Touring Series News
ACT Releases 2011 Thunder Road, Tiger Tour Schedules
PHOTO: The 2011 Thunder Road Int'l Speedbowl schedule was released on Tuesday. (Alan Ward photo)
WATERBURY -- Officials from the American-Canadian Tour sanctioning body in Waterbury released their 2011 season schedules for Barre’s Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl and the Bond Auto/WIX Filters Tiger Sportsman Tour on Tuesday.
Thunder Road’s 52nd season schedule consists of 18 events from April to October, beginning with the 13th annual Merchants Bank 150 for the ACT Late Model Tour on the weekend of April 30 and May 1, followed by a three-week break before the Mekkelsen RV Memorial Day Classic on Sunday, May 29.
While still running a Twin 100 format, the 2011 Memorial Day Classic will have a different look to it as the Modified Racing Series has been dropped from the card after a three-year run. The 100-lap features will now be contested by Thunder Road’s weekly Late Model division and the Tiger Sportsman Tour.
Two more Sunday events will be held on June 12 and June 19 before the traditional summer Thursday-night season runs weekly from the CARQUEST Vermont Governor’s Cup on June 23 to Champion’s Night on August 25. Special events in addition to the Thursday races include the Pepsi Holiday Fireworks event on Monday, July 4, and the annual M&M Beverage Enduro 200 on Sunday, August 7.
The Thunder Road season concludes with its two biggest events -- the ACT Late Model Tour Bond Auto Labor Day Classic 200 on Sunday, September 4, and the People’s United Bank Milk Bowl on the weekend of October 1 and 2.
The Tiger Sportsman Tour trims its schedule down from a four-race series in 2010 to just three 100-lap races in 2011. In addition to the Thunder Road event on Memorial Day weekend, the series will race at Canaan Fair Speedway in Canaan, N.H., on Saturday, August 20, and at Riverside Speedway in Groveton, N.H., on Saturday, October 8.
NOTES:
--Devil’s Bowl Speedway will not be part of the Thunder Road championship schedule for 2011; the Thunder Road Late Models ran one event at the West Haven track in May 2010 that awarded points toward the Thunder Road championship.
--The Late Model division will be absent from Thunder Road on Thursday, August 11 to allow teams to prepare for the “Short Track Showdown” at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that weekend. Assuming that the ACT Late Model Tour events on May 1 and September 4 along with the Milk Bowl in October will again not count toward track points, the Late Model division championship will be based on a 12-race schedule.
--No mention of the Junkyard Warrior division was made on the schedule. Traditionally, the Late Model and Tiger Sportsman divisions do not compete at the Enduro event, while the track’s Street Stock and Junkyard Warrior classes hold a special event. The official Thunder Road press release lists only “SS Special” on that date, and the August 11 date is listed “Tiger & Street Special”. Thunder Road officials have been discussing cancelling the division, and a recent vote on the track’s website asked fans whether or not the division should continue in 2011.
--White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock, N.H., did not return to the Bond Auto/WIX Filters Tiger Sportsman Tour schedule for 2011.
--Returning event title sponsors are Merchants Bank, Mekkelsen RV, Ferguson Waterworks, CARQUEST Auto Parts, Pepsi, Charter Communications, The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, Casella Waste Management, WDEV Radio, Calkins Portable Toilets, M&M Beverage, Bond Auto Parts, Booth Brothers Dairy, H.P. Hood, and People’s United Bank.
--Six events at Thunder Road are presently listed without a presenting title sponsor, marking the highest number of available dates at the date of the schedule’s release in recent memory. The 2010 schedule was released in November 2009 with three open dates, but all were purchased by advertisers by the time the season began. The open dates for 2011 are Sunday, June 19; Thursday, June 30; and the four Thursday dates in August.
