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LOUDON, N.H. – The Heluva’ Good! 125 was just that Friday night.
Eddie MacDonald of Rowley, Mass., a Camping World (Busch North/East) driver since 2001, took the lead on a green-white checkered finish and held off 17-year-old Trevor Bayne to collect his first-ever win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 16 career starts.
His previous best in New Hampshire was a seventh.
It was his first Camping World East win in 13 months. MacDonald led the race three different times for a total of 35 laps.
MacDonald and Bayne swapped the lead several times over the last 10 laps until a caution came out on lap 122, creating the two-lap finish.
MacDonald, whose crew chief is Auburn area native Rollie Lachance, started on the inside because he was the race leader and was able to pull away from Bayne.
“I was just looking to put some distance on him on the restart,” explained MacDonald.
“I got loose and slid up the track,” said Bayne, who drives for Dale Earnhardt Inc. and acknowledged he didn’t want to see that final caution flag.
“That was too bad. I had some clean air,” said Bayne, a native of Knoxville, Tenn. He had actually taken the lead before the caution came out but, in the Camping World East series, the lineup for the restart is based on the order after the last completed lap.
Bayne said he was hoping MacDonald “slid up the track” over the final two laps to give him an opening but it never happened.
“He was smart,” said Bayne.
MacDonald and Bayne had each used cross-over moad to pass the other in the waning laps. That involves the driver in the higher groove slipping down underneath the driver who had just passed him to re-take the lead.
“[Bayne] was running me up the track when he was on the inside,” said MacDonald who was concerned he might bump the outside wall.
“It was a good battle,” said Bayne, who had made a nice recovery to climb up through the pack after being sent to the back for a pit-road violation. He had too many crew members over the wall.
Matt Kobyluck of Uncasville, Conn., who had led several laps, finished third. Points leader Austin Dillon of Lewisville, N.C., who was driving in his first race after leaving Andy Santerre Motorsports, finished fourth and rounding out the top five was Ricky Carmichael of Clearwater, Fla.
Completing the top 10 were sixth-place Marc Davis, followed by Mike Olsen, John Salemi, Brad Leighton and Brian Ickler.
Leighton and Ickler were also battling for the win late in the race when they got tangled up. Leighton spun and brought out the caution, forcing him to restart at the back of the pack, and Ickler was sent to the back for aggressive driving.
Peyton Sellers, who drives for the Andy Santerre Motorsports team owned by the Cherryfield native and former four-time Camping World Series champ, wound up 29th after his fuel pump failed on lap 91 and had to be replaced. He was running ninth at the time.
Lyman’s Alan Tardiff finished 21st.
There were seven caution flags during the race for a total of 44 laps.
lmahoney@bangordailynews.net
990-8231
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