CLAREMONT — There will be no racing this Friday, July 15, at Claremont Motorsports Park, as the historic third-mile oval pauses its 2022 schedule for its annual mid-season summer break weekend. It will return to action next Friday, July 22, with the annual Cody LaFont Memorial Twin 25s atop a six-division card of racing
With the July 8 Asetex Tire and Auto Night events completing a busy 11-event first half of the season, there’s still tons of great racing ahead as the stretch run to the 2022 championships begin.
Ricky Bly rocketed to his track-leading eight win of the summer in the Route 103 Auto/Heads Up Motorsports Late Model Sportsman division last Friday, winning the Dean Smith Memorial 52, but despite his boatload of feature wins, he enters the season’s second half only 34 markers ahead of 2021 champion Ben Poland, 544-510; this with up to 50 points up for grabs each race.
Teen star JD Stockwell holds the narrowest of points leads over July 8 winner Nolan McClay, as the Pure Stocks square off in the LaFont Memorial, 434-432. Through 11 completed events, the LaValley Building Supply sponsored division has produced no fewer than seven different feature winners, with five different drivers – Stockwell, McClay, Chris Chambers, Andrea St Amour, and Aiden White – bunched within 36 points of each other atop the points parade.
Two-time defending champ Dave Greenslit again holds the top spot in the R.E. Hinkley Fuel Co. Street Stocks, 494-418 over July 8 winner Andrew Brousseau who leapfrogged Brandon Gray into second with his career-first victory. NHSTRA Modified pilot Trevor Bleau sits atop the open-wheeler points parade, 186-160 over Nate Wenzel.
In the In City Sugar Shack Mini Stocks, rookie Nick Houle leads with 374 accumulated points, 16 ahead of Sean Lantas. And, with Dustin Thibodeau no longer competing in the Avery Insurance Six Shooters, Grantham’s Steve Miller Sr. sits on top with 512 points while surging Steve Miller Jr. and July 8 first-time winner Lucas Bernatchy are tied in second, 30 points back.
Fans are reminded that the biggest event of the summer is now only two weeks away at CMP, as the thundering NASCAR Whelen Modified Series tour comes to town for 150 laps of excitement on Friday, July 29, with plenty of support from the Granite State Pro Stock Series and several Friday-night house divisions.
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.