Dragon earns second in Ontario

By CINDY HUMISTON WEED | Milton Independent Race Reporter

Brent Dragon Photo by Dave Heath

After leading Saturday's Toromont CAT 100 for 77 laps, championship late model stock car driver Brent Dragon of Milton earned the second place trophy with a broken suspension bracket. Martin Lacombe of Terrebonne, QC, was the winner of the Série ACT Castrol event.

“It was a pretty rough track. It really was,” said Brent Dragon. “It was paved in the 1960s and it's still the original pavement. I've never seen pavement so coarse in my life. But it was a lot of fun; a lot of fun. If the bar hadn't broken, we had a good shot at winning it. We ran away with it to begin with. (But) we were lucky to have finished second - lucky to have finished at all - after seeing the bracket when they got home.”

The race, delayed for two hours by an unexpected rain shower, was marred by 22 caution periods and lasted almost two and a half hours. June Dragon of Milton, Brent's wife, said that, all totaled, they made 198 circuits around the racetrack. She attributed the numerous yellow flag laps to impatient drivers.

“They just as soon go through you as around you,” June Dragon, spotter for her husband, said of the other drivers. “It was unreal.”

Dragon, a previous Airborne Speedway champion, attributed much of his weekend's success to his sponsors Mike and Tom Kenyon of Kemptville, Ontario. The brothers - owners of Kenyon Racing Products- have experience on the track: it's their home track and right in the neighborhood. So with Mike Kenyon acting as Dragon's crew chief, he recommended chassis set-ups that worked well for Dragon.

This weekend Dragon will return to the New Hampshire's White Mountain Motorsports Park for a point counting race on the American Canadian Tour, where he is sixth in the point standings. Due to a previous rain out, Dragon is already qualified for the main event and will start in fifth place on the grid. He won the event last year.

“We're sort of looking forward to it,” said Dragon. “The car's been very, very good. It's been a pleasure to drive it. We've come from the back almost every week. Maybe starting out in front will change our luck.”