Benoit Wins Wet and Wild Backwards Bash; Racing Features Washed Out!

Mother nature wasn’t kind, but that didn’t stop the Backwards Bash Demo at Speedway Miramichi on Saturday. It was a wild full moon Saturday night that featured several altercations, but in the end it was Marc-Andre Benoit driving car #81 scoring his 2nd Demo win of 2018!

14 of the 19 cars in attendance took the call for the Backwards Bash, and in the end it came down to a 4 car battle between Benoit, Randy Girouard, Kevin Tucker (subbing for Shawn Mazerolle), and Conrad Mallett. Benoit came out on top over Girouard and Tucker. (Note – while it’s Benoit’s 2nd Demo win of 2018, he was subbing for another competitor during his May Spring Smash win, and therefore was not credited with the points for that win).

Benoit also survived to win the Figure 8 race. In other Demo action, Kevin Tucker won the Dash 4 Cash, Mini Stock driver Samantha Flieger was victorious in the Powder Puff race, and Joey Pitre took the checkers in the Back-Up race with a pass in the final 20 feet of the race. The burnout competition was won by Drake Nowlan.

A band of showers passed over the track following completion of the racing heats. Inconsistent showers persisted for approximately 45 minutes while efforts were made to dry the track in between. In the end, track drying was a lost cause, and while the Demo events were able to continue as planned, it forced the postponement of all stock car features. Instead of using a rain date, the features will be made up at upcoming events, on nights that will feature “double features.” The Mini Stock, Street Stock, and Dukes classes will make up their features on August 11th, while the Atlantic Modified Tour 50 lap feature will be made up on September 15th.

As mentioned, heat races were run for all racing classes. Atlantic Modified heats were won by John Lyons and Joe Hoyt, Mini Stock heats were won by Rob Poirier and Mathieu Mallett, the Street Stock heat was won by Brad MacLean, and Robert Legere took the Dukes heat.

A full points update is expected soon. The next event at Speedway Miramichi is only 2 weeks away, as action returns to Eastern Canada’s Oldest Active Motorsports Venue on August 11th!