Barre, VT – Had Jason Corliss never turned another lap after the 2019 season, he still would have gone down as a significant part of Thunder Road’s history. He came in the 2020 Maplewood/Irving Oil Late Model season fresh off the “King of the Road” title, capping a three-year run in which he’d won pretty much everything there is to win on the Barre high banks.

But instead of resting on their laurels, Corliss and his Christopher Burnett–owned, Andrew Hill–led team doubled down. With everyone in the Late Model ranks gunning for him, the 32-year-old soared to new heights, turning in perhaps the finest season of his stock car racing career.

“Really, it just comes down to a love of racing — and more so than that, a love for competing,” Corliss said of his motivation. “It’s something that’s ingrained in all of us on the team. We like competing, we like racing, and we like winning. So when you get a taste of success, and the amount of success we’ve been lucky enough to have over the last few years, it drives you to try and stay on top and try to keep winning — because it feels good. It’s a lot of fun to be celebrating with the guys and winning these big races. That’s our motivation: to try to come back and just be even better.”

Despite a delayed start due to the onset of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Corliss started strong. Before Thunder Road could open its doors for the year, Corliss already had made a trip to Victory Lane in a 75-lap feature at White Mountain Motorsports Park. When the Thunder Road campaign finally got underway on June 18, Corliss took second and was closing on winner Marcel J. Gravel when the checkered flag fell.

The following week, however, saw a rare setback. After crossing the finish line first, a tread width infraction was discovered in postrace technical inspection. Although the infraction was relatively minor in nature, the resulting penalty still put the #66VT team in a hole — one they even had less time to dig out of in a shortened season.

“It was nothing intentional by any means — we just ended up being a little bit too wide for the gauge,” Corliss recalled. :It was what it was, and we had to accept it and move on. At that point, the mission didn’t really change. We still decided to come out every week and try to perform the best we good, get the best results we could, and try to win races. But honestly, for me personally — and for a lot of the guys as well — there was a sense of wanting to show everybody that it wasn’t something that was providing a performance advantage. I wanted to come out the next week and show everybody that we were legit — that the team is strong, the car is strong, and we’re firing on all cylinders.”

It didn’t take long to see how the Burnett Scrap Metals team responded. The next time out, Corliss roared from the back of the field to finish second. He then dusted the pack on July 9 for his first Thunder Road win of the year.

One week later, Corliss checked off another box on his Thunder Road resume. Following challenges from Bobby Therrien, Trampas Demers, and Scott Dragon on a late restart, Corliss pulled away from them all to win the 41st Vermont Governor’s Cup. It completed his “Grand Slam” of historic Thunder Road events, having previously earned wins in the Milk Bowl, Memorial Day Classic, and Labor Day Classic.

“That was really big,” Corliss remembered. “That was the race I circled this last year that I wanted to get. We’ve been having a good couple of years here, but you just don’t know what can happen. I think now is the best opportunity I’ll ever have to win some of these races — particularly that one — and I didn’t want it to slip away. We had a good qualifying run and started on the pole, but that was one of the most difficult races we’ve had towards the end, with Bobby (Therrien) and some of those other guys who came on. The car wasn’t perfect, but we willed our way to stay up there and be able to clinch that one.”

The charge didn’t stop there. Following a sixth-place effort at the Midseason Championships, Corliss captured the non-point Community Bank N.A. 150 on Sunday, July 26, winning the event for the third year in a row. With points still to regain no margin for error, the next month was a metronome of strong performances: 3rd on July 30, 4th on August 6, 5th on August 13 and 20. The August 13 effort put Corliss atop the point standings for the first time all season.

With three events to go, though, the championship hunt was still wide-open. Just 21 points separated the top four entering the Thursday night finale on August 27. But as his closest contenders all encountered trouble, Corliss kept right on trucking with a 2nd-place finish, finally breaking open the title chase.

After a third-place at the Labor Day Classic, Corliss only needed to stay out of trouble at the September 18 Championship Night to wrap up a second straight title. He did even more, taking the lead on lap 42 for Thunder Road win number four on the year.

“The first (championship) felt really good,” Corliss said. “It was almost a sigh of relief — excitement and relief that we finally got there. This one felt good because of just how strong we were throughout the year. Even losing those points at the one race, still having the amount of points at the end of the year and the season that we had, I was really proud of that result for our team. This one just felt like it consummated our team and solidified everything we’ve been doing. It made all of it a little bit more legit.”

Incredibly, Corliss was saving his best for last at the 59th Vermont Milk Bowl. Corliss won the first segment and, despite getting a piece of “The Big One” in Segment 2, he followed it up with 3rd- and 4th-place finishes in the next two segments. His final score of 8 points was less than half that of runner-up Trampas Demers — an almost unheard-of margin.

“As strong of a year as we had, it’s such a hard race, and there’s a lot of luck that can go into (the Milk Bowl) with the inverts and some of the craziness that can happen,” Corliss noted. “But it would have been a disappointment, at least to me personally, if we couldn’t have won that race just because of how good we were and how quick we were even in practice. We were good all weekend…we had one incident in Segment 2 where we had to go to the infield and ended up getting part of the bumper knocked off, and we had to pit to get that repaired. But other than that one little hiccup, everything just worked out perfectly.”

It gave Corliss his 5th win in 15 Thunder Road Late Model events, meaning the #66VT had a 1-in-3 chance of winning on any given night. Apart from his early-season stumble, Corliss had an average finish of 2.6, meaning an average night for Corliss was one that ended on the podium.

The accomplishments Corliss has racked up in his eight-year Late Model career were already numerous. His 2020 run put him in even more rarified air. Here are just some of the ways the dominance of Corliss can now be measured:

· He became the eighth driver in Thunder Road history to win “King of the Road” in back-to-back years.

· His 20 Thunder Road Late Model wins tie him for third all-time with Cris Michaud. Only Phil Scott (31) and Nick Sweet (22) have more.

· He became the first driver to win three straight Community Bank N.A. 150’s.

· He is the seventh driver to win three Milk Bowls and only the fourth to win three in a four-year span.

· He became the first driver since Michaud in 2004 to be the “King of the Road” and win the Milk Bowl in the same year.

· He became the sixth driver to complete the career “Grand Slam”, joining Robbie Crouch, Dave Dion, Bobby Dragon, Jean-Paul Cabana, and Sweet.

Despite the acclaim that has come their way, Corliss and his team haven’t let it distract them. Part of the reason they’ve stayed on top is that they take as much joy from the process as from the results. The relationships forged within the team, and the fact they enjoy working in the shop and practicing as much as racing, is a big part of why they’re champions once again.

“Although the success we’ve had is neat and we enjoy it, it doesn’t help us get any faster for the next race,” Corliss said. “We’re pretty focused right now on just trying to continue what we’ve got and keep improving our program. Hopefully at the end of this, whenever we decide to give it up, I can sit back and really enjoy what we’ve been able to accomplish. We do that a little right now, but we mostly focus on what we have to do to try and stay there and keep winning.”

Looking ahead to 2021, Corliss said he thinks there’s “no doubt” the team will be back at Thunder Road. Beyond that, their plans remain uncertain. The team brought its Super Late Model out of hibernation at Milk Bowl Friday, and they’ve discussed the possibility of running the dual Easter Bunny 150’s at North Carolina’s Hickory Motor Speedway this April. There’s also been talks of getting a second ACT Late Model and running some more touring events.

These talks, like many others, depend on a variety of factors — not least of which is the course of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With so many possibilities and only so much time, Corliss said the team will discuss together what they want to and ultimately can do in 2021.

“It’s a team effort,” Corliss said. “It’s up to my car owner (Chris Burnett) and it’s up to the team ultimately what’s next for us. Personally, I’d love to go to the Snowball Derby, and I’d love to run the Oxford 250, and run a lot of these other big races. But realistically, we all have jobs and families and responsibilities. Even though we maybe have the ability to do some of those things, they’re not necessarily realistic or something that we’re going to take a lot effort away from what we’re already doing to try and achieve. We’re really happy with where we’re at and what we’re doing, and we’re having fun with it.”