Ray Parent celebrates victory in the Late Model feature Wednesday at Thompson Speedway (Photo: Jim DuPont)
THOMPSON – On Wednesday at Thompson Speedway, Ray Parent’s Late Model team debuted a new ride reminiscent of the green and yellow City Chevrolet car made famous in the movie Days Of Thunder.
By the end of the Late Model feature, Parent was showing some screenplay type dramatics on the way to his second victory of the season.
Parent, of Tiverton, R.I., got under Buddy Charette in turn four of the final lap to win the 25-lap Late Model feature Wednesday at Thompson Speedway.
“I was retired and I’ve got two wins and our worst finish is third this season,” Parent said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Tom Carey III of Orange, Mass. was second and Charette, of Woodstock third.
Parent said his strategy was to make a move on Charette for the lead with five laps to go. Then the caution flew with five laps to go.
“The car’s not that good on restarts,” Parent said. “I was afraid that I was going to end up in third or fourth. But I got a good restart and we kind of went in even. And it was a slugfest. It really was. I was sideways off every corner the last five laps.”
In turn three on the final lap, Charette drifted up high, allowing Parent to drive cleanly through the corner and come off turn four with the lead. Carey, trying to make a move off the lane in the battle for the lead was able to edge Charette for second coming to the line.
“I just knew that I wasn’t going to drive in hard and if he drove in harder than me and beat me I’d settle for second,” Parent said. “… I think he thought we were all going to go in hard together or maybe I was going to go up and hit him. But I just drove it easy and tried to get a good drive off [the corner] and it worked. It doesn’t mean it will always work that way, but it worked that time.”
Not sure how he keeps doing burn outs after winning his two races and still has tires to race on. Never once during any of the burn outs did his car hit the chip pretty amazing
Lm
This is the slowest group of cars at thompson I have seen
This division is so slow
They look like they are standing still
Please run these guys with dare stock
Their lap times are so embarrassed
I heard they have an unlimited amount of money, so obviously they don’t care about throwing tires away and I do hear the car hit the chip at the end of the straightaway that’s where I sit going into turn 1. It’s loud.
They can have all the money they want but there is a tire count for each race. A late model team can only use 22 tires for seven races. The tires are all inventoried unless the 98 is cutting off the bar codes and re-sealing them to another tire.
Great to see a good car LM count! And it was the most exciting finish of the night! A last lap pass coming through turn 4; good stuff!
@LM if you won I’m sure you would do a burnout too. they are a genuine team, full of great respectful guys and a great, clean, driver. I’m sure they wouldn’t be cutting off bar codes, people think that if a team wins, they are automatically cheating, which is definitely not the case
Late models best race of the night,again !!!! Not sure what Jeffrey is talking about? The Tour cars are by far the fastest, but don’t provide the most racing excitement.
Ray’s dad is Parent Parent. He tells Ray to burn off the tires so they are true wider slicks for next race.
Ray’s mom is Parentice Parent. She bakes peanut butter cookies with a Hershey Kiss on top. Do n This is why Ray has no chips to hit. Do not confuse his mom’s cookies with chocolate chip cookies.