THOMPSON – Derek Griffith used a late restart pass of Eddie MacDonald to take over the lead and held on to win the 75-lap Pro All-Stars Series feature at the Icebreaker Saturday at Thompson Speedway.
“We had to start so far back, I kind of used it up coming through,” Griffith said. “… We fired off, we were really good [on the final restart]. It’s not very often you beat Eddie on a restart. He’s so good. He’s got so much experience at doing stuff like this. I’ve got to thanks my guys though. I didn’t think I was going to win. With 20 [laps] to go when the rain came for the [third time], I was like ‘Man, they might call it.’”
The feature was delayed three times for rain. It was the 20th career PASS win for Griffith.
DJ Shaw was second and MacDonald third.
“New car for us here today so all-in-all a good debut,” Shaw said. “It’s one piece and ready for next week. Hell of a battle at the front the whole race there. Derek got into the mix and eventually took it from both of us. Hats off to him, he came from the back and just flat out got us today.”
Said MacDonald: “[Crew chief Rollie LaChance] gave me a great car. It’s too bad, the guys worked hard all weekend. The car was definitely awesome. So much fun to drive. Too bad we couldn’t get it there at the end.”
Had to start so far back? What’s far back in a 19 car field of which 15 were field fillers? If it isn’t Oxford, pass can’t get more than 20 cars. In retrospect, it would have been better to run tri track before pass feature. Gratitude to the promoters and their loyalty to one of their feature divisions, but this was in Connecticut and 95% of the people were there because of the modifieds. I knew going there it would be questionable with weather, but I had hopes they would have juggled the schedule.
Dr. Robert Neville,
I’m guessing the reason the PASS feature was run first is because of where the teams were coming from. The vast majority of the Tri-Track Modifield teams are from Connecticut and Massachusetts, whereas at least half the PASS teams there were from Maine and Northern New Hampshire (plus they had teams from Vermont and upstate New York). As such, the logistics of trying to make up that feature would have been much more difficult — not to mention much more expensive for the teams involved. It sucks for sure, but there are a lot more factors involved in weather adjustments than initially meets the eye.
There was also word going around that they might have been runnung at Oxford on Sunday.