Renfrew Victorious in Shoving Match with Brown for ACT Win at Star Speedway

After the race distance was shortened to 125 laps under the weather-threatened skies in New Hampshire, Jimmy Renfrew Jr. scored a hard-fought win in Saturday afternoon's Coastal Clash 125 American-Canadian Tour (ACT) Feature event at Star Speedway.

The 21-year-old was elated to score the win and was just proud to have a chance to compete in Saturday's race, which marked his second ACT start of the season.

"I wanted to come back and run a couple of ACT races real bad," the native of Hooksett, NH explained in his post-race interview. "Luckily, I got the opportunity from Chad to be able to do this. I can't thank everyone that made this possible enough."

The win marked the third of Renfrew's career in the ACT Late Model Tour, but the win didn't come without controversey.

For the majority of the event, Renfrew was pitted against Gabe Brown, the second-place man in the 2024 ACT Tour championship standings who entering the day was looking for his first win of the season. For nearly a 20-lap-stretch in the closing portion of the event, Renfrew and Brown fought tooth-and-nail for the race win, but try as he might, Renfrew just couldn't work his way around Brown for the lead.

As the laps began to click off, the action, which was hard, yet clean, began to get a little more heated.

Coming to six laps to go, Renfrew gave Brown a massive shot from behind, which kicked Brown's car sideways, but Brown held on. But it was only a matter of time, as Renfrew would not relent.

With three laps to go, Renfrew made the race-winning move, and as the pair of drivers exited Turn 4, coming to three laps to go in the race, they banged doors. The contact gave Renfrew the edge, and as he surged to the lead, Brown faded on the high side of the track.

Renfrew would have to hold off a charge of his own from D.J. Shaw, who got into Renfrew's left rear quarterpanel coming to the checkered flag. While the contact would send Renfrew sideways, the driver of the No. 0nh machine would hold on to score the win by a slim victory margin of 0.123 sec. over Shaw.

Jesse Switser would come home in the third position, and Brown, who looked like he was heading to a potential win, ended up with a disappointing fourth-place finish.

After Renfrew collected the checkered flag, Brown sped up and stalked Renfrew's car on the cooldown laps to show his displeasure for the late-race move. However, Brown would pull off of the track without any further incident between the two.

Renfrew admits there was contact for the race win, but he didn't feel like his move was unfair by any stretch.

"I tried to put on a show for everybody. Don't really feel like I wronged [Brown], but he might think so," Renfrew stated. "I played the game with him the whole race, and I ran 15 laps side-by-side with him clean without touching him. He was crowding me, I felt we barely rubbed a little bit. I thought it was a good race, I thought it was hard racing. But it is what it is, I guess."

While Renfrew didn't see the issue with the move, it seems Brown, a full-time competitor in the ACT Tour, probably felt differently as the move erased his bid for his first win of the year.

Regardless, fair or foul, Renfrew ended up with the checkered flag and the trophy in Saturday's 125-lap ACT feature event.

Alexandre Tardif finished in fifth-place in the No. 21qc entry.

Tom Carey III, Kaiden Fisher, Kasey Beattie, Chip Grenier, and Eric Sands rounded out the top-10 finishers in the 31-car field.

Fortunately, the impact of Brown dropping to fourth in the finishing order was minimized by championship leader Derek Gluchacki coming home with a 15th-place finish.

Next up for the ACT Tour is the Can-Am 200 at Autodrome Montmagny in Montmagny, Quebec, Canada on Saturday, July 20. That race, the seventh of the 15-race 2024 ACT Tour season, will pay $10,000 to the race winner.

Photo Credit: American-Canadian Tour on Facebook

ACT Tour Coastal Clash 125 Race Results