ACTion News - Wednesday, January 9, 2008


-by Justin St. Louis


The votes are all in, and it's now time to close out the "Top 25 ACT Drivers
of 2007" by honoring the top five, as
named by members of the regional media.  Before we look back at drivers 25
through 6, we'd like to thank the
following folks for their expertise and participation in this poll: Alan
Ward, photographer and columnist for the
Racin' Paper; Dave Moody, Thunder Road announcer and MRN Radio personality;
Gene Gagne, photographer and operator
of OutsideGroove.com; Lee Kittell, host of WDEV Radio's "Score!" sports talk
show; Marc Patrick Roy, Série ACT
Castrol reporter for Speed51.com; Mark Thomas, Racin' Paper Editor; Mike
McGill, WCAX Channel 3 Sports; Pete
Hartt, Sports Editor at the Barre-Montpelier (VT) Times Argus; Travis
Barrett of the Kennebec Journal and Central
Maine Morning Sentinel; and die-hard race fans Andy Boright and Bethany
Bell.

In case you've missed it, here are the first 20 drivers named in the poll:
25. Matt White, #42 NAPA Tiger Sportsman
24. John Donahue, #26 ACT Late Model
23. Mike Martin, #01 Allen Lumber Street Stock
22. Joel Hodgdon, #36 NAPA Tiger Sportsman
21. Joey Polewarczyk, Jr., #97NH ACT Late Model
20. Kip Stockwell, #36 ACT Late Model
19. Joey Laquerre, #15 NAPA Tiger Sportsman
18. Joey Becker, #16 ACT Late Model
17. Donald Theetge, #80 ACT Late Model
16. Eric Williams, #7VT ACT Late Model
15. Brent Dragon, #55VT ACT Late Model
14. Jamie Fisher, #18 ACT Late Model
13. Cris Michaud, #6 ACT Late Model
12. Randy Potter, #02NH ACT Late Model
11. Alexandre Gingras, #27QC ACT Late Model
10. Chip Grenier, #9VT ACT Late Model
9. Dave Pembroke, #44 ACT Late Model
8. Roger Brown, #99NH ACT Late Model
7. Sylvain Lacombe, #3 ACT Late Model
6. Bunker Hodgdon, #20 Power Shift Online Junkyard Warrior

Congratulations to all on a great season!  Like we said in last week's
edition, there were 340 drivers that raced
under ACT sanction in 2007 - to be one of the best 25 of the year isn't
exactly an easy thing to do.  So here they
are, the Top 5.

5. Bobby Therrien, #1 A.H. Fence/Pioneer Motors Dodge Allen Lumber Street
Stock.  (Top 10 votes: 8)

It is pretty unlikely that a race driver will win a feature event in his or
her first season behind the wheel.  So
what do you say about a rookie that wins - pay attention, here - SIX times?
You pat him on the back and
congratulate him for not only his Rookie of the Year title, but his Allen
Lumber Street Stock Championship, as
well.  As unlikely as it is for a rookie to win, it is absolutely
impossible - impractical - to calculate the odds
of any driver, rookie or otherwise, that will achieve the success that Bobby
Therrien did in 2007.

A product of the Northeastern Kart Club, Therrien followed his older
brother, Tommy, into stock cars.  What
followed may have been a life-changing chain of events.  If young Bobby can
repeat even half of his success in
2008 and beyond, he could be on the path to national superstardom, and that's
no joke.  With an immaculately-
prepared race car and a knowledgeable team behind him, the 20 year-old set
new freshman records throughout the
season.  He's young, fast, humble, and sharp - just the kind of thing the
big teams down south are looking for.

While we didn't dare to predict the future, one of our panelists took a shot
at it.

Dave Moody: "A Thunder Road Street Stock champion in his first year of stock
car competition, Bobby Therrien has
the racing pedigree to be a frontrunner for many years to come.  He and his
equally talented big brother, Tommy,
could be the second coming of Vermont's legendary Dragon brothers."

And Moody's right about Tommy, a NAPA Tiger Sportsman racer: he captured a
win and finished fourth in points in
his division.  But little brother stole the headlines in '07, and has
nothing but momentum on his side.

4. Scott Payea, #89 Ouellette Plumbing & Heating/Leahy Press Ford ACT Late
Model.  (Top 10 votes: 9)

Ironically, this Scott Payea came from the same training ground as Bobby
Therrien - the four-cylinder Street
Stocks.  But Payea has picked up the ball, run with it, and is on the
threshold of becoming the first driver to
successfully unseat Jean-Paul Cyr, the perennial King of Late Model racing.
It's been five years since the ACT
Champion's Trophy has left Milton, VT, and the way Payea ran in 2007, it
might be at least one more year - but
whose house it'll reside in is a different story.

Chasing Cyr over the last three seasons is something Scott Payea has
admitted had been a dream of his growing up.
But challenging, and even beating his cross-town neighbor, and names like
Dragon, Brown, Hoar, Potter, and big-
money guys like Rowe, Leighton, Laperle, and MacDonald - that's icing on the
cake.  But it wasn't really until
2007 (and this includes his days as a Street Stocker and NAPA Tiger
Sportsman driver) that Payea stepped into the
spotlight as one of the leading role-players.

Marc Patrick Roy: "This no-fluff racer is my 2007 revelation driver."

Travis Barrett: "Seemed whenever I saw a race or read a post-race release,
it was Payea's name that always cropped
up at the front of the field somewhere. Impressive young driver, seems to go
relatively easy on his equipment,
too."

Payea pounced when Cyr slipped out of the lead at Thunder Road's Merchants
Bank 150 to pick up his first ACT
victory in May, and followed it up in August with a rousing drive around Ben
Rowe for the Kancamaugus 100 win at
White Mountain Motorsports Park.  Between the two victories, he added a
close third-place finish in the country's
biggest Late Model race - Oxford Plains Speedway's TD Banknorth 250.  Payea
also finished third at Seekonk, MA,
and grabbed fourth at Kawartha Speedway in Ontario, three sixth-place
finishes, a pair of sevenths, and a 10th in
the Chittenden Milk Bowl.

According to those in the know, Payea has some great sponsorship backing
returning in 2008 for a full-on run at
Cyr's crown.  Add in the expertise of crew chief Chris Companion and the
dedication of Payea's family team, and
few doubt that he has what it will take to get the job done.

3. Nick Sweet, #50 Fortier's Community Care Home/SymQuest Group Chevrolet
NAPA Tiger Sportsman.  (Top 10 votes: 11)

NAPA Tiger Sportsman Champion Nick Sweet could be a big star outside of
Vermont stock car racing if he wanted to
be.  The 23 year-old wins an average of more than three times a season in a
class where only one driver qualified
for every race in 2007 (and that driver wasn't Nick Sweet), has arguably the
best equipment in the Tiger pit area,
a solid team, and an increasingly large fan base.  In his first five seasons
behind the wheel, Sweet has finished,
in order, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 7th, and 1st in weekly point standings.  Hometown
boys usually have plenty of supporters
in the grandstands, but winning hometown boys like Sweet border iconic
status.  The number "50" is seen everywhere
at Thunder Road these days, and the fans that wear said number are met by an
appreciative driver.  In today's made-
for-TV world of racing, even at the local level, Sweet actually likes the
people that pay to watch him race - and
win.  He's refreshing, this kid.

Darla Hartt, Vice President, American-Canadian Tour: "Nick is a very
personable, quiet guy, always pleasant,
always positive.  But strap that helmet on, and there's no room for anything
but concentration and drive.  Truly
one of those with a natural talent, his style is exciting to watch and
obviously quite successful.  Watching Nick
progress through the ranks in future years should be quite show."

Dave Moody: "He dominated a division that is just about immune to
domination.  Nobody spent more time in the shop
than Sweet and his team, and that effort paid off in a racecar that went
anywhere he wanted it to.  You can't
usually look at a kid this young and say, 'He's going to be great,' but with
Sweet, it's a no-brainer."

But for what it's worth, as nice a guy as he is, Sweet can dish it out on
the track.  Take, for example, his 60-
lap bumper-tag duel with Joey Laquerre at the Casella 100 on Mother's Day.
Sweet and Laquerre had the fans on
their feet as they slammed their way around the track for the win.  Laquerre
had it crossed up badly in the final
corner thanks to a love tap from his young rival, but Sweet's "bigger
picture" sense took over and allowed
Laquerre to regroup and take the victory.  It may be the one race that
defines his style: Hard-charging, but very
smart.

2. Jean-Paul Cyr, #32 Ehler's RV/Sticks & Stuff Chevrolet ACT Late Model.
(Top 10 votes: 12; First-place votes: 3)

Strange as it is, it has sort of become customary to see Jean-Paul Cyr
ranked second.  Second?  Really?  Cyr?  One
single win may have been all it took to place him in the #1 slot for this
poll, but there's no need to pour salt
in the wound.  There is absolutely one thing anybody and everybody could
feel confident in doing in 2008: placing
a bet on Jean-Paul Cyr to carry some checkered flags.

Cyr legitimately missed four ACT Late Model Tour wins by "this much" in '07
(there's a case for maybe even eight
wins, if you want to get down to it), but he did a nice stroke of business
in trying.  How about five consecutive
podium runs to open the year, and couple more before it was over?  He let a
pair of wins slip by at Thunder Road
and another one at Seekonk after being just a hair off in the setup
department, was muscled out of a probable win
at Airborne, got stuck in the wrong lane at Ste-Croix, and ran out of laps
twice at White Mountain and once at
Oxford.  His average finish was 5.3 over 13 races.  Enough said.  It's the
same scenario, in essence, as Série ACT
Castrol driver Sylvain Lacombe, #7 in the poll.  You just can't bring a guy
down for finishing second or third
every week.

Pete Hartt: "The difference between Jean and the other teams is that Jean
always does well, while most of the
other teams can't."

That difference was played out in dramatic fashion at June's White Mountain
150.  The story has been told a
hundred times - Cyr destroyed both ends of his car in a heat race crash, but
his team (and seven others) fixed the
car and rallied to not only qualify, but finish 3rd after starting 27th.
Not only was the fact that the car still
drove properly a miracle, Cyr drove harder and better than he ever has in
career, before or since.  It was the
most Cinderella-like comeback story for a single event since Junior Hanley
came from two laps down under green to
win at Antigonish, Nova Scotia in the old GM Tour days.  Lee Elder, a
representative from California for Goodyear
Tire & Rubber Co., was in the press box that night.  His astonished look and
every-tenth-lap claim "Here comes
Cyr!" said it all that night, as did this quote by photographer Alan Ward:
"The performance at White Mountain
after the wreck was just awesome."

So what if Jean-Paul Cyr didn't win any races in 2007.  Nobody else won the
championship, did they?

1. Patrick Laperle, #91 JPN Racing/Patriote Auto Chevrolet ACT Late Model.
(Top 10 votes: 11; First-place votes:
8)

Well, not the ACT Late Model Tour Championship, anyway.  Patrick Laperle
took the best parts of his career - which
have come in waves since the beginning - and meshed them all together for
2007.  His Série ACT Castrol
Championship was. just. wow.

Cyr can have his Cinderella story for the White Mountain event, but nothing
will be able to top Laperle's actual,
real-life brush with death before the 2007 racing season began.  In the days
before the ACT Late Model Tour event
at Oxford Plains Speedway in late April, Laperle was hospitalized with an
infection in his back.  The infection
spread quickly, and eventually entered his bloodstream.

Patrick Laperle almost died.  And then he won a stock car racing
championship less than six months later.

He climbed out of his hospital bed, removed intravenous tubes from his arm,
and went to Autodrome Montmagny to
take a lap and collect points in the Paradis du Sport 100.  The plan was to
drive around during the pace lap and
have cousin Jacques Laperle, a well established racer in his own right, take
over for the green flag.  Well, that
was fine until Jacques wrecked the car on the first lap of the race.
Laperle's season, which was already looking
as bleak as his weakened body, was made infinitely more complicated.

Marc Patrick Roy: "On and off the track, Laperle is a fierce competitor.  He
battled a life threatening bacteria
and then climbed in a racecar when most would fear sitting in a rocking
chair."

But then he turned it on.  He nearly won the next time out, just a week
later, at Autodrome St-Eustache, but spun
out after contact with just a dozen laps to go.  And this where the "best
parts of his career" thing comes into
play: even after crashing while maybe racing a bit too hard, he still
finished 8th.

At Ottawa's Capital City Speedway in the next race, a still-recovering
Laperle came home third, then he was 9th at
Montmagny the next week.  From then on (eight more races), he never finished
outside the Top 5.  That meant wins
at St-Eustache and Ste-Croix, four seconds, a fourth, and a fifth.  A guy
that almost died did this.  Oh, and for
good measure, he won the three ACTion Super Series events he entered -
Kawartha's Summer Sizzler 200, Thunder
Road's Chittenden Milk Bowl (his second in three years), and a 200-lapper at
St-Eustache which also counted toward
the Série ACT Castrol title.

Travis Barrett: "I love Laperle's whole barnstorming routine. And it seems
wherever he goes, and whatever car he's
in, he's a threat to win.  His Castrol title only illustrates that he can
race for championships or race for wins,
and still have success in either forum."

Dave Moody: "The guy wins wherever he races, and has become one of the top
big-event racers in the northeast.
Thunder Road used to be his Achilles Heel, and now he's a two-time Milk Bowl
champion.  No further questions."

The fact that seven of Laperle's eight first-place votes in this poll came
from American observers who, at most,
saw him compete just six or seven times during the year, should be an
eye-opener.  You don't need to watch for
very long to figure out how good Patrick Laperle is.

Mark Thomas: "Patrick Laperle.  Easy choice for me."

Laperle is the ultimate hard-charger: Think back to his days driving to the
front while maybe offering a hand
gesture - out the window, in the air, under green - to a competitor he felt
wronged him.  Think to his paint-
swapping ACT Late Model Tour race at White Mountain in August, or the night
before in Série ACT Castrol action at
Autodrome Chaudière.  He's the ultimate outlaw: Think of his ACT Late Model
Tour victories in '07, or even his Pro
Stock victories on another series in recent years.  But he's also become one
of the ultimate points racers: Think
about his runner-up finish in the St-Eustache 300, the final race of the
year.

For 2007, Patrick Laperle was the best driver with the American-Canadian
Tour.  That's just the way it is.