NHMS ~ 7/21/12

The Amsoil NELCAR Legends took the Oval at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the second weekend in a row on July 21.

reprinted from nelcar.net
photos by RPM Photography

Gray Takes Strong Car To Win at NHMS

For the third straight weekend, the Amsoil Nelcar Legend Tour was back at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to battle on the quarter mile track in the Moat Mountain Legends Series at NHMS. After the past few weeks had been dominated by Shawn Buffington, today’s race was going to have a different outlook. It started early on as during qualifying his team mate, and the only other driver to get a win on the quarter mile not named Buffington, Tom Gray set fast lap. As qualifying concluded and the New Hampshire fans watching on, the Legends Cars were set for another thrilling event.

After his fast lap, Gray was on the pole for the first heat race with the 20 of Taylor Martin on his outside. On the start, Gray was able to get away while Martin, the 56 of Evan Beaulieu and the 59 of Reid Lanpher all raced hard for second spot. After a lot of dicing around, Lanpher got through into second. Gray would pull away from the field as the race ran clean and green. On the final lap, contact running for third between Martin and Beaulieu would shuffle the field a bit more, as Lanpher ended up second, with Martin in third.

For the second heat race, the dominator at NHMS, Shawn Buffington was on the pole with the 39 of Nick Lascoula on the outside. For the start, Buffington was able to do his traditional deal and run away with the lead. Around the halfway part of the heat race, the 99 of Mike Alton made contact with the turn two wall, ending his evening early. On the resulting restart, Buffington once again got away, and was able to take home the second heat win. The 38 of Matt Bourgoine was able to grab second, with Lascoula in third.

The 25 lap feature event was up next. Gray was on the pole with Buffington on the outside. Gray was able to get the early race lead, but Buffington wasn’t letting him go. The two were able to drive away from the battle for third place that consisted of Bourgoine, Lanpher and Lascoula. The pack stayed bunched up pretty well until about the halfway point when things would begin to spread out. It was a conveyer belt of Legend Cars going around the quarter mile and it was clean and green for all 25 laps. At the finish, it was all Tom Gray, as he was able to take home his first win of the season in the Moat Mountain Legends Series! Buffington would finish second while Lascoula finished third with Lanpher and Bourgoine rounding out the top five.

After post race tech, there was an issue with the 39 of Nick Lascoula’s car, which lead to a disqualification, moving everyone up a spot behind him. Thanks to his second place effort, Buffington was able to stretch his lead to 27 points ahead of Evan Beaulieu in the Moat Mountain Legends Series at NHMS. Beaulieu now holds a 10 point advantage over Bourgoine in the Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour standings. The next race for the tour will be this Thursday, July 26^th at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, racing starts at 7PM and tickets are just $4! Then from there they are at Star Speedway two days later on Saturday, July 28^th, racing starts at 6PM! For more info, news and how you can get into a Legends Car, visit Nelcar.net.