14-Year-Old Posts Pair Of Top-5 Finishes On Road Course

LOUDON, N.H. – Reid Lanpher of Manchester, Maine, won a pole position and posted two Top-5 finishes in two Amsoil NELCAR Legends Tour starts on the New Hampshire Motor Speedway road course this weekend, October 6-7.

Lanpher, whose first career NELCAR victory came on the very same 1.6-mile circuit back in May, won the pole and finished fifth on Saturday over a wet track and followed that effort by starting shotgun on the 16-car field Sunday afternoon and finishing fourth without the benefit of a caution flag to make up track position.

“We showed some serious speed, and I think we turned a lot of heads,” Lanpher said of his weekend in the Team EJP No. 59 Mission Trailers/Scott’s Recreation Sedan. “I think I was the fastest car pretty much both days. I had some bad luck in (Saturday’s) race, and I probably would have won. (On Sunday), if I’d have started up front, I would have had a chance to win.”

Lanpher was leading after starting on the pole in the 12-lap feature event on Saturday, when with two laps remaining he washed up into a righthand turn and lost four spots to drop to fifth. He regained his momentum and finished in the Top-5.

The 14-year-old driver said that damp conditions on the track were in play in the miscue. It was the first lap he’d turned in his career on a wet course.

“The track was wet, and I didn’t know what to expect,” Lanpher said. “I drove in fairly deep on a sharp right-hander. It got wetter and wetter and wetter the further outside the groove I went.

“There was more grip than I thought there would be in some spots, but the track was so different than what I’d expect in other places. It was really unpredictable the first couple of laps at speed out there.”

On Sunday, Lanpher missed qualifying with an electrical issue and was forced to start at the tail end of the field. He recorded the fastest individual lap time of the race in his march toward the front. He passed 12 cars in 12 laps to get to fourth.

“I just kept picking them off, clicking off the fastest lap times of anybody all day,” he said. “The car was crazy fast, but I just didn’t have enough time. If there was a caution, I think I had a legitimate shot at a win.”

Lanpher returns to competition with double-duty at Wiscasset Raceway on October 20. He will compete in both a Legend car and a Super Late Model on the only day of competition at the .333-mile banked oval in 2012.

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