The  "Racing For Clean Air" Team Captain Andy Santerre
Strong Second Place Finish Extends Points Lead
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BARRE, VT - Brian Hoar won his first career NASCAR Grand National Division, Busch North Series race Saturday night at his home track by taking the True Value 150 at Thunder Road International Speedbowl. Hoar won the Bud Pole, but was running fourth when leaders Dave Dion, Mike Olsen, and Mike Johnson tangled with a lapped car with only nine laps left. Andy Santerre finished second, stretching his Busch North Series point lead to 158 with four races remaining, while Dion recovered to take third ahead of Matt Kobyluck and Eddie MacDonald. Johnson finished eighth and Olsen 14th. Stub Fadden, the 69-year-old racing legend, started his first race in two years and finished ninth in the 25-car field. Others in the top ten were Dale Quarterley sixth, Joey McCarthy seventh, and Mike Stefanik tenth.
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Hoar led the first lap but spent most of the race from third to fifth, running the top groove in Thunder Road’s high-banked turns. Olsen was dominant, leading over 100 laps, but he lost the lead to Johnson on lap 119. Then Dion asserted himself, taking the point on lap 128 with Olsen now the challenger. The three-way duel ended when a lapped car spun off turn four on lap 141, scattering Dion, Olsen, and Johnson as Hoar and Santerre shot through the gap. Dion appeared to have the most damage, but he recovered quickly and kept his battered Ford in third to the checkered flag.
Hoar, a former Thunder Road track champion, averaged 48.885 miles per hour as only four caution periods slowed the action for 26 laps. His 12.932 second, 69.595 miles per hour Bud Pole run around the quarter-mile oval led an all-Vermont front row, as Dennis Demers set the second fastest time. McCarthy’s advance from 21st at the start to seventh at the finish won him the PowerAde Power Move of the Race Award, and Jimmy Renfrew captured the Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Race Award. Of the 25 starters, 21 were running at the finish, with 14 on the lead lap.
Behind Santerre the Busch North Series points race underwent a significant shakeup. Stefanik and Quarterley moved into second and third places as Kelly Moore’s 21st place finish dropped him to fourth. Hoar’s victory advanced him to fifth. The Busch North Series now takes a week off before returning to the Magic Mile at New Hampshire International Speedway for the New England 125 on Saturday, September 13.
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