Pole-sitter Logano earns third victory Wreck mars Caisse’s day, Santerre driver 24th

LOUDON, N.H. – In the song “Born Under a Bad Sign” by the group Cream, one lyric goes “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

That has been the case for Andy Santerre Motorsports team driver Sean Caisse, who started on the outside pole in the New England 125 Busch East race Friday only to get in a wreck with Mike Johnson while attempting a pass during the middle of the race.

The subsequent damage to the car resulted in a 24th-place finish, the fourth straight race in which Caisse has failed to finish better than 24th.

Pole-sitter Joey Logano picked up his third Busch East race victory when Brad Leighton jumped a re-start with three laps remaining and was black-flagged. Leighton slowed down to allow the 17-year-old Logano to pass him.

Leighton, gunning for his ninth career NHIS victory, wound up second. Tim Schendel, Landon Cassill and Brian Hoar rounded out the top five.

Rookie Jeffrey Earnhardt, grandson of the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. and the other driver for Andy Santerre Motorsports, finished 15th.

Mike Gallo of Sanford wound up 17th and Kelly Moore of Scarborough finished 29th. Both were involved in a lap 119 wreck.

“I’m getting used to this,” said a disappointed Caisse, who started the season with a second and a victory. “We probably had a top three car today. I don’t know if we would have had anything for Joey. Congratulations to him. We’ll just have to get him next week.”

Caisse said he thought he had a clear lane to the outside of Johnson in which to make the pass, but Johnson slid up the track and “put me in the fence.”

“I don’t know what he was doing,” said Caisse, whose car was too damaged to make a run to the front. He was involved in another wreck with five laps to go.

“I don’t know if things can get any worse. I didn’t think it could get any worse the past three weeks and it just did,” said the 21-year-old Caisse, who finished second in the points a year ago and led the series in wins [three] and poles [five].

A blown tire and two mechanical problems have proved costly in the previous three races.

“I’m just going to forget about it. It’s happened all season so far. I’m just going to keep moving on,” said Caisse.

Caisse pitted on lap 20 to get some gas and re-started in 32nd place. He made his way up to 17th before pitting for tires on lap 42. He got into his wreck with Johnson on lap 45.

Cherryfield’s Santerre said the car was the fastest among 18 cars during testing at NHIS a couple of months ago but it was involved in a wreck at the Iowa Speedway “and it was never as good.”

He said the car went from “tight to loose, tight to loose all day and we never got a good balance.”

Earnhardt started 40th because his car blew an engine during practice. They put in a new engine and he survived a crash to finish 15th.

“He did a good job for all the things that team went through, changing motors. And the motor we put in didn’t look real good,” said Santerre. “There were some metal filings on top of the rocker arms early this morning. We changed out all the rockers. We were really worried about the motor. But he ran good and the motor lasted. He got in one wreck. It wasn’t his fault. Someone got him in the left rear [quarter panel] and turned him. It was a pretty violent wreck. But he survived it and got back out. He has a good team [Dale Earnhardt Inc.] there. The guys are doing a good job. Jeffrey’s learning but he’s doing a good job keeping the car under him.”

Santerre added that Leighton, who was driving a Grizco Racing Team car that Santerre helped build, salvaged the day for him with his second-place finish.

Gallo and Moore were irate with the way they were wrecked.

“Those last 30 laps, they all went into the corner over their damned heads and wrecked each other,” said Moore. “I had been through two bad wrecks and didn’t get scruffed up. Then they wrecked in front of me over there, I slowed down and somebody took me from behind and planted me right into the wreck. It’s unfortunate but that’s racing. We had a decent car but I didn’t have any power steering the whole race. I probably lost it on lap 10.”

Gallo was running ninth when he got swallowed up in the wreck.

“Usually, when you’re driving in the top 10, you respect each other. A couple of guys in front of me were driving erratically and stupid all day,” said Gallo. “I had a feeling if I was running on the outside, I was going to miss it. But I knew we were going to have a problem with a certain car. Sure as heck, I slowed up a little in the middle and then I got clobbered from behind.

“We gave it our all. I was driving a really smart race. I was thrilled with how everything went [until the wreck]. This is the smallest team on this tour. I was flabbergasted by what a great run we had,” added Gallo, who noted that they made some key adjustments to the car that catapulted it into the top 10.