STAFFORD – Before Friday night Jeremy Lavoie had never finished better than seventh place in a DARE Stock feature at Stafford Motor Speedway.
Jeremy Lavoie celebrates Friday at Stafford Speedway (Photo: Nicholas Teto)
In a span of 5 minutes Friday Lavoie had the lead, lost the lead, got spun out under, was involved in a side-by-side two lap battle for the final laps and got to celebrate in victory lane.
Not a bad few minutes.
Lavoie, of Windsor Locks, survived an under caution attack from Kyle Casagrande then held off Cliff Saunders over the final two laps to win the 15-lap DARE Stock feature Friday at Stafford.
It was the first win for Lavoie, a rookie in the division.
“I was just shooting for top-10 in points this year, my first year racing,” Lavoie said. “I didn’t really expect to win. We’ve been tinkering around with things on the car, trying to make it just a tick faster every week. This week with the track the way it was and the setup we had it was key.”
Lavoie was leading when the white flag flew, but Casagrande got under him in turn one and took over the lead. But Lavoie fought back through turn two. Out of the corner there was contact between the two and Casagrande ended up spinning to bring out the caution.
Under caution Casagrande came back up through the field and spun Lavoie.
“I was just kind of riding along,” Lavoie said. “I thought he was going to back it down. I just got shocked going into turn three. I was just hoping everything was OK so I could continue.
“I apologized but it was also a racing incident. It happens every Friday.”
On the final restart Saunders ran to the outside of Lavoie but couldn’t find the way past him.
“I was afraid,” Lavoie said. “Those guys are fast. I knew I had him on the outside. I knew I had the lane on the inside and I knew that was dominant. You can’t run on the outside here. If you do, you shock everybody. I knew he was outside and I just had to race him clean.”
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