Dragon Family Headed Back To Bear Ridge

BRADFORD -- Vermont's most famous racing family returns to Bear Ridge Speedway on Saturday night as the Dragons race on the dirt. Patriarchs Harmon "Beaver" Dragon, 69, and his brother, Bobby, 64, put their home town of Milton, Vt., on the stock car racing map as they won races from the 1960s to the 2000s. Their sons, Brent and Scott, are also successful racers, and will join their fathers at the Bradford quarter-mile for a family showdown.

Both members of the New England Auto Racing Hall of Fame, Beaver and Bobby Dragon racked up well over a dozen track and series championships, and have competed on superspeedways including Daytona, Charlotte and Darlington. Brent, Beaver's son, is a three-time Airborne Speedway champion and is among the all-time winners on the present-day American-Canadian Tour, and Bobby's son Scott is a three-time ACT winner currently competing with the Pro All Stars Series.

Bobby Dragon won last year's inaugural event, as Beaver and Brent played a last-lap game of bumper tag. Brent held his own ground in the regular 30-lap Sportsman Modified event that evening, though, finishing tenth in his first-ever dirt-track start.

"I plan to do a lot better this year in the main feature," Brent chuckled. "I was nervous about it last year having never raced dirt before, but I know what to do now."

Beaver and Bobby both raced on dirt tracks in Vermont and New York during the 1960s and '70s, but Bobby was still surprised to have won last year.

"It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot different from the asphalt I'd been used to running on. I think this year we've got to remind Beaver that the guys that own these cars have to race them after we're done and he shouldn't try to tear them all up like last year," Bobby laughed.

Bobby said that his son Scott, who will take part in the race for the first time this year, has designs of his own. "Scott's never been on a dirt track before, but he told us he's going to show us all how it's done out there."

Fairlee's Adam Pierson earned his first feature win of the season last week and leads the Sportsman Modified points after three events. Jack Cook of Moultonboro, N.H., sits second ten points back, with three-time defending champion Gary Siemons of Orford, N.H., third, twelve points behind Pierson. Melvin Pierson, Josh Harrington, and Jason Horniak pace the Sportsman Coupe division, and Will Hull leads Jeremy Hodge in the Limited Late Models.

Woodsville Guaranty Savings Bank presents the card at Bear Ridge Speedway at 6:00pm on Saturday.

Dragon Headed "Home" to Airborne for Spring Green

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. -- Milton, Vt., may be where Brent Dragon lives, but he says Airborne Speedway across Lake Champlain in Plattsburgh, N.Y., is home. The three-time champion of the historic facility is looking forward to returning there for Saturday's American-Canadian Tour Spring Green 100, perhaps more than any other event on the schedule.

"I consider Airborne my home track," Dragon said. "I always seem to do well there, and it's always been good to us."

"Well" may be a bit of an understatement. In addition to his Airborne weekly track championships in 1995, 1996, and 2000, Dragon has 11 total wins there including his pair of ACT Late Model Tour victories in 2004, the year he won both the Spring Green and Fall Foliage races. His legendary father, Harmon "Beaver" Dragon, and uncle Bobby combined for four championships there in the 1970s and '80s, and cousin Scott was dominant there in the late 1990s. Airborne Speedway belongs to the Dragon family as much as anyone.

"I was talking to someone the other day about Airborne, all the good times we've had over there. I remember how excited we always were waiting at the ferry boat every Saturday afternoon, or coming back home that night, and there are some stories I probably shouldn't tell from those nights," Brent laughed. "We have a lot of good memories from there, and we always knew where we were going to be every Saturday night rather than traveling all over with the Tour. I certainly miss that part of it."

Dragon did a pre-season test at Airborne Speedway in late April to get geared up for the Spring Green. The event, like Airborne itself, is steeped in the family's winning tradition: Beaver won it a record three times including the first race in 1974, and Bobby won in 1975. Tying the Spring Green even closer to the Dragons is the race's presenting sponsor, Milton-based Furniture World of Vermont, which has also sponsored Brent's cars for several years.

"We tested really well a few weeks ago. I was very happy with how it went," said Dragon, who finished inside the top-five in both ACT races at Airborne last year and led 56 laps of the Fall Foliage 300 in September. "We had a tough start to the year with a crash at Thunder Road last week, and we could use a win to bounce back from it. I'd like to do it at Airborne. We have a lot of family and friends that will be there, and I'm looking forward to going back this weekend."