Stoehr, Cugini Take NEMA Wins At Star Speedway

Story By: TIM BERTRAND / NEAM – EPPING, NH – As most other Northeastern race tracks were canceling their events for last Saturday evening, Bob Webber’s Star Speedway happened to be right in a pocket of dry weather, and the show went off without a hitch.

NEMA and the NEMA Lites were part of a blockbuster racing card that included the Pro All Star Series (PASS) and Star’s weekly divisions, including the 350 Supers.  Avery Stoehr visited victory lane for the second year in a row on opening day for NEMA, this time with a new team in Bertrand Motorsports.  In the Lites, a heart breaking loss for Kevin Iannarelli occurred after a mistake was made on rear wheel offsets, resulting in a DQ and handing the win to Danny Cugini.

In the NEMA feature, after a track cleaning session due to oil on the racing surface from a previous division, the NEMA feature was ready to take the green.  Avery Stoehr and Alan Chambers brought the field down to the green flag.  After two called back start attempts by starter Bob Blanchette, Avery Stoehr jumped out into the lead.

The feature would go wire to wire, with Stoehr leading every lap.  Brothers’ Jim and Alan Chambers put on an incredible battle for the second spot, with Jim coming out on top.  Chambers did start to cut into Stoehr’s lead over the final laps, but ran out of time, with Stoehr winning by a straightaway.  Seth Carlson, Todd Bertrand, Randy Cabral, Kyle Hamilton, John Zych, Paul Scally and Ryan Bigelow rounded out the top ten.  Jim Chambers was the hard charger in the event.

“It was a big weight off my shoulders after the long off season moving to a new team to be able to go out and win the first race even though going over I knew the equipment and everything was top notch but whenever you come into a totally different car it will make you wonder a little bit,” said Stoehr.  “It was awesome to win for Bertrand Motorsports after every year of racing against them and being welcomed in and everyone helping out was awesome,” he said.

In the NEMA Lites division, Kevin Iannarelli battled his way to the front in the early stages of the event.  Iannarelli, who ran a blistering lap time of 12.6 earlier in the day in his heat race event, stretched out his lead in the early stages of the race.

Further back, Danny Cugini was slicing his way through the pack, and put on a battle with Jim Cataldo for second spot before breaking free from the pack.  Behind them, Jim Chambers came from deep in the field and would pass Cataldo in the late stages of the race, and behind them, Kyle Hamilton and Ben Mikitarian were battling for position in the top five.

As the laps wound down, Cugini cut into Iannarelli’s lead by a carlength or two each lap, and with one to go was within two carlengths.  He would make a move to the bottom, but wind up a half car length short at the line.

It appeared to be Cugini’s second straight second place finish, until it was found in post race tech inspection that Iannarelli had accidentally violated the club’s maximum offset rule.  Cugini was awarded the victory, and was followed by Chambers, Cataldo, Hamilton, Mikitarian, Jeff Locke, Randy Cabral, Paul Scally, Dennis O’Brien and Ryan Locke.

“My Dad and I did a lot of setup work and spent some time in the shop to get the car done right, rolled it out of the trailer and it was pretty quick.  We made a couple of small changes and the car was fast. When the feature started we hit a couple gaps and made our way to the front chasing down the 27 pretty much the whole race. Lap traffic played a good part in letting us reel him in. Crossed the finish line under him in 2nd.  Not the way we would have liked to win, but we will take it,” said Cugini.

NEMA moves on to Wiscassett Speedway this Saturday evening on Ames True Value Night.