Duane Provost Returning To Limited Late Model Division At Stafford Speedway After Abbreviated 2012 Season

The 2012 season in the Limited Late Model division at Stafford Motor Speedway came to an unexpectedly crushing halt last August for Duane Provost.

But the Springfield driver is ready to restart right on the successful track he left off with last year.

Provost had 10 top-10 finishes in the first 13 events of the 2012 season, including three second place runs, but his season ended when his car was left beyond repair following an appearance in the special Pro All Stars Series Sportsman race at Stafford in late August.

Provost ended the 2012 season at Stafford running his old DARE Stock division car.

“Over the winter, I sold my DARE Stock to Gus Coelho and we bought the former 27 car,” Provost said in a release from Stafford. “The car has a new clip on it where my old car still had a stock front end on it and it had been pulled back together a few times. I’ve been busy making a lot of changes to the car to get it ready and since I’m mostly a one-man crew, my garage time has been limited to mostly weekends. I always give it 100% and do the best I can and I’ll be trying my hardest to get back into victory lane this year.”

Provost finished eighth in the standings his rookie year in the Limited Late Model division in 2010 . He was sixth in the standings in 2011 and recorded his first career Limited Late Model victory that year. He was running sixth in the standings when his season came to an end last year.

“For the most part, we didn’t run too badly last year,” Provost said. “We weren’t going to win the championship last year, that was between Cory [Casgrande] and Josh [Wood], but I think we definitely would have had a top-5 finish. We had a couple of second place finishes last year and I feel like I should have probably had a couple of wins. There were a couple of nights where we were running up front that we kind of got knocked out of the way and we lost out on a couple of late restarts. I’m keeping my expectations for 2013 to a minimum so I’m not putting any additional pressure on myself to go out and meet my goals. A championship would obviously be the ultimate goal, but I think if I can end the season with a top-5 or top-3 finish in the points, that would be great for me. Ultimately, I’d like to have a few wins, keep the car in one piece throughout the year, and have a better finish than we did last year. If we could win a race early in the year, it would definitely give us a lot of momentum and confidence for the remainder of the season. If it doesn’t happen early in the year, then we’ll just push harder to put the car into victory lane.”