LOUDON, N.H. – It was a productive day for Andy Santerre of Cherryfield and his Grizco Racing team at the Sylvania 125 Busch North race Friday at New Hampshire International Speedway.

It was also a good day for drivers from Maine.

Busch North points leader and defending three-time champion Santerre, who manages the Grizco Racing team, finished fifth to extend his points lead to 33 over Grizco teammate Mike Stefanik, who wound up sixth. Meanwhile, two of their closest pursuers in the points chase, Matt Kobyluck, who was third in the points, and fifth-place Mike Olsen, finished 33rd and 13th, respectively.

The other member of the Grizco Racing team, Brad Leighton, who is only running a handful of races, crossed the finish line second behind winner Ted Christopher.

Scarborough’s Ryan Moore was third. He entered the race fourth in points.

Meanwhile, Tracy Gordon of Strong started the race 34th and finished seventh; Kelly Moore, Ryan’s father, wound up 10th after starting 22nd; and Sanford’s Mike Gallo improved from a 31st-place starting spot to a 14th-place finish.

There were nine cautions with the last coming on lap 108 when Donny Lia’s engine blew up, spewing oil over the track. As the cleanup crews applied the drying agent, a light rain began to fall. The race was never restarted and ended on the caution.

“I wish it could have gone [on],” said Santerre, who started on the pole when qualifying was rained out and the starting positions were based on points. “If we would have had 20 to 25 laps of green, I think I had a good shot at winning it. The car was great on long runs but, as you could see, there weren’t any long runs.

“We need to work on getting it to go a little better off a restart. We’d lose spots every restart. But, boy, once she got out there and everybody got single file, I could really go. I think we were the fastest car, according to the times.”

He said his car was “real loose” on the restarts but just for half a lap.

“But, man, the car was great. This is only the second time I’ve run it and I was real happy with it,” said Santerre, who never pitted. “It drove real nice. I didn’t push too hard early. I give-and-took a lot. I needed to finish this race in the top five and that’s what we did.”

Santerre also said that even though his car was exceptional on long runs, he would have been in some trouble if there had been a restart because his windshield was cloudy.

“I had oil on my windshield from early in the race, around lap five, and I was having a hard time seeing. Then it started raining and the rain on that oil makes a mess,” said Santerre. “I couldn’t see a damned thing.”

He said it was a “good day” for Grizco Racing and said they would have had a shot to finish 1-2-3 if there had been more green flag racing.

“Our cars were all set up for long runs,” explained Santerre.

Ryan Moore was irate after the race and Christopher was the source of his anger.

“The guy who won has no respect for anybody on the race track,” said Moore, whose car was bumped and damaged by Christopher during the race. “I don’t like racing with him. I have no interest racing with him. He never does anything wrong. He thinks he’s perfect.”

Moore said he passed Christopher on the outside in a recent race and “never touched him.”

“I was fair and square about it, but he doesn’t race clean and I don’t like it,” said Moore.

Moore said his car was “real good at the beginning, but when he [Christopher] hit me, it bent something on the rear end and it messed us up. After that, it was over with.”

Gordon was actually disappointed with his finish despite his 27-place improvement.

“We had a lot better car than a seventh-place car,” said Gordon. “If pit strategy would have come together and the restarts would have gone our way [we would have finished higher]. Brad jumped a restart and screwed us out of a couple, three spots. The whole outside groove went around us.”

Gordon explained that he was on the inside on the next-to-last restart when Leighton “took off before the green.”

“So a lot of the good cars that I had passed earlier got back by me [on the outside],” said Gordon, who added that Christopher backed off so Leighton would get black-flagged for jumping the restart, which further held up the cars on the inside groove.

“I was up to fifth at that point and I was the best car there. Then I second-guessed myself because I should have jumped to the outside when there was an opening,” Gordon said. “I figured the inside would get going.”