Rich Dubeau started driving go-karts 16 years ago and has been climbing up the racing ladder ever since. The Plainfield native claimed a major career highlight on Saturday by clinching the American-Canadian Tour Late Model championship at Connecticut’s Thompson Speedway.
The fifth-year ACT racer had the series all but wrapped up in advance of the final tour stop thanks to victories this summer at Autodrome Chaudiere in Quebec and Thunder Road International Speedbowl in Barre, Vt., along with a runner-up result at Star Speedway in Epping, N.H. He finished in the top five eight times. Nine top-10 finishes plus top-10 results in two non-points races yielded nearly $32,000 in winnings, which included $10,000 for clinching the tour. The lucrative season has been a long time coming for Dubeau, who was the 2015 ACT rookie of the year.
“The second year we finished seventh, third year we finished fifth, and then last year we finished fourth,” Dubeau said in a phone interview. “Honestly, I didn’t expect to have this big of a jump, especially being what most people would consider a lower-budget team, but, yeah, it just all kind of worked together really well and we’ve had pretty much good finishes everywhere we’ve gone.”
The ACT was formed in 1986 and has been racing Late Models since 1992, according to the tour’s media director, Michael Stridsberg.
“We’ll call it the successor to what was the NASCAR North Tour,” Stridsberg said over the phone from ACT’s home office in Waterbury, Vt. “(Promoter) Tom Curley had founded the NASCAR North Tour in 1979, and that competed through ’85. When NASCAR dropped its sanction, Tom Curley created ACT, the American-Canadian Tour, to replace it.”
The seed for such a high level of racing was planted when Dubeau’s stepfather, Dave Hollinger, first brought him to experience go-karts at the now-defunct Sugar Hill Speedway in Weare, N.H. Hollinger was a longtime competitor in the Four-Cylinder division at the former Canaan Fair Speedway, where Dubeau grew up watching him in awe. The young racer followed in his mentor’s footsteps, eventually becoming a competitor at Canaan up until the time it closed as a racing venue following the 2013 season.
“(Hollinger) actually stopped racing so that I could race, which is a tough thing to do because it’s an addictive sport once you get in it,” Dubeau said. “He got me into it, he got me hooked on it, and then toward the end of one of the seasons where I was in a Super Street, which he also helped me get going, he passed away. And I then I ended up finishing out the season and winning the championship that year.”
Dubeau then went on to win a Late Model championship in 2014 at Claremont Speedway before setting his sights on the regional tour, where he finished 10th in points as a rookie. The 30-year-old driver has improved steadily ever since, with repetition helping to facilitate his progression.
“By staying on the tour throughout this time, he’s been going to these tracks over and over again and getting more experience at them, and getting more notes on them and getting more confidence on them,” Stridsberg said, “This year for him has really just been the culmination of those five years.”
The new ACT champ failed to qualify at his first Thunder Road appearance in ’15, took fifth back last May, then won the Labor Day Classic in mid-September.
“That’s just the culmination of, he’s gone from going to the track for the first time to having six, seven, eight visits there,” Stridsberg said. “Every time you go to them, you get a little better and you can see that with Rich.”
ACT rules and specifications apply to various local series throughout the region, allowing local drivers to square off against the likes of Dubeau when the tour comes to their town. Thunder Road is known for featuring a formidable field.
“It has always been our weakest track, because it’s the one track you go to where the locals there are very, very competitive, where they’re like the same as the top-notch ACT guys,” Dubeau said. “The first time we went there (this year), we finished fifth and we were the best-finishing tour car. So it just shows you how hard it is to finish well, because normally the tour cars are all in the top 10 with maybe the exception of one or two locals. Thunder Road is like flipped around.”
The victorious 30NH car, owned by Chick Henry — also a former owner of Canaan’s defunct oval tracks — is a Toyota Camry that requires upkeep in between races.
Dubeau’s dedicated race team includes his brother, David Dubeau, and Shawn Griffin, his boss at Upper Valley Stove Company and a team co-sponsor. The three of them work on the car regularly and are joined on race days by Brett Griffin (Shawn’s son) and Nick Jilson (Dubeau’s best friend).
The crew has also grown to include some additional contributors who are likely to stick around next year, according to the driver.
“They enjoy being back around it,” Dubeau said of his growing race team. “They used to be in it a while ago.”