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CLAREMONT, N.H. – Keegan Tabor won the ninth annual Cody LaFont Memorial Race Friday at Claremont Motorsports Park, topping the night’s 40-lap main event of the LaValley Building Supply Pure Stocks, the division LaFont competed in until his death in September 2016.
Aaron Fellows moved to the top of the Tour Type Late Model 2024 leader board with his feature victory Friday, second-generation hot shoe Nolan McClay dominated to win the Race Day TV Mini Stock main event, and top Asetex Tire and Auto Sportsman Modified pointman Nate Wenzel moved closer to locking up the duplication of his 2023 track title.
And, oh yes, Chester, Vermont’s Bill Putnam made easy work of topping an 11-car field in Spectator Drag competition, getting the job done in his 103,000-miles-young grocery-getter, a 2014 Subaru WRX.
Paced by a train of seven Mini Coopers, Keegan Tabor and Chris Chambers led the Pure Stocks to the green as the LaFont Memorial began. Tabor, who would officially lead all 40 laps, jumped all over the lap-one lead.
Rookie star Kyle Kenny, from row two, stormed into second on lap five, but the obviously quickest car in the field, piloted by Josh Rondeau who’d fired back in row six, was flying through the field.
Rondeau passed Tabor on lap 17 and sped off into the night, taking the checkers by a large margin, but then lost all his speed in the past-race tech line, with Tabor declared the winner, and Kenny second.
Mr. Monadnock, veteran star Chris Davis, making a rare CMP run, impressed in third, while Andrea St. Amour – sixth in Friday’s 40-lapper – lost ten points to the division-leading Tabor in the 2024 championship race.
Super Man Aaron Fellows, as he’s done many times over his illustrious quarter-century career, hsd a huge night Friday, scoring not only the night’s Tour Type Late Model feature victory but also, with points leader Ricky Bly a no-show on the night, moving to the top of the 2024 leaderboard by a wide margin.
Fellows took the lead on the event’s only restart – on lap four – and then held Brandon Gray at bay to score the win. Coupled with Bly’s absence, the Croydon sensation’s 54-point night gave him a 52-marker advantage atop the points chart as the season winds quickly to its conclusion. With Gray strong in second, Kyle Goodbout bolted into third on lap 13 to earn his podium finish.
Nate Wenzel, low-line blasting into turn one on lap 15, took the lead from Jeremy Zullo in the Sportsman Modified feature and then held strong to score the win. Brad Zahensky, who’d topped the Mod Squad’s triple 20s event a week earlier, got up for second on a lap-21 restart but came up seven lengths short of Wenzel at the checkers.
Zullo held strong to earn the third-place hardware Friday, while Wenzel’s win, gave him a 17-point advantage over Zahensky at night’s end.
Starting up front, Mini Stock hot shoe Nolan McClay set a blistering pace to win Friday’s 30-lap feature with ease. Top points man Kyle Templeton got up for second as the white flag waved, with visiting Cody LeBlanc impressing in third. Monadnock strong man Gordon Farnum came home fourth, and Sean Lantas was fifth.
McClay, who also won his Friday qualifying race, had a thin net gain in the championship race, picking up three markers to now sit 13 behind Templeton in their battle for the 2024 crown.
Friday’s CMP event was the first of a Labor Day Weekend two-pack at the Thrasher Road speedplant, with the huge Racers Honoring Racers Open Modified 76 set for Sunday, along with the Richard Tetreault Memorial 73-lap Super Street race and more.
CLAREMONT MOTORSPORTS PARK FRIDAY NIGHT TOP FIVES
PURE STOCK CODY LAFONT MEMORIAL 40: Keegan Tabor, Kyle Kenny, Chris Davis, Gage Dillingham, Chris Conroy.
SPORTSMAN MODIFIED: Nate Wenzel, Brad Zahensky, Jeremy Zullo, Tyler Leary, Haydon Grenier.
TOUR TYPE LATE MODEL: Aaron Fellows, Brandon Gray, Kyle Goodbout, Allen Fellows, Craig Smith.
MINI STOCK: Nolan McClay, Kyle Templeton, Cody LeBlanc, Gordon Farnum, Sean Lantas.
