Action packed weekend of racing at Thunder Mountain Speedway for the Jan Corcoran Memorial
RPW Exclusive Column By: Joe Phillips – RPW – CENTER LISLE, N.Y. – This past weekend saw racing return to the Mountain! Friday night was the kick off for the Jan Corcoran Memorial race weekend at Center Lisle’s Thunder Mountain Speedway. Friday’s program saw an action packed schedule for the 600cc Modifieds, 600cc Sprints, and Factory Stocks. Also on tap were time trials for the open modifieds, and DIRTcar sportsmen.
Making his first start of 2026, was the “Franklin Flyer” Billy Decker. Decker took fast time in the time trials in the JSR #91 modified with a time of 13.856. Cody Higbie in the Handsome Devil BBQ #97 set the second quick time with a lap time of 13.925. For the second set of modified time trials, Matt Smith set a fast time with a lap of 13.954, followed by Nick Nye in the 6NN was second with a time of 14.196.
DIRTcar Sportsman completed their time trials Friday night with Chance Spoonhower Jr setting a quick time with a lap of 14.728 and second was the #90 of Ray Taylor with a time of 14.783. Spoonhower Jr also set a quick time for the second set of sportsman times trials with a time of 14.886, with the second quickest time was Matt Brewer with a lap of 14.905.
It was Anthony Desimone taking the 600cc modified win in his #04D car. Rounding out the podium was the 717 of Tom Donahue and Jared Green in the #35.
A driver to watch in this 600 mod feature was young Liam Zacharias, in the 71 Speed and Design car. Liam is quickly approaching his teen years and worked his way to the front like a
seasoned veteran. Liam led a few laps until mechanical issues took him out. Clearly, dad Jimmy Zacharias has been mentoring Liam!
In the 600cc sprints, brothers Trevor Catalano and Tyler Catalano finished first and second. Tom Alloco, in the 56S finished in the 3rd spot.
Factory Stocks saw Jason Rhodes in the #11 stock car take the checkers followed by Buck Mills Jr and Alecia Towner.
Onto Saturday’s portion of the racing action at Thunder Mountain Speedway, including the 600 cc mods, along with the modifieds, sportsman classes, and the IMCA modifieds. Since last year’s Saturday portion of the program was rained out, Brett Tonkin and Tyler Johnston were locked in for this Saturday’s feature. While for the DIRTcar sportsman, TJ Frost and Grant Hilfiger were also locked in.
Saturday saw warm weather, but weather was expected to deteriorate with a forecast for heavy rain, so officials decided to move the start time up to 3:00 pm. With 28 open mods, 28 sportsmen, 27 600cc Mods, and 14 IMCA mods on hand, the event was run off quickly.
In the modified heat races, things got busy and interesting. During heat race number three, Dylan Smith in the 15S spun going into turn one and went backwards down the chute into the pits. Fortunately, Smith was ok, suffering only damage to his ride.
In the same heat race, Tom Eicklor made hard contact with the turn 3 wall and rolled his #44 car over. Eicklor was uninjured, though his car was heavily damaged.
Up first for feature racing action was the DIRTcar Sportsman feature. There was a first lap caution for the spinning car of Avery Decker in his 22A. Decker was a winner down at All Tech Speedway this past winter in Florida.
Later on at lap 5, the #3 of Chance Spoonhower spun and hit the turn 3 wall. Caught up with nowhere to go was the B17 of TJ Frost. A section of the wall was pushed out of line and had to be quickly replaced. The Thunder Mountain crew has the barriers staged near victory lane, so repairs were made expeditiously.
Soon, the race got going and ran smoothly. Taking the checkers was Travis Green in the T69 car. Sullivan Dickey followed in the 54 car and Nick Ventura was third in the 711 car.
The modifieds were up next and this race ran off pretty smoothly. There were a couple of cautions, but only for modifieds losing power, or for flat tires.
And taking the win in the open modifieds was Watertown NY’s Tim Fuller. Danny Creeden was second and Brandon Walters in third.
In the 600 Mods Jared Green was the winner in the #35 car, followed by Tyler Talada and Jacob Waibel.
The last feature was the IMCA mods, which was won by Keith Lamphere. Doug Stack Jr and Brandon Smith were the second and third place drivers.
The Saturday portion of the Jan Corcoran Memorial was ready to go, with a fast and smooth racing surface. As the program ran throughout the day, the laps did drop off, with most drivers preferring to hug the inside groove of the track.
The local tracks are where all the action is at!
