Photo Credit: NASCAR Home Tracks
ANTIGONISH, Nova Scotia, Canada — Cayden Lapcevich only intended to run a handful of races this year and see what happened.
What has happened is the 16-year-old from Grimsby, Ontario, has produced a dream season.
The good times continued Saturday night, as Lapcevich chased down Jason Hathaway in the closing laps to claim the Bumper To Bumper 300 at Riverside International Speedway. It was the second win of the season and left Lapcevich with the NASCAR Pinty’s Series championship points lead with three races remaining.
Lapcevich’s No. 76 Fastline Motorsports Dodge led the final 11 laps after starting ninth. The teen has a top 10 in all nine races this season, and has two wins, two seconds and a third in the five races on ovals.
Lapcevich leads Andrew Ranger by 12 points after Ranger finished 14th.
LP Dumoulin also got past Hathaway in the final laps to take second, while Hathaway came home third. Donald Chisholm, who won the E3 Spark Plugs Pole Award earlier in the day, finished fourth and Dwayne Baker rounded out the top five.
Adam Martin was sixth, followed by Mark Dilley, DJ Kennington, Alex Tagliani and Kevin Lacroix.
Ranger started 14th and worked his way to the front. But contact on Lap 130 while going three-wide with Hathaway and Dumoulin for a top-five spot resulted in a flat tire and he was penalized for intentionally bringing out the caution. He would continue to run into struggles all night and finished 61 laps down.
Similarly, Tagliani was the victim of misfortune after leading a race-high 164 laps. He suffered damage while leading after getting hit by the spinning car of Dilley, after the lapped cars of Dilley and Alex Labbe tangled on Lap 230. Tagliani is third in the championship race, 32 points out of the lead.
The Bumper To Bumper 300 will air on TSN on Sunday, Aug. 28 at 12:30 p.m., and on RDS2 on Friday, Sept. 16 at 8:30 p.m.
The NASCAR Pinty’s Series returns to the track Sunday, Sept. 4 for the Can-Am 200 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
RESULTS | RACE CENTRAL LIVE REPLAY
Cayden Lapcevich takes the checkered flag to win the Bumper To Bumper 300 Saturday night at Riverside International Speedway. Matthew Murnaghan/NASCAR via Getty Images.
