Ok my best 20 min rundown as I'm flying out the door for work soon.. Not a bad night of racing all in all except for a marginally low Thunder count.. Late Model features were super intense and competitive though.. Just love those double up restarts were using this year!!! Car counts were 19 LLM, 15 Thunders, and 24 4 cyl.. First Late Model feature won by Shepherd from the pole, with Baker 2nd, McLeod 3rd, Jongen 4th, and Al Inglis 5th.. 25 lapper only had one debris caution. 2nd feature race also pretty exciting inverted the top 3 meaning McLeod got pole.. He led for the first half the race and then after mid race restart he and Baker had a great dice for the lead and Baker looked to be slightly leading running the outside. The two made slight contact down the backstretch and McLeod cut a tire bringing out another caution with Keith headed pitside.. From there Baker and Jongen battled for a couple laps side by side, with Baker getting the edge and sailing to victory in the 2nd 35.. Shepherd got past Jongen in the last 10 laps to finish 2nd, with Jongen holding on for 3rd, Lewis 4th and Brandon Watson 5th..McLeod would battle back to finish a respectable 8th. Heats to Shepherd and Reynolds. Good night for the newcomers #57 Ron Quesnelle and #6 Keith Maiato who both finished in the top 10 in both features I think.. #54 Randy Bull also did well landing just outside the top 10 in both. 18 cars started both features with the exception being 2003 track champ #5 Steve Quesnelle who blew a tranny and snapped the driveshaft in 3 pieces in warm ups.. Not a good start to the year for my personal fav!!!LOL As mentioned only 15 Thunders showed, and a few grenaded!!! I think 10 started the feature, good 3 way battle with Belesky, Elliott, and St. Onge at beginning of race and Belesky led up till halfway when St.Onge and he made contact going into 1, bringing Elliott up to 2nd and St. Onge moving into the lead.. On the last lap our famed Polish Prince battled back to pass Elliott for 2nd inside down the backstretch.. They would come to the line in this order with St. Onge winning, Belesky 2nd, Elliott 3rd, Burrage 4th, and #8 Rob Morrison 5th...Heats to St. Onge, Doucette, Burrage, and Morrison.. "The Deuce" had troubles and didnt start the feature as well as #21x Desi Walt, 84 Slavish,19 Foster and 24 Johnston.. Pure Stocks was 2 Melenhorst, 4 Meyer, 37 Robbie Sikes, 90 MacDonald, and 15 Burtoo as the top 5. Heats to 77 Leclerc, 2 Melenhorst, 91 Lethbridge, and 99 Stieler... Sorry for the shotty rundown but on my way out the door.. Might have a few more comments later..... From the cheap seats........ You know the insignia
very good racing ... that 2nd LLM feature was awesome, the battle between 19 & 48 was truing into a classic until 19 lost the RF.....great job on Keiths part to hold it down going into 3 to adviod a wreck. �  This LLM field is INCIDIBLE....nuff said!. �  super competitive.... just great great racing throughout the whole pack
Thunders count was low....only 9 started the feature, but the first half was amazing, 12,00,22,9 all under a blanket for the lead....finnaly 00 worked around the outside of the 12 for the lead...but ooooo it got tight off 4, I thought St. Onge and "Prince" were gonna spin into the infield.
PS was a good race as well.... the 2 is the class of the field though if you ask me.
I must say double-file restarts is a great idea....it made for very exciting re-starts.
couple other things...... I liked the call after Reyonlds spun in turn-1.... "The Gambler playing roulette in turn #1" � hahaha.
And if you notice Brandon Watsons LLM looks awful lot like Mark Martin's Cup Car....and they call him Mark "The Kid" Martin ....as it's a play on words because he is one of the older drivers out there......so in saying that should we call young Watson.... � Brandon "Gramps" Watson? think about it....hahahha
Overall great night...awesome racing.... I hope to make many of trips to Barrie this season
terrible night for me...blew a tranny in pracy, put another in, in time for the second heat and I was seeing 5400 RPM....thinking the carb is acting up....hopefully we will have it sorted out for Wed. pracy.
11 cars started the TC feature btw.....
McLeod/Baker battle was great...I think Keith leaned on Dwayne a lil bit....but it was actually fairly clean racing..just bad luck! the LLM are outstanding this year...great class
The drivers meeting was greta..Derek Lynch sure knows how to run one...hey Derekkk...you made canadianraceronline! hahaha
tough luck for ya there Thayne.....hopefully get it sorted out.
maybe it was 10 that started the feature.....33 died comming to the green, so hardly count that as starting....haha.
Just an overall great night..... fast moving show to, really impressive...... there was basicly no first night hicups at all.
Big crowd to..... and seemed like everyone was there till the end....I haven't seen that much traffic "back-log" comming out of a race track in a long time.
our own "statsman" did a great job in the LLM's to, just running at the back getting use to the car...and pulling off in the features untill he gets use to the car....(I'm assuming thats why)...... thats great sportsmanship!. I did notise in practise you started to step it up a bit Rod, got all kinds of loose off turn-4 that one time...almost hit the wall to, you musta been like "whoa.... not ready for this yet" haha 😀 , great job though.
ugh I wish Barrie was closer..... I filled up with gas when I left....and it took about 1/2 a tank to get there and back....hahaha
Ok well I said I would add a few more comments, so taking the time to do that now before doing the actual report for the Barrie website.. First off was nice to see such a large crowd on hand, werent many empty seats on either side, didn't look like as many lawn chair folks as the norm, which was suprising but I didnt really get down to that end of the track myself to say for sure.. I'd say biggest opening night crowd since 2005 though (the first year the track was reconfigured). I think most of the fans went home happy as show ran very smoothly, and the on track action was 2nd to none. The LLM field this year is simply awesome, and will get even better with the addition of at least 2 more solid competitors that I know of for sure that will be out week 2, but more on that mid week..lol  But I"d hazard a guess to say this field might just be deeper and more talent rich then that 2005 field that included the names Gaunt, Walters, Tim Watson, Baker, Malcolm, and Ian Bourque among others.. Thunder Car count was moderately disappointing, but the battle at the front of that feature with Belesky, Elliott, St. Onge, and Burrage sure wasnt as mentioned.. Good night for #8 Rob Morrison as well in that ohhhh so sweet black Nova, heat win and 5th in the feature after taking last year off racing.. I think you will see a few more cars turn up next week as well in this class, getting us close to 20 cars again when all is said and done..Pure Stocks also had a very stout field of 24-25 cars, and would agree with 3 WIDE that Melenhorst will be very tough to beat this year.. There are other cars capable of giving him a run for his $$ I feel too though.. Guys like Meyer, Robbie Sikes, Jim MacDonald, Burtoo, Leclerc, Crystal Doucette, and the Stieler boys are included in that group among others..Nice to see the 3 car ATM team back at the track too, they were missed!!! Again I think you might see a few more cars turn up in the coming weeks getting us near the 30 car plateau( if not exceeding)..I was super impressed with Robbie Sikes actually,giving credit where its due, he got dumped pretty badly by the 77 in that 1st heat and seemed to hold his temper in check, and that says alot to me from what was seen in the past.. He also made a great late race charge on the outside to get to 3rd from about 5th or 6th over the closing laps. I always said this kid had talent if only he would learn to cool his jets a little, and that appeared to be the case last night.. So kudos to you ROBBIE!!! Lastly I really think we have a top notch staff this year, and we seem to be really working as a team and these guys all are a pleasure to work with.. I think most of that can be attributed to the fact we actually had staff meetings this year for the first time in ages before the season began, and that was the doing of Jim Payetta and the other owners so kudos to them too..Great to have Derek Lynch aboard too periodically, had a great chat with him in the tech shed and what a class act... Well there you have it, just a few more musings as blkflag saw things...