Gold leaves Laird in style

Michael Gold checked out of his Laird International Raceway suite on Thursday night in hope of a brighter future down the road.

The 21 year-old late model driver dazzled the LIR faithful on Thursday night by cruising to an easy late model feature win to end his season and possibly his full-time racing career at the track.

Gold, who also holds the track record in late model qualifying, locked up the track points championship last week and will now depart for another year of university study in Ottawa before embarking on a trek to the next level of stock racing.

Although unsure of his definite plans for next season, Gold would like to race the bigger tracks and has thoughts of joining a weekly traveling racing series or tackling the stiffer competition in places like Southern Michigan.

In the 35 lap feature on Thursday, Gold charged through the pack and built a half-track lead before a caution would draw the field together on lap 24.

When the race went under green once again, Gold blew away from the field and was never challenged the rest of the way despite another restart.

Robert Sartini captured the four car dash while Paul Seabrook won the opening heat.

In the modified division, Randy Hache had a solid night with a pair of wins. With a better handle of his car, the steadily improving Hache won the opening heat before capturing the feature. Kevin Oicle won the other heat.

In the factory stock division, David Slingsby added to his points lead with a feature win and a heat victory.

As the night's fast qualifier, Slingsby was forced to come from the back of the eight-car field for the wins. In the feature, Slingsby battled through the pack before taking out leader Kevin Pace on the second last lap.

Steve Kent won the second heat.

In the pure stock class, pole-sitter Len Bibeau led the race from checker to checker to claim the feature win. Corey Diotte won both heats.

In the stock four division, Dave King captured the feature after Wes Speers captured two heats and Mike Savino and Jordan Sims won one each.

Action for the 2004 season will come to a close next Thursday in the season finale at LIR with points titles still up for grabs in every division except the late models.

Qualifying begins at 6 p.m. with racing to follow at 7 p.m.

For a complete listing of official results and points updates, visit the LIR website by clicking here.