Gold benefits from DQs to Wilson, Praysner

Michael Gold never got the opportunity to do his victory lap but the young late model driver will take the points in a run for the Laird International Raceway track championship.

Gold, pictured, was announced the winner of the late model feature following the action on Monday night after George Wilson, who crossed the finish line first, and runner-up Jason Praysner were disqualified during tech inspections.

Monday's show was held as a makeup for last Thursday's rain out.

Wilson and Praysner, who battled bumper-to-bumper for first place for the better part of the race, were fingered by the tech crew for violating the track width rule on their tires by an inch-and-a-half.

Laird rules state that the track width, which is the outside width of the tires, is suppose to be 79 inches.

Gold moved up to first from third while Rod Bolduc Jr. claims second spot and Paul Seabrook third.

Praysner had started the night in fine fashion by setting a new track record in qualifying. Praysner set a lap time of 14. 775 seconds, beating Gold's record of 14.827 set last July.

The DQ also took away a clean sweep from George Wilson, who won both heat races despite battling car problems as an aluminum bolt broke on his transmission before the races.

Bolduc captured the four car dash.

The post race events put a damper on what had been a fantastic night of feature racing. A caution in the late model feature was the only one to fly during the five races.

In the factory stock division, Kevin Pace became the first driver other than Steve Kent, who is out of town, to capture a checkered flag in the feature. John Fragale captured a heat race while David Slingsby took the other.

Joe Addison dominated the pure stock division with a clean sweep of the feature and two heat races while Kevin Oicle equaled that mark with a sweep in the modified division.

In the stock four division, Mike Baraluk captured the feature while heat winners were Jordan Sims and Nick Jobst.

The night's action began a flurry of action to come at LIR.

Action continues on Thursday as spectator drags will be held during the intermission.

Next week, the track will again run a pair of races on Monday and Thursday. Qualifying begins at 6 p.m. and racing at 7 p.m. on each night.

Next Monday's card features a special 50 lap late model shootout with $1,000 in cash going to the winner.

To visit the LIR website, which will post updated points standings, click here.