Lucas Punkari
After two seasons of coming away empty-handed at the Emo Speedway, the third season definitely has been the charm for Lindsay Bourre.
The Rainy River native, who captured her first win of any kind in a heat back on Canada Day, captured the checkered flag in the Street Stock feature race this past Saturday night, which also gave her the track’s Mid-Season Shootout trophy.
“When I won the first time on Canada Day, I was really excited,” Bourre enthused.
“Everyone was telling me, ‘It’s just a heat,’ but I was just pumped.
“And then this week to win again in the feature, all I could think was, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this.’”
The 21-year old Bourre jumped out to the lead at the start of the 15-lap feature, and was able to lead from flag-to-flag despite some late pressure from Jeff Wickstrom and division points leader Don Bowman.
“I knew that they were starting to get closer and closer, and was I ever nervous,” Bourre recalled.
“When I saw the white flag come out, the only thing I was thinking was, ‘Don’t mess up,’” she laughed.
As for what has made Bourre and her Camaro become one of the top cars to beat in her class, the young driver points to her pit crew and her own improvements behind the wheel.
“My crew has been working really hard on the car and doing some different stuff on it,” she noted. “But I think my driving might be getting a little better, as well.
“I was really close to getting a win in a feature a couple weeks ago with Don [Bowman], and that really pumped me right up for the rest of the year.”
Bowman passed Wickstrom in the dying stages of Saturday’s feature to finish in the runner-up spot, with Carlee Bosma and Ron Westover rounding out the top five.
Bosma and Wickstrom were victorious in the heats earlier in the night.
Meanwhile, in the WISSOTA Modified feature on Saturday night, Gavin Paull took home his fifth victory in as many weeks at the Emo Speedway this season.
He also clinched a qualifying spot for the WISSOTA 100 Race of Champions in Huron, S.D. in September.
“I was a little worried coming up to this point as I wanted to qualify for this race again,” noted Paull, who finished seventh in last year’s event.
“But I feel really good now that I was able to win this race tonight [Saturday] to qualify for that race, as I hope to have a chance at winning down there this year,” he added.
Paull, who made a power move on Denny Trimble down the backstretch in the early stages of Saturday’s feature to take a lead he would never relinquish, had to deal with some adversity earlier in the evening when he lost his starter after a spin at the beginning of the heat.
“I got a little too high there just trying to feel the car out,” he recalled.
“Since the starter went out on the car as a result of that, I had to get a push start to get back going in the heat and to start the feature, as well.
“I was lucky not to spin out in the feature, as well, because I would have had trouble getting the car started up again.”
Paull’s toughest challenger of the night also came in the heat as he was unable to get by defending track champ Glen Strachan.
However, that heat proved to be the only race Strachan would complete for the night as he suffered an engine failure just as he crossed the finish line to receive the checkered flag.
“I thought I just had a valve cover leaking a little bit, but it turned out that I was wrong,” Strachan noted.
“I’m not sure how bad it is yet, but it definitely needs some open-heart surgery,” he added.
Trimble ended up second in the 20-lap feature, with Tyler Brown, Ron Korpi, and Derek Brown rounding out the top five.
Finally, in the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds, defending division champ Brady Caul bounced back from a rough start to the season by capturing his first feature win of the campaign.
“It’s definitely a good feeling to win again,” Caul smiled.
“With two DNF’s out of five races, we weren’t doing very good this year, so it’s nice to get another win,” he added.
Running in fourth place near the halfway point of the race, Caul made his way past both Tylar Brown and Christopher Leek to grab second position, then was able to take advantage of a mistake by leader Chuck Lambert to earn top spot.
“When I was running in fourth, the two guys in front of me [Brown and Leek] got loose just a bit for me to get by them,” Caul recalled.
“That corner [Turns 3 and 4] was kind of tricky, and Chuck screwed up in the same spot as the other two cars, and I just capitalized on it.”
Like Paull, Caul also qualified for the Race of Champions in September, but has yet to decide if he’ll make the trip to South Dakota.
“We don’t really know what exactly we will be doing at that point in the year, so we are just going to see what happens,” Caul said.
Lambert, Leek, Cody Ossachuk, and Brown followed Caul to the line in the feature, with Leek and Ossachuk winning the heats earlier.
Racing action is set to resume this Saturday (weather permitting), with hot laps at 7 p.m. and the green flag dropping at 7:30.