Randy Cabral came back to the Cement Palace, the place and event at which he won his first Northeast Midget Association feature and made it known just how much he enjoys his old home track. Cabral (who has won 7 of the last 10 NEMA championships) was again at the pinnacle of his game as he took off enroute to a 2.153-second win over Todd Bertrand in the 22nd running of the Boston Louie Memorial. And that’s quite some distance, considering Cabral’s impressive 106.513-mph best time of the event. Late in the race, he was showing just a few yards short of a half-lap lead.
As with the junior division (the NEMA Lites) the bruisers of the Association ran a swift race, only halted once in a lap two caution. It set up the confrontation which decided the winner, between polesitter Justin Bonsignore and Cabral. Bonsignore is currently leading the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and was being watched closely as a possible winner. Justin did, indeed, seize the lead from Jim Chambers, the outside pole. Avery Stoehr started third and held the spot while Cabral vaulted into second. Chambers fell to fourth while Paul “Dangerous” Scally was edged out of fifth by Bertrand.
It was here, on lap two, where Bethany Stoehr and Matt O’Brien tangled together. They were able to continue and joined the field for the restart, which saw Bonsignore and Cabral hogging the front row heading toward the green flag.
As they came out of the box, Avery Stoehr tried to drop under Bonsignore from low in the second row, but couldn’t find enough room. Cabral and Bonsignore ran wheel-to-wheel around to turn three, where Cabral powered into the lead. Bonsignore followed with Bertrand, Avery Stoehr and Dangerous Paul in hot pursuit.
Another circuit and the field was strung out and Cabral had burst out to an eight-car lead. The top five remained unchanged while Chambers had absorbed sixth place but was being pursued by Sammy Swindell.
The field tried to keep the rapidly-disappearing Cabral in sight, but they were into lap traffic but Alvy Olvitt was forced to retire on lap eight as the laps continued to unwind.
Bonsignore began to close a bit on Cabral as the latter endured more lapped vehicles but Bonsignore also had two cars between him and the leader. But bad luck struck the pursuer as mechanical problems forced jo, tp the pits at the halfway mark on lap 15. This springboarded Bertrand into the runnerup spot, with Stoehr, Scally and Chambers at his back.
The finishing positions were all decided at this moment, but the crowd was treated to Cabral rocketing away to a nearly-half-lap lead until, with three laps to go, he was slowed by a group of lapped cars. The slowdown cut his lead only by a fraction and he roared home well ahead of the rest of the field.
Sixth went to Swindell, followed by Doug Cleveland, Bethany Stoehr and O’Brien.