Thunder Road by Jesse Bashaw

Barre, Vermont has enjoyed its quiet time, but on May 2nd, at 1:00pm, the thunder comes back to the barre high-banks for its 51st season. The 2nd marks the season opener for Thunder Road. The asphalt quarter-mile oval will once again be alive as 150+ cars come to play.

Thunder Road has 4 divisions of cars: the 8 cylinder American Canadian Tour (ACT) Late Models, the 8 cylinder Bond Auto Tiger Sportsman’s, the 4 cylinder Allen Lumber Street Stocks, and the 4 cylinder Power Shift Junkyard Warriors. Thunder Road will have 18 events in the 2010 season. 10 races are on Thursdays and the other 8 are Sunday races.

Thunder Road is known for the exciting races and family friendly atmosphere. Thunder Road also hosts some ACT Tour events. The day starts early and the drivers and teams are at the track hours before the fans. Each division has a specified time to practice, and make adjustments to their cars. After the drivers are satisfied with their cars, qualifying begins. Qualifying for Thunder Road races is done with heat races. These are just smaller races with about a quarter of the cars. After all the heats, the field is qualified and the sun goes down, and the real fun begins. The feature races are fun under the lights.

Thunder Road also hosts some of the ACT Tour races. The ACT Tour consists of Late Model teams from all over New England and Canada. These are the same Late Model cars that race at Thunder Road every week, but not all of the Thunder Road Late Models run the ACT Tour. The Tour consists of the Top Late Model teams in all of New England, so the competition is taken a lot more seriously. The tour runs events all over New England. The ACT Tour has 82 cars on its Roster as of March 25th.

A big name in ACT is coming back. Tracie Bellerose is returning to Thunder Road to run the full schedule after becoming the Fist Female Driver to win a Thunder Road championship in 2000. She stopped driving after she had a horrifying wreck and got injured. Thunder Road never fails to supply fans with hours of great racing and this year won’t be any different. Many fans, drivers, and crews (including myself) can’t wait to get back to the “Nations Site of Excitement” for another fun year. I can already smell the burnt rubber and race fuel.