By Paul Harkenrider (Cornwall, ON) | After a second place run Saturday night at the Brockville-Ontario Speedway, Steve Poirier backed it up Sunday evening at the Cornwall Motor Speedway by notching his first overall win of 2019 over Jordan Thomas and Mark Smith.
“This feels pretty good, this is a place we have had so much fun in the past” Poirier expressed. “We struggled a little bit since the beginning of the season, I have to say thanks to my crew chief (Kevin Loveys) for giving me a super car tonight.”
Poirier was the final car to make it into the redraw and given the number two tennis ball after Mark Smith ended pulling the number six. Poirier would start along side the 79 of Jordan Thomas and the two would bring the 18 car field to the green flag.
Poirier would ride the outside to take the lead in the opening lap with Jordan Thomas and Jared Zimbardi trailing Poirier in the first several laps. Other cars that were attempting to move forward were Joe Trenca, Davie Franek, Jordan Poirier and Mark Smith at the time.
Thomas would eventually catch Poirier at the halfway point when lap traffic would begin to slow down the very fast Poirier. Then on lap 13, Thomas would over-cook turn three but was able to keep it going and not lose any position, however Poirier would rebuild a huge advantage.
Lap 19 is when the first caution would come out as Sean Durand would smack the turn four wall and his night would be complete. On the ensuing restart, another caution would come out due to debris on the track.
This would actually help Poirier as he was able to get back out in clean air. The battle for second was still on between Jordan Thomas and Mark Smith as even Jared Zimbardi was all over Smith during the “teen laps” of the race. The last thing Zimbardi wanted to see was a yellow flag on lap 19 as he almost cleared Smith for third.
Poirier would lead all 25 laps and pick up his fifth career win at the Cornwall and his 16th win under the PST banner.
“At some point, when things start to become uncomfortable, that’s when things become bad” Poirier continued to talk about in victory lane. “I kind of searched a little bit when I hit lap traffic, I knew I was not exactly where I needed to be but after more laps, I felt okay just and hit my marks.”
In his first ever start at the Cornwall Motor Speedway, Jordan Thomas was elated to be on the podium especially with veterans Steve Poirier and Mark Smith.
“It always good to stand up here with Mark and Steve, they are two veterans who know how to get around a race track” Thomas said. “I am still a little bit new to this, I didn’t really know where to put the car and I knew they were going to know where to put it, but we are going to take this second place run.”
Mark Smith was also a fast race car off the trailer, especially having Canadian crew chief, Patrick Vigneault with him during this four day stretch. He was satisfied with a third place run but knew if he had a better starting spot, he would maybe be a couple spots better.
“It was all about the starting spots tonight” Smith first noted. “I told Steve he needed to share some of his winnings with me because I ‘gave him’ that two spot, but its all fun and good, we will take third.
Jordan Poirier would go on to win the Bonnell’s Rod shop Dash for Cash while Jared Zimbardi, Jordan Thomas and Pete Richardson would go on to win the heat races.
The series now heads to Ohsweken Speedway for their Northern Summer Nationals paying $5,000 win the next two nights. The series has a short turn around as we return to Outlaw Speedway this Saturday for the second annual Summer Nationals that pays $4,000 to win.
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A-Verdi Storage Containers Patriot Sprint Tour Quick Results
A-Main: 1) 28FM-STEVE POIRIER (1) 2) 79-Jordan Thomas 3) 55-Mark Smith 4) 35-Jared Zimbardi 5) 28F-Davie Franek 6) 98-Joe Trenca 7) 28-Jordan Poirier 8) 11J-Chris Jones 9) 99-John Trenca 10) 87-Jason Barney 11) 67-Pete Richardson 12) 98p-Paul Pekonen 13) 01-Kyle Fraser 14) 9b-Scott Burk 15) Roger Levesque 16) 76-Sean Durand 17) 35x-Tim Zimabardi 18) 79k-Brian Zyck
Heat 1: 1) 35-Jared Zimbardi 2) 98-Joe Trenca 3) 55-Mark Smith 4) 28-Jordan Poirier 5) 87-Jason Barney 6) 98P-Paul Pekonen
Heat 2: 1) 79-Jordan Thomas 2) 28f-Davie Franek 3) 28fm-Steve Poirier 4) 01-Kyle Fraser 5) 99-John Trenca 6) 35x-Tim Zimbardi
Heat 3: 1) 67-Pete Richardson 2) 11j-Chris Jones 3) 9b-Scott Burke 4) 76sd-Scott Durand 5) 16L-Roger Levesque 6) 79x-Brian Zyck
Bonnell’s Rod Shop Dash For Cash: 1) 28-Jordan Poirier 2) 87-Jason Barney 3) 99-John Trenca 4) 01-Kyle Fraser 5) 9b-Scott Burke 6) 76sd- Sean Durand Lap Leaders: 28fm-Steve Poirier (25)