Dave Trudeau pads his lead at Thompson Speedway with a Convincing Performance

Posted by Wayne G. Barber
Photos by Wayne G. Barber

Beautiful day for short track racing in New England and with a pair of races left for the Monster Mini stock division for the 2015 points and the tension was building in the heats and in the pit area.
 In heat #1 the pleasant surprise for this scribe was the stunning performance of a new comer to the facility. #2 Doug Curry, who calls Groton, Conn. home, won the heat race and I clocked a 24.714 good for 91.002 mph for his effort.
 Curry is a Saturday weekly regular at New London Waterford Speed Bowl and currently sits in the 5th position with 354 points in 2015.The second observation was the absence of one of the divisions
top teams, #85 Mike Veins the 2014 track champion.
 Dave Trudeau,Mansfield,Conn. posted the fastest lap in the practice and his heat with a solid 24.465. Most of the other participants were hovering around the 25 second speed. The second heat had Pascoag, R.I regular #24 Joe Baxter take the 6 lap heat checker flag with a 25.061 and #51 Scott Michalski ,S.Killingly,Conn.at 25.206 and in second in the points standings behind Trudeau at 270 and with-in striking distance -22. Eddie Field driving the #38 from Deep River, Conn.sits third with 264 and 28 points back.
 The feature had #7 Christopher Veins, Putnam,Conn. and #19 Nick Matera,Warwick,R.I. who has been knocking on the door for a victory in 2015 with two straight top 5s. The black #19 of Matera looked and sounded great and cruised to a third in his heat.
The pair led the field to green flag racing.

Trudeau started the event deep in the top ten but was up to fifth by lap 13 following a pair of cautions in the early laps of the race.

It wouldn’t take long for Trudeau to bring his car to the lead, officially taking the top spot with 8 laps to go, and claim a 1.5 second lead before crossing the line as the checkered flag waved.

Trudeau, who has raced in the series since the late 1990s, spoke about the prospect of claiming his first championship in October as the season finale in a car that he called his baby. “We’ve got one more race to go,” he said. “(Winning the Championship) has been a goal ever since I started. Everybody wants a championship. Things happen for a reason. If it happens this time then great. If not we’ve got next year.”
 Trudeau kept up his heated roll in the division with back to back wins.(August 12) in the 15-lap feature for the division.
 Unofficially, Trudeau will go into the final event of the season at the Sunoco World Series of Racing Oct 16-18 holding a 31-point lead over #51 Scott Michalski in the chase for the championship.
“It’s going to drive me crazy,” Trudeau said. “It’s going to drive my wife crazy because I already drive her crazy enough. I’m just very anal about everything.”
  “The car’s been real fast,” Trudeau said. “Leading the points, it just plays with your mind so much. Trying to stay focused. Every weird noise in the car you hear, you’re like ‘Oh something is falling off.’ But we’re good, we’ve got one more race to go.
“This car is my baby. It handles so nice. And lady luck is with us right now.”
Finish Monster Mini's Thompson Speedway 8-26-15
1st Dave Trudeau,2nd Joe Baxter,3rd Doug Curry,4th Scott Michalski,5th Eric Bourgeois 6th Christopher Viens,7th Louis Bellisle, 8th Ed Field ,9thTravis Jurcik,10th Mike D Veins,11th Roger Ducharme,12th Bill Potter Jr,13th Keith Ballou ,14th Steve Michalski ,and 15th Nick Matera

The next point race will be Oct. at the World Series and to crown a Champion !