
22.       11QC   Claude Leclerc             Lanoraie, QC
23.       03QC   Sebastien Couture      Kannapolis, NC
24.       33QC   Remi Perreault           St. Paul, QC
25.       10NS    Nathan Leclair            Fremont, NH
26.       46x      #Taylor Hoar               South Hero, VT
27.       31CT    Ray Christian III           Uncasville, CT
28.       2NH     Adam Lovejoy             Sanford, ME
29.       29NH   Aaron Fellows             Croydon, NH
30.       98MA  Ryan Flood                  Sandwich, MA
31.       41QC   Jonathan Bouvrette   Blainville, QC