NASCAR Canada

St-Eustache report

LONDON, ON - On Saturday night at Montreal's Autodrome St-Eustache, drivers Don Thomson Jr. and DJ Kennington overcame mid-race incidents to take the second and third spots, respectively, on the podium. In the case of Thomson, his Home Hardware ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

LONDON, ON - On Saturday night at Montreal's Autodrome St-Eustache, drivers Don Thomson Jr. and DJ Kennington overcame mid-race incidents to take the second and third spots, respectively, on the podium. In the case of Thomson, his Home Hardware Chevy spun in oil, while leading, just past the two-thirds point of the 150 lap 'Auto Parts Plus 150'. Undaunted, Thomson fought back through the 10 cars that were still on the lead lap at that point, to take third. More important, the recovery was good enough for the Hamilton, ON racer to assume the points lead in the chase for the Castrol Cup.

"We move into the points lead," said Thomson, following the race. "That's what we came here to do... just get a nice, consistent finish."

Kennington was similarly pleased with his second-place finish. The Castrol SYNTEC Intrepid driver had backed his car into the wall after losing traction in the fluid from another driver's radiator, on lap 20, and spent the rest of the race clawing his way back to the front of the field.

"The #22 car [Scott Steckly] blew a rad hose right in front of me," explained Kennington. "There was a lot of coolant there in a hurry and nowhere to go. I was just trying my best to save it, and when I knew I couldn't, I just tried to get it to hit back-end first. But it ended up hitting the whole left side - mainly the left-rear corner. The left-front wheel got it pretty good, too. But it only knocked the 'toe-out' out a little bit. Actually, I think it helped the car because it wasn't too bad after that."

But the biggest smile at the end of the night was on the face of race winner Peter Gibbons. Demonstrating the highs and lows that are part of motorsports, the Canadian Tire Chevy driver bounced back from one of the biggest disappointments of his racing career - having the driveshaft fall out on the warm-up lap at the Toronto Indy - by riding to victory lane at St-Eustache.

Asked if he was starting to wonder if he'd win again, given the troubles he experienced during the first half of the season, the Stouffville, ON racer said, "Oh no. We've had problems before. You gotta just keep digging harder to come back and win. That's why we're here. We're a threat to win every week, it's just a matter of us overcoming problems to get up here in the winner's circle. In the two races that we haven't had any problems [Kawartha and St-Eustache], we've been second and first."

NOTEBOOK: The Castrol Super Series resumes this weekend with its second consecutive event in Quebec. The Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres is one of the oldest and biggest road racing weekends in Canada. This year, for the first time ever, the Castrol Super Series will be on the schedule for this prestigious event... The 'National Fast Freight delivers the Exide Batteries 250', held June 9 at Mosport Speedway, will air on Tuesday evening on Sportsnet. The race will be broadcast in the Ontario and Western regions at 8:00 p.m., while the Eastern and Pacific regions will show the race starting at 7:00 p.m.

-CASCAR

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article HPROP: Miss Budweiser Seattle pre-race notes

Next article Laughlin Desert Challenge overall results

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

2 h

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

2 h

William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix

Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 2 h

Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring

Daniel Suarez will return to Spire Motorsports for 2027 NASCAR Cup season

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

2 h

Daniel Suarez will return to Spire Motorsports for 2027 NASCAR Cup season

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts