Jason Corliss has been through all of that.
But winning the Mekkelsen RV Memorial Day Classic, one of the most important races at Thunder Road — as a first-ever victory, no less — and beating a track champion in a photo finish to do it?
Suffice it to say Corliss didn’t expect that.
In a non-stop 100-lap race that opened the regular championship schedule for Thunder Road and also served as the first round of the four-race Vermont State Late Model Championship Series, Corliss chased down two-time “King of the Road” Nick Sweet, who led all but the final 30 yards of the race.
Corliss made the majority of his moves on the outside lane. He passed Cody Blake for second place, then reached Sweet with five laps remaining.
“I tried to go outside [Sweet] with five to go, but he shut the door on me,” Corliss said. “I stayed the course on the outside, but I told myself that if a hole opened up on the bottom that I’d have to take a shot.”
That’s precisely what happened. Sweet ran high on the final lap, and Corliss turned a hard left in the first corner, making contact with Sweet. The two cars separated, and both drivers pushed hard into the final turn. Corliss muscled his way under Sweet again, and as Sweet bounced off of the frontstretch wall Corliss won the drag race by inches – officially 0.008 seconds at the finish line.
Corliss was a champion of the entry-level Street Stock division at Thunder Road before teaming up with Richmond native Chris Burnett in the intermediate Tiger Sportsman class in 2010. Last year, they stepped up to the premier-level Late Models.
“If you had asked me four years ago if I thought we would win the Memorial Day Classic, I might have said you were delusional,” Corliss laughed. “We ran the Tiger on a limited budget, then we bought a cheap Late Model. This winter we decided that in order to win, we need to do this for real. Chris and his uncles went out and bought a new Ford from RPM Motorsports, our crew has doubled in size, and everyone works so hard. We were fastest in practice this morning and Andrew Hill was still changing shocks and springs trying to make the car better. No one quits. It’s such a strong team.”
Burnett was thrilled.
“I knew the kid could drive, but not in my wildest dreams did I expect this,” Burnett said. “This is the big payoff for everything we’ve worked at.”
As happy as the winners were, Sweet was less than pleased.
“I’m not happy that I put myself in that position,” Sweet said. “I left a hole and he capitalized on it, and that’s short track racing. But he hit me, I cleared him, and he hit me again. He just ran me out of real estate and I bounced off the wall. I should have done a better job. I need to be more aggressive, and I’m going to be from now on.”
Blake finished third to give Barre drivers a podium sweep. Dave Pembroke and Jimmy Hebert were next in line, followed by Chip Grenier, track champion Derrick O’Donnell, Phil Scott, Brooks Clark, and Shawn Fleury.
Jessey Mueller, of Olmstedville, N.Y., completed a big weekend by taking a two-segment victory for the Northern Modified Challenge Series, following up his win at Airborne Park Speedway on Saturday night. Mueller finished second to Jason Durgan in the opening segment, then drove past Vince Quenneville Jr., Todd Stone, and Ron Proctor in the closing laps of the final round to win the segment. His low total score of three points gave him the overall win over Durgan and Quenneville.
Brendan Moodie of North Wolcott won the 35-lap Tiger Sportsman race ahead of Jason Woodard and Mike Martin. Second generation driver Marcel Gravel of Wolcott picked up the first win of his career in the 25-lap Street Stock feature over Dave Whitcomb and Alan Maynard.
***
Donnelly Doubles Up: Chris Donnelly was untouchable at Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford on Saturday night, taking feature wins in both the DIRTcar Sportsman Modified and Sprint Cars of New England divisions.
The Piermont, N.H., veteran won the 61-lap Tuck Memorial for the Modified class, beating T.C. Forward and Jason Gray, then sliced through traffic to win the 30-lap SCoNE Sprint main over East Montpelier’s Will Hull.
Topsham’s Josh Harrington took the 50-lap Sportsman Coupe event; Thomas Placey of Bradford walked away uninjured after a nasty rollover. Fairlee’s Brandon Gray won the Limited Late Model feature, and Mike Ryan of Chelsea won the combined Fast Four/Hornet race.
***
Lamberton, Mueller Win at Airborne: Mark Lamberton and Jessey Mueller split a pair of NASCAR Whelen All-American Series victories in Sportsman Modified competition at Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh, N.Y., on Saturday. Lamberton earned his first victory since 2008 in the opening 25-lapper. Nineteen year-old Mueller drove to an easy win in the second race.
Jamie LaFountain and Travis Bruno split runner-up finishes in the two events, while Nick Heywood finished third in both races. Jamy Begor won his second Renegade race of the season, and Russell Duchaine inherited the Mini-Modified victory after post-race inspection.
***
Lacombe Disqualified from ACT Win: Quebec veteran Sylvain Lacombe was stripped of an apparent victory in the season opener for the Série ACT at Autodrome St-Eustache near Montreal last night. Lacombe crossed the finish line first but tipped the scales with too much left-side weight percentage in post-race inspection.
Ironically, it was Patrick Cliche who inherited the victory; Cliche was disqualified from a win last August 31 with an engine infraction, suspended from ACT racing for the remainder of the 2013 season, and is racing the entire 2014 season on probation with the series.
Comments are closed.