By Lou Modestino

Randy Cabral showcased his team’s strength of car and driver, Ryan Krachun picked up his first ever NEMA Lite win and Joey Payne bested some of his open-wheel contemporaries in midget action at Epping NH’s Star Speedway on Saturday night.

Both Cabral of Kingston, MA and Krachun of Neshanic Station, NJ came into the night locked in a championship points battle in their respective divisions. Both saw their closest competition suffer set backs, thus giving them an unexpected advantage.

Cabral started ninth and wasted no time slicing through traffic to get to the front. He was third by lap 3 and second two laps later.

He was chasing pole sitter and early leader James SantaMaria of Burlington, CT who had opened up a comfortable lead. Cabral caught a break with a caution on lap 11 for a tangle involving Paul Scally of Raynham, MA and Avery Stoehr of Lakeville, MA.

The two were locked up after making contact in the third turn. Scally retired to the pits with damage. Stoehr was able to drive away from the scene, but fought an ill-handling race car the rest of the way.

Stoehr and Cabral have been trading off the points lead for most of the season. A ninth place finish for Stoehr created the advantage for winner Cabral.

The restart put Cabral alongside SantaMaria and Randy looked like he had been shot out of a cannon at the green. He continued to click off 12 second laps on his way to his fourth win of the season.

Reigning NEMA champion John Zych of Mendon, MA was able to get second place away from SantaMaria a lap after the restart and fought hard to run down Cabral. His best shot was a single-file restart with just a few laps to go, due to a fourth turn spin by Matt O’Brien of Wilmington, MA.

But again Cabral rocketed away at the green and beat Zych to the line by over six tenths of a second.

Seth Carlson of Brimfield, MA grabbed another podium finish for third, followed by SantaMaria and Jim Chambers of Atkinson, NH rounding out the top 5.

Avery Stoehr and Jim SantaMaria were heat winners.

After a false start on the intial green, the NEMA Lites went all the way to the checkers in their 20 lap feature. Ryan Krachun led every one of those laps to become another of the series’ first time winners.

Krachun had been leading the points for most of the season until the last race when Waterford feature winner Danny Cugini of Marshfield, MA slipped past him. Saturday night, Cugini ended up in the pits after the initial green and didn’t return. That immediately give Krachun a points boost and he topped it with a win.

A winner in non-winged midgets elsewhere, Krachun had come close to victory in the NEMA Lites on more than a few occasions. He was elated to finally bring one home and more so to do it at Star.

Paul Bigelow of Kensington, CT was the only driver to run second for the whole race and finshed over two seconds behind Krachun. Logan Rayvals of Rockville, Ontario finished third, completing another great run for the Canadian entry.

Jake Stergios of nearby Candia, NH had the fastest lap of the feature at 12.7, but ran out of time coming from his eleventh starting spot and finished fourth. DJ Moniz of New Bedford, MA finished fifth.

The top 3 of that feature were also the night’s heat winners.

Some of Star Speedway’s greatest open wheel drivers were on hand to take on some of NEMA’s up and coming young stars in a special “Sundown Showdown” match race.

Mike Ordway, Chris Perley, Joey Payne, Jon McKennedy and Russ Stoehr jumped in NEMA Lite cars to take on Avery Stoehr, Matt Swanson and Anthony Payne. The young drivers grew up watching their dads race at Star and now were taking on some of the sport’s biggest names.

Ordway and Perley led the group to the green and exchanged the lead several times. As they diced up front, the “Jersey Jet” Joey Payne reeled them in and joined the party by taking his mount deep into turn 3, nearly banging wheels with Perley. He made the pass for the lead after running side by side the length of the front stretch.

The “Rowley Rocket” stayed within striking distance, but couldn’t get back by Payne, even with a late race restart. Perley settled for second with NEMA Lite standout Matt Swanson in third, followed by Ordway, McKennedy, Anthony Payne and the son and father Stoehrs.

Joey Payne said in victory lane that he credited his knack of getting around Star so well to the fact that he started his super-modified career there. Besides getting the best of his longtime ISMA cohorts, he was “happy to beat his kid,” and “had told him he would” before the start of the race. Father Payne now holds the household bragging rights when it comes to open wheel racing.

The NEMA Lites race next on September 6 when they return to the Waterford Speedbowl, then join the NEMA Midgets at Oswego, NY on September 13.