Joey Doiron Surges to PASS 400 Victory in Final Segment

The PASS 400 came down to the narrowest of margins at Oxford Plains Speedway, as Joey Doiron won the three-segment event by one point over Max Cookson.

Despite nursing a broken foot, Doiron finished third in the final two segments to push ahead of Cookson in the final scoring. That one-point cushion nearly disappeared on the final lap, as Doiron finished just 0.035 seconds ahead of Travis Stearns in a side-by-side battle.

Cookson entered the final segment with a seven-point advantage after finishing second and fourth in the first two 100-lap segments. However, an incident in the final segment put Cookson deep in the field, giving Doiron the opportunity he needed to take the win.

“I knew we were going to need some unfortunate stuff to happen to Max for us to have a good shot at it,” said Doiron. “He’s been going good all day.

“We kind of put ourselves in a hole in the first segment. My radio broke, the battery broke in half when I pulled on the track. Under the first caution, I pitted, and we had to come from last in the first one. I think we got to 11th, then third [in the second segment].”

Doiron had an opportunity to battle for the win in the final segment, but knew the importance of protecting his spot for the overall win.

“I don’t know, I feel like I had a chance to win this one, but the 09 [of Sylas Ripley] was using the bottom really good. I couldn’t quite get in there. I knew I just needed to keep it in one piece and think big picture for the overall.”

Cookson cut down a tire after being collected in a lap 83 incident in the final segment, dropping him from the edge of the top 10 to 20th. While Cookson rallied to a 12th place finish in the final segment, he needed two more spots to win the overall PASS 400 title.

“Obviously, to finish second in this race, I’m real happy about that,” said Cookson. “It is hard to know how good we were in the first segment, how good we were in the second segment, and then the third segment, just biding our time. I knew what the gap was to Joey and we were fine if it stayed green there or we didn’t get smashed and blow a tire, come back out and get smashed again.

“So close today, but I can’t thank Tom Abele, Sr., Tom Abele, Jr., all my guys today for fighting hard for one last one. It sucks to come up so short. I’ve also got to thank all my sponsors on my personal race car for sticking with us this year through a trying year. I was glad to come out today and really have a really, really good race car.

“It sucks, to say the least. We can’t hang our head overly too much. It’s just one of those things where some days you’re the windshield and some days you’re the bug. We were just a little short today, but congrats to Joey and his whole team. They’ve been really good here, just missed the [Oxford] 250 for the sweep, so congrats to those guys. Joey’s great to race with, I’ve got a lot of respect for him. It’s a great day overall, just tough.”

Unofficially finishing seventh in the overall standings, D.J. Shaw wrapped up the season as both the PASS North and PASS National Super Late Model champion. Shaw was the runner-up in the second segment, but missed out on the top 10 in the first and third segments. Still, that was enough to secure the championships.

“It was a great season here for us,” said Shaw. “The odds were stacked against us today, and I feel like we surprised ourselves a little bit with the run we had. All in all, it was a great rebound day, good recovery day for us.”

Austin Teras appeared poised for a dominant showing when the green flag dropped in Segment One. Teras jumped to the lead from the front row and lapped up to the top 10 before losing power and pulling off the track with 23 laps to go.

Ripley, who started on the pole for Segment One, inherited the lead after Teras’ misfortune and led the rest of the way to score the first victory of the day. 2023 Oxford Plains Speedway track champion Max Cookson finished second, followed by Travis Stearns, Steve Chicoine and Cory Hall.

The 25-car invert between segments placed former ARCA Menards Series champion Austin Theriault on the pole for Segment Two, with Scott Moore joining him on the front row. Moore jumped out to the lead, losing it briefly to Garrett Lamb before reclaiming the top spot on lap 11.

Moore, along with Mike Hopkins, broke away from the field as the front-runners from Segment One charged through heavy traffic. Hopkins finished 16th in the first segment but worked his way from 10th to third within the first five laps of the second segment.

Hopkins took the lead from Moore on lap 61 and stretched out a lead of nearly two seconds before Cory Hall spun on the frontstretch to bring out the caution. On lap 88, a multi-car incident collected several cars, starting with contact with Ripley and Scott McDaniel battling for 18th.

Hopkins held on for the win in the second segment on the following restart, with D.J. Shaw second and Joey Doiron third. With a fourth-place finish in segment two, Cookson moved into the overall lead for the PASS 400.

Dan Winter and Mike Scorzelli started on the front row for the final 100-lap segment, with Scorzelli using the outside line to pull out front. Meanwhile, the calculators were already out determining who was in the lead for the overall title.

Ripley’s poor finish in the second segment gave him a seventh-place starting position for the final race, offering prime track position and putting drivers such as Cookson, Gabe Brown, and Joey Doiron on the offensive.

The yellow flag flew on lap 83 as Scott McDaniel spun while checking up after contact between Ripley and Stearns battling for second. Mike Rowe stumbled on the restart, allowing Sylas Ripley to jump out front with Trevor Sanborn moving to second.

Nick Jenkins also spun to bring out the caution, and in the aftermath following that Corey Bubar slid up the track into Chicoine who also collected Cookson. Cookson cut down a left-front tire as a result, dropping him to 19th.

Sanborn challenged Ripley for the overall win on the ensuing restart, with Doiron and Stearns closely following. The caution flew again with 10 laps to go as Scorzelli and Dennis Spencer spun in turns one and two.

In the 10-lap shootout to the finish, Ripley held on to score his second segment win of the day, while Doiron held off Stearns for third. This proved pivotal as Cookson had raced his way back up to 12th in the closing laps despite his own misfortunes.

Sanborn took fourth place in the overall event standings, followed by Stearns. Brown, Shaw, Bubar, Johnny Clark and Brandon Barker rounded out the top 10.

-Photo credit: Pro All Stars Series

PASS 400 Unofficial Results