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By Travis Barrett
Eddie MacDonald. Mike Rowe. Travis Benjamin.
When it comes to drivers who seem to excel when the lights shine brightest, there might be a new name to add to the list: Joey Doiron.
The Berwick, Maine, driver led nearly three-quarters of the first Pro All Stars Series ever held at Airborne Park Speedway, overcoming early-race attrition and a leaking left front tire to thoroughly dominate Sunday’s PASS 200 at the ACT International 500. Doiron pocketed more than $11,000 in his most lucrative career win to date, beating Williston, Vermont’s, Brian Hoar and Patrick Laperle of St-Denis, Quebec, for the victory.
“This was definitely a big deal,” said Doiron, who also won the series’ inaugural race at Thunder Road International Speedbowl earlier this season. “It was one of the bigger races of the year for us.”
Multi-time Thunder Road track champion Nick Sweet of Barre, Vermont, won the ACT Late Model Tour 200 in the nightcap. Sweet started on the pole for the event after deciding late Saturday morning to make the trip while attending to his wife, who is expecting the couple’s third child.
Sweet didn’t even arrive in time to practice his car prior to qualifying Saturday evening.
“We’ve been looking forward to this race, and circumstances almost didn’t allow for us to be here,” Sweet said. “But we made it, and we’re glad we did.”
Quebec’s Alex Labbe finished second to Sweet, with ACT point leader Wayne Helliwell Jr., of Dover, N.H., completing the podium.
Doiron, who started 11th in the PASS portion of the program, has been on a torrid stretch this month. He won a 125-lap race at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway last month, and he had the fastest car on the track at Beech Ridge before a mechanical failure thwarted his bid to win the Southern Maine Chrysler Dodge Jeep 150 last weekend.
Though he had some familiarity with the half-mile Airborne track from his days on the American-Canadian Tour, he had nowhere near the experience that Hoar, Laperle or fourth-place Brent Dragon had. What he did have, however, was experience in nursing a car all the way to the end of an extra-distance race.
“I think that was definitely a big deal,” said Doiron, who knew that he had a car capable of winning almost as soon as the green flag dropped, needing less than 40 laps to get to break into the top five. “Some of the guys had the big motors, but we had the crate — so it would have been really hard to burn the tires off of it. But I knew that it was really good on old tires, anyway, from what we ran in practice. In practice, I’m driving a lot harder than I’m going to drive it in the race — so if it’s still there at the end of practice, I know it’s going to be there at the end of the race.”
But one of the No. 73’s four tires almost wasn’t there at the end of the race — his left front tire was slowly leaking air, and it made for a nervous final few laps. Doiron took the lead for good on lap 111.
“I was pretty nervous,” Doiron said. “Brent got the lead, and my car wasn’t very good on short runs. But once I got it back, I started to check out, and then something on the car was different. I wasn’t sure if it was a tire going down or something different, but it started dragging on the track and it hadn’t done that all weekend.
“I definitely didn’t need a yellow at the end.”
That yellow flag never came, and Doiron had the chance to celebrate in Victory Lane. It’s something he’s been doing a lot in the middle stretch of the summer season.
“We’re definitely going to track with good cars and feeling like we have a chance to win,” he said. “Last week (at Beech Ridge), I felt like I had the best car hands-down. We didn’t get finish we needed, but we’ve still got a really fast car. This car here we won with today is the same car that won the 125 and could have won last week. It’s been on a really good streak, and we’ll just try and keep fine-tuning on it and hopefully it will still be fast when we get to (the Oxford 250) the end of August.”
If he can do that, Doiron’s name will go alongside those of Oxford 250 winners like MacDonald, Rowe and Benjamin.
Jeremy Davis of Tamworth, N.H., rounded out the top five, followed by Glen Luce, point leader Mike Rowe, Bobby Therrien, Benjamin and Ben Rowe.
Lights shine the brightest? Big race? How on earth can this race rank with the likes of the Oxford 250 and PASS 400 when there are only 19 cars in the pits and under 900 people in the stands?
Who really promoted this race and what are the chances it returns in 2016?