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      Big shoutout to Chad Baxter for his World Series win! The World Series is an extra distance race in front of a large crowd and it's a great win for a driver to have on his or her resume'. Louie Bellise led the first 16 laps but faced no serious competition except for a few laps when Mike G was menacing him. But when the #21 of Baxter caught him with four to go it was all Baxter. The win, Baxter's second this year, closes out an up and down season for the driver out of Pascoag Rhode Island who finished 10th in the final standings. It also marks the second consecutive year yours truly has picked the winner of the prestigious event (hey can you guys actually hear me patting myself on the back?) In 2012 I'll see if I can pull off the hat trick! Bellisle brought that stout #50 Ford of his across the stripe in second, followed by a hard charging Mike G for third, the Bonehead was fourth, and I don't know if he counts it as breaking the family "World Series curse" but Brent Gleason was fifth.
                                            The year that was...
      Every year we gather together in the chill of March to practice for the up coming season not knowing what lies ahead of us. This year fate had more in store for us than we bargained for...
      I remember in pre season practice I was right behind Uncle Buck when he spun out coming off of four, for a second the track was smoke blocked and I couldn't see a thing. He came over to my pit right after we came off the track and I said something about the smoke show he put on, we laughed about it and he went back to his pit. I had no idea that would be the last time I would ever see him.
      In the March practice sessions and during Icebreaker practice Danny Field was just crazy fast. So I went into his hauler just before we went out for the Icebreaker and said, "Listen man, me and the rest of the guys in the division were wondering if you'd run around in fourth gear for a while? You know to sorta make a show of it." Well he didn't, but it turns out even if he did he probably still would've been the 2011 Champion! Field dominated the division like no other driver before him, winning an incredible 11 out of 15 points races (a new record) which was enough for him to win the national title as well! Who's better than him? In 2011, in our division, no one else in the entire US of A.
      It wasn't until mid season that anyone managed to oust Field from victory lane. Tyler Poulin and his Dad had bought Harold and Cindy Burdick's #15 Mini at Thompson's 2010 swap meet and used it to chase Field to three consecutive 2nd place finishes followed by a win (Poulin's first) which ended Field's win streak at seven.
      As Field returned to his winning ways scoring the next two in a row, another driver who was gaining notoriety was Alicia Thatcher. Having been without a ride in 2010, Thatcher's season caught fire in the summer heat as she set off on tear collecting four heat race wins. Unfortunately Thatcher's fourth win was taken back in tech for failure to make minimum ride height (springs do settle) but by late summer it was clear to everybody that if she got that double duce of hers in clean air she was gone!
     Victory lane played host to a couple of new faces in August as Chad Baxter got his first win of the season and Eric Bourgeois scored an emotional win as the new driver for the #33 team. A win he dedicated to Uncle Buck.
      Field struck again the following week (win #10) and then the rain came. Over the next six weeks Thompson lost five events due to rain and suffered power loss on the Saturday hurricane Irene blew through. They did manage to get one race in during the six week period which Danny Field won besting Chad Baxter for win #11 (a new single season record for the division) which clinched the championship for Field.
      After three consecutive rainouts the clouds parted and the final points race was won by none other than rookie Travis Jurcik. It was his first career win which he won after a hard fought battle with the #21 of Chad Baxter.
      It may sound strange considering one driver won 11 out of 15 events but 2011 was a very competitive year. Take a look at 10th through 5th in the final standings and you'll see that they're separated by just 22 points! Other than Danny Field, no one in the top ten in points was guaranteed anything going into that last points race. Every position gained or lost in that final race was crucial to those drivers. A bit of bad luck could've meant the difference between 5th and 10th place in the final standings. For the top ten to be in such a tight knot at the end of the season, for all those positions to be up for grabs until the last lap of the last race, is testimony to how tough the competition was all season long.

So who won what?

      Every year I sorta give my take on who I think the award winners will be at the banquet. Even though I have a lot of friends in the division I don't play favorites, I just go by driver stats. For the first three awards there's just no gray area. Danny Field is the champion by a whopping 156 points over Leo Defevers. Alicia Thatcher was voted Most Popular by the fans, nuff said there. And Travis Jurcik who finished 218 points over Mike D. Viens seems like a lock for Rookie of The Year. The hardest award to pick for 2011 is Most Improved. Why? Well the drivers showing the most improvement didn't run a full season in 2010, some didn't run at all! Alicia Thatcher got people talking with all those heat wins and finished a solid 15th in the final standings, but never took the green in 2010 so she has no 2010 season record to improve upon. Same for Tyler Poulin who hadn't run in the division since 2008 but scored his first win and finished 3rd in the overall standings despite sitting out a race. Of the drivers that made at least one start in 2010 Danny Field made the biggest jump in the points rising from 28th to 1st gaining 27 positions. Travis Jurcik surged 20 spots from 31st in 2010 to 11th in 2011. Eric Bourgeios climbed from 24th to 5th (19 spots) and Brent Gleason's 8th place points finish was 12 positions ahead of his 2010 effort. As impressive as those gains are I think the award for Most Improved is meant for a driver that ran the full season in the previous year. Of the drivers that did run the full season in 2010 Joe Baxter and Tim Armstrong are tied for most positions gained at six. But you'd have to give Baxter the edge by virtue of his 4th place in the final standings vs. Armstrong's 7th. At least that's the way I see it. Whether or not Thompson agrees is something were just gonna have to have to wait till January to see.
      I don't have a classified section on this site anymore but I promised the Poulinator I'd post this: "Hey steve we are selling the 23 as a complete car for $4500 or best offer it has a 1/2 season old CB fab motor. We are interested in interesting trades including 20-24 foot enclosed trailer." You can e-mail him at tismod01@yahoo.com
      Well that's about it for now. I have some 2011 season pics that I haven't posted yet, I'll try to get them on here in a reasonable amount of time. And the achieves are a few years behind (lol) I'll try to tend to that too. But this is likely the last update until the banquet so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!