Brett Gonyaw, Ryan Waterman Score Victories On Icebreaker Opening Day At Thompson

Brett Gonyaw

Gonyaw, of Vernon, used a green-white-checkered restart to take the lead from Glenn Griswold and win the 20-lap SK Light Modified feature Saturday at the Icebreaker at Thompson Speedway.

“We had a slipping clutch. I was like, ‘Oh boy, here we go.’” Gony I had to just kind of roll a little ahead of him and when he got on the throttle I was already on momentum. Somehow we got it into gear. … It was fun. I don’t know if he’s happy with me.”

It was the first career victory at Thompson for Gonyaw.

“It’s awesome,” Gonyaw said. “We’ve only been here three times. The first time we came we finished second. Last time we came unfortunately we had a [did not finish], part failure. And this time we took down the victory. Thompson’s been pretty good to me. Hopefully we can keep it going.”

Griswold, of Vernon, held on for second. Cam Sontag of Sterling, Mass. was third.

The reigning Limited Sportsman division champion at Thompson Speedway kicked off his 2017 at the track with two victories Saturday, and that was even before he got the chance to begin defense of his title.

Ryan Waterman, of Danielson, scored the victory in the track’s first Race of Champions event and the 20-lap Open Street Stock feature.

The 12-lap Race of Champion’s event put Waterman on the track against last year’s track champions in the SK Modified division (Keith Rocco), Late Model division (William Wall) and Mini Stock division (Wayne Burroughs Jr.).

Waterman held off Wall, of Shrewsbury, Mass. for the victory. The race contested in equaly prepared Super Late Model cars provided by Al Lane’s The Racing School.

Rocco was third and Burroughs fourth.

Waterman held off Scott Sundeen of Douglas, Mass. to win the Open Street Stock feature.

Waterman begins defense of his Limited Sportsman division championship Sunday.

“Twice is nice, but I’m going for three tomorrow,” Waterman said. 

Todd Bertrand won the 20-lap NEMA Lites feature.