Episode 324
July 19, 2020
It was April 2016 at Maine Indoor Karting (MIK) in Scarborough, when I met Evan Beaulieu on the track for the first time. He along with several of his friends were at the track for some Friday evening racing.
I raced in three races he was in and beat him only once when he got bottled up in traffic. The margin was less than .2 seconds. In the other two races he beat me by 17 seconds and by over a lap in the second win. He set the 4th fastest time for the month in that race. I remember trying my best to keep him behind me by blocking and using up as much of the track as I could without making a blatant move.
He zoomed by me after nudging my rear bumper and that was the last I saw of him until after the race was done. I developed my healthy respect for his driving abilities firsthand!
Evan, 27 years old, living in Durham, Maine returned to Beech Ridge Speedway Saturday July 18th when the track opened for the first time in 2020. He had been away from Super Late Models for three years while he got married (to Lindsey Laverriere) and built a new home.
With his crew at the track he admitted that he was a little rusty, however, the touch was still intact when he finished the 75-lap feature in fourth place. Natural talent and a good race car can sometimes yield a good result.
Beaulieu commented, “Been almost three years since my last race in the Super Late Model. We do plan on running all the races yes! And it was just great to be back in the car, we had a few timely cautions and I figured the car out about halfway through the feature and we had good pace at the end. Definitely something to build on!”
Beaulieu got his start racing karts on the kart track at Beech Ridge Speedway which utilized the front stretch and a portion of the infield. “I started in karts at Beech Ridge actually,” said Beaulieu. “We then went to Richmond Karting Speedway.”
He soon advanced in his racing career moving up to Legends Cars, powered by a four cylinder motorcycle engine. That was where he met Wyatt Alexander and his family recalling, “The Alexander’s we met as they wanted to get into Legends and we kind of helped them get started. They came and watched us race at Orange County Speedway in North Carolina, I ran my Legends Car on Saturday and they raced their kart at the kart track on Sunday and we went to watch.”
The DT 100 Fundraiser at Maine Indoor Karting was held ten years. The Durham racer entered several times and won his class once. He also raised over $1000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the charity for which the DT100 was organized. The race brought together some of the finest racers in New England for the event.
And WAR makes their season debut
Wyatt Alexander made his 2020 driving debut at Beech Ridge Speedway Saturday evening. UpNorth Motorsports will once again this season be following this race team with solid roots in “the County”.
Wyatt had this to say about the initial race in the seven race series, ” We ended up seventh. Our car was OK all day just missed it a little in the feature which was hard to handle on a hot slick track which amplified the handling big time. Started 8th, ran as high as 5th and pitted to make an adjustment that just didn’t work.”
Crew Chief (and Grandfather of Wyatt) Bob Alexander remarked , “I believe we finished in seventh place. The handling was not where Wyatt wanted it. The #96 car was pretty fast early on in the 75 lap feature but fell back at the end. Overall great day! Any day at the race track is better than a day working. We are looking forward to going back to Beech Ridge next Saturday.”
Chasing the Checkered Amy Hinton-Harrop’s Beech Ridge Speedway Season Opener race report can be found here:
Kody Swanson make stock car debut
Oxford 150 winner and Oxford 250 announcement
Let’s go racing,
Tom Hale
Soli Deo Gloria (Deuteronomy 6:5)