Noll starts quickly, finishes with a Championship

During his entire 35-year racing career, Duane Noll has had a reputation of being a slow starter. He was a driver who needed a few races to get up to optimum speed.
When the 2017 New London-Waterford Speedbowl truck season approached, however, Noll decided to throw that philosophy into the nearest Dumpster.
“Even when I won championships, I was never great in the first race of the season,” Noll said. “This winter we really did our homework and we knew what we had to do. Our goal was to come out of the box strong.”
Noll won on opening night and never stopped winning. He captured seven of the eight races to win his second consecutive Speedbowl truck title by 24 points over Jim Boyle.
Noll also has won two titles in the New England Pro Truck Series. He says winning championships, however, isn’t his goal.
“I just race to have some fun,” said Noll, who first started racing in Stafford’s SK Modified division in 1982.
Noll says Waterford is the perfect place to have that fun.
“I really like short tracks like Waterford,” Noll said. “I have plenty of seat time here — a lot of laps under my belt. I have a great set-up for the Bowl. It’s fairly close to home. And I like a short track with plenty of room to pass.”
Even though he never trailed in the standings, Noll decided to make a mid-season change. He brought out a new truck — a vehicle that used to be a Late Model driven by Corey Hutchings.
“I was winning a lot of races and I had a good lead in the points, so I decided to take my other truck out and test it for next season,” Noll said. “The first time I took it out, it overheated and I had to park it. It was my first DNF in I don’t know how long.”
Eventually, he started winning races with that truck as well, proving you can change horses in the middle of the stream and still cross the finish line ahead of everyone else.
Besides racing at the Speedbowl, Noll also competed at other tracks in 2017. His best moments came at Devil’s Bowl in Vermont, where he led every lap of a 75-lap asphalt race, and also finished in third place on the dirt track.
Noll says his primary emphasis is racing at the Speedbowl. He especially likes the limited schedule of the truck division,
That’s one of the reasons I like the truck series — it’s a much more relaxed schedule,” Noll said. “I don’t like to be committed to one thing on a regular basis.”
Noll doesn’t have a big crew — he serves as owner, operator, sponsor and publicity director. He gets his sister to spot, his brother, Glenn to drive his other truck and Glenn’s wife to spot for him. Noll is in the landscaping, excavating and property cleaning businesses and they help pay the racing bills.
“I’m just an average guy, out to have a good time,” Noll said. “I’m doing it for fun, not for glory.”
When you’re as talented as Noll is, however, you can have both.