ON SITE: Chris Thorne all grown up now at Unity Raceway

Joey Doyon looked over at the man who had just beaten him in the Late Model portion of the 20^th annual Long John weekend, and could only remember when...

He was remembering when he and Chris Thorne were members of Unity Raceway’s junior fan club, watching Chris’ father, Gary, win races. On Sunday, Doyon witnessed firsthand just how far Chris Thorne has come since those days.

Thorne dominated the second half of the 75-lap Late Model main event for the division to beat both Doyon and Deane Smart for the win.

"Anytime you’ve got a Thorne at Unity Raceway, you know the car’s going to be fast," Doyon said. "We were talking in the (pre-race) lineup today. It was pretty funny thinking about all the years we watched (races) here for as long as we have. And here we are first and second, it’s just awesome."

Thorne finished second in his only other start at Unity this season, but the two-time reigning Wiscasset Raceway Late Model champion was on his game Sunday. He took the lead on lap 41 after trading it with Brenton Parritt several times over the first half of the event and never looked back.

"We had a restart just after halfway, the car really came in after that," Thorne said. "It just loosened up enough (to be fast)."

Thorne benefitted from having one of the few cars that worked better in the bottom groove, surviving restart after restart – 10 in all in a caution-marred event that whittled the 21-car starting field by nearly two-thirds by the time it was over. Parritt’s car was strong on the outside, and he showed it on early restarts to twice take the lead from Thorne.

But Parritt’s car went away on him as the laps ticked off, while Thorne’s car only got better. As he and Kevin Douglass raced for second place, Parritt’s car got loose and the two made contact on lap 56 – effectively ending any serious threat either driver could launch in Thorne’s direction.

In other feature racing, Kris Watson won an attrition-marred 75-lap Sportsman feature. Shawn Austin and Mike Landry were second and third, respectively.

Comments

[Jon]

The King of Unity Sportsman class didn't win? Im Disappointed....

[Jon]

I guess Brad's SLM engine did't work too well..

[brad bellows]

ahh- another clueless hater. love it! hey barrett, we had a (explecit delete)heater in the (explecite delete)hauler if you were so (explecite delete)cold. or you could have warmed your hands from the fire off my car after the race.

From TB:

By the time I got over to your hauler, it was all locked up and there was no sign of fire. It's all good, though -- Shane Tatro offered me some hand warmers, so we sat around and cracked on you!

[zoe]

Congrats to Chris on his win, it was well deserved.
Kris Watson did a hell of a job too, winning a rough race.
Travis, Brad gets the press, we get the third place trophy so who gets the check????
Lol, just kidding, I know everyone makes mistakes.
Thanks for doing this blog and website I think most everyone in the racing community loves it.

From TB:

Whoops. My bad. And I'm sure I can think of a few people associated with a certain northeast touring series that don't "love" it...

Thanks, Zoe.

[zoe]

PS, we had a heater too with a sheet up at the end of the hauler to keep the heat in :) I would have helped you write your blog even :)

[brad bellows]

gooooooooood one!