Moore survives cautions Mainer captures Busch East race

LOUDON, N.H. – The New Hampshire 125 Busch East race could have been renamed “Survival-Loudon.”

But moments after the last piece of metal was retrieved from New Hampshire International Speedway and the final batch of SpeedyDry had been applied Saturday, it was Scarborough’s Kelly Moore who took the checkered flag.

The race featured a record 11 caution flags resulting in just 31 actual laps of green-flag racing among the 104 laps completed. The race actually had to be shortened due to time constraints as the New Hampshire 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck series race followed.

Moore took the lead on lap 89 as three of the top five drivers in the points race were involved in wrecks.

“The car was good all day long,” said Moore, the former Busch East points champion who claimed his sixth win at NHIS. “I slapped the wall on the right side on lap 45, but my wheel had been a little crooked because we didn’t put it on right when we started the race and that straightened it out.”

The 11th caution resulted in a green-white checkered flag (two-lap) finish, but Moore wasted little time pulling away from the field and cruising to victory lane.

“I was worried,” said Moore. “You don’t know what was going to happen on the restart. I could have missed a shift or could have gone down in the corner and had somebody get into the back of me.”

“But I got a good restart when I needed it,” added Moore, who started 23rd after Thursday’s qualifying was rained out. “We just kept plugging away all day. This feels good. This was our first win since we last raced regularly [2004].”

Shawn Plowman, Moore’s crew chief, said, “We really concentrated on this race. Kelly really wanted to win again at Loudon. The car was really good and Kelly did an excellent job.”

Brian Hoar finished second, and rounding out the top five in the 46-car field were Bryon Chew, Andrew Myers and Strong’s Tracy Gordon. Mike Gallo of Sanford wound up 35th.

Sean Caisse, the Pelham, N.H., native who drives for the Andy Santerre Motorsports team owned by the Cherryfield native, led early, but Hoar slid up the track and bumped him midway through the race and Matt Kobyluck drove into the back of him several laps later.

Caisse and Kobyluck had gotten tangled up earlier in the race as Kobyluck slid down the track and Caisse spun Kobyluck.

NASCAR officials felt Kobyluck purposely retaliated when he rear-ended Caisse and parked Kobyluck’s car after 69 laps. Kobyluck finished 40th.

Caisse’s damaged car wound up 14th.

“That’s two weeks in a row they dumped us,” said Santerre of Kobyluck. “He dumped us going for the lead at Waterford [Conn.]. He didn’t get anything [punishment] out of that. At least NASCAR took a stance and did something to him finally. This has been an ongoing thing and NASCAR needs to take hold of it.”

Santerre added that Caisse couldn’t be blamed for spinning Kobyluck “because Kobyluck came down across Sean’s hood between turns three and four. We were beside him. They touched, barely, but it didn’t matter because we were up to his door and that’s legal racing.”

Santerre said even if Caisse hadn’t been hit by Hoar and Kobyluck, he wasn’t sure if Caisse could have won “because we had some power-steering issues. And then when Hoar spun us, the power steering belt broke.”

Caisse said, “It’s a tough deal for all of us. It’s real unfortunate because we worked really hard to get this car into victory lane. I don’t know if I could have won with the power-steering issue, but I could have hung on a lot better than I did with a wrecked race car.”

Kobyluck could not be reached for comment.

Santerre said NASCAR should bring Kobyluck and Caisse together to straighten out the bad blood, but Caisse said it wouldn’t help.

“There’s no hope for that guy,” said Caisse, who also felt Hoar’s driving left something to be desired.

“Whether he got loose or whether he didn’t, he hit me hard enough where that mistake was so great, people shouldn’t be in the series if they make mistakes that bad,” said Caisse. “I was in the third [high] groove. If I was in the middle groove and he hit me like that, I would understand. But I was way up the hill and he hit me hard enough to spin me.”

Caisse entered the race in second place in the points, 44 points behind Mike Olsen. And Olsen was spun early in the race by John Freeman, which caused considerable damage to his car.

But Olsen rallied to finish ninth and increase his lead over Caisse. Kobyluck had entered the race fifth in points.