ACT Race at Lee USA Rescheduled

(From ACT press release)

LEE, N.H. -- The New Hampshire Governor’s Cup 150 originally scheduled for April 18 at Lee USA Speedway in Lee, N.H., has been rescheduled for Friday, June 11. The event was originally scheduled as the American-Canadian Tour season opener but was postponed due to rain. It becomes the third event of the 2010 ACT season.

ACT teams will have a challenge in racing with Lee regulars who have gained experience in the longer distance ACT races over the years. The Lee contingent will be led by defending champion and current point leader Wayne Helliwell, Jr., of Dover, N.H. Helliwell has already scored two wins in the first two events at Lee this season and is currently leading the Ford Blue Oval Cup Challenge.

ACT favorites include past Lee winners Joey Polewarczyk, Jr., who won the 2008 NH Governor's Cup, and Jean-Paul Cyr, winner of a 2005 Lee event. Defending and six-time ACT Champion Brian Hoar has never won an ACT event at Lee but currently sits atop the ACT point standings. Other contenders include Scott Payea, who has two third place finishes in five career starts at Lee, Brent Dragon, John Donahue, Randy Potter, Jamie Fisher, and Glen Luce among others.

Before ACT teams can look ahead to the NH Governor’s Cup, they will have to battle in Sunday’s 150-lap event at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, Me. Over forty teams are expected to fight for the thirty starting spots, over $25,000 in purse, and the second invitation to the ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in September. Post time at Oxford is 2:00pm on Sunday, May 16.

ACT Post-Season Awards Top $100,000

WATERBURY -- The American-Canadian Tour sanctioning body will celebrate its 25th year in 2010, and is getting its race teams in on the festivities. For the first time, in the current Late Model phase of the ACT series, more than $100,000 in post-season awards will handed out.

“Our Late Model program has grown significantly over the past decade [and] ACT has tried to maintain the balance between keeping this division cost-effective, whether it is weekly racing or Tour racing," said ACT vice president Darla Hartt. "Most of our Tour competitors, and those weekly racers that have supported the ACT Late Model rules formula are primarily focused on winning championships, which is the way it should be. It is still great that we can reward the teams with some financial awards at the end of a long season of racing.”

Both the U.S.-based ACT Late Model Tour and the Canadian Série ACT-Castrol will pay their champions a bonus of $10,000 this season, part of a total of more than $80,000 in combined awards for the two touring series. The “King of the Road” at Barre's Thunder Road Int'l Speedbowl will receive $5,000, with over $20,000 in total point fund money awarded to Thunder Road competitors.

In addition, the ACT Late Model Tour Racing Electronics Rookie of the Year will receive a $1,000 bonus, and the new Ford Blue Oval Challenge Cup program will make available an additional point fund of over $10,000 with $5,000 going to the champion among approved Ford teams.

“This should be one of the most exciting and competitive seasons in recent memory,” said seven-time champion Jean-Paul Cyr of Milton. “It looks like I picked the right year to return to the Tour. I have always liked a challenge and this year sure looks like it has all the makings of being just that."

The season gets underway at Thunder Road's Merchants Bank 150 on Sunday.