First or second segment, morning or afternoon, Eddie MacDonald and Brian Hoar had the American-Canadian Tour late model cars to beat Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

There was no debate about that. The only question was whether or not those two machines would stay intact until the checkered flag flew over the mile track in Loudon, N.H.

For MacDonald, the answer was no. In Hoar’s case, it was just barely.

Hoar inherited the lead from a stalled MacDonald with 14 laps remaining in the early-evening finale, held off Fort Kent’s Austin Theriault for both the segment and overall victories in the ACT All-Star Challenge … then promptly felt his car shut down on the victory lap.

The timeliness of that mechanical malady preserved a $5,000 win for Hoar, the seven-time ACT champion from Williston, Vt.

Combined with a second-place finish to MacDonald in the 25-lap morning segment, Hoar’s 50-lap win gave him the low total of three points and the combined triumph.

“We had a good car but not a great car when we tested (two weeks ago),” Hoar said. “The boys turned it up a notch and we had a hot rod this weekend.”

Theriault’s meteoric rise continued on another big stage.

Three weeks after his third-place run in the TD Bank 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway and less than two weeks after leaving his post as Hoar’s teammate with RPM Motorsports, the 17-year-old Theriault parlayed runs of fifth and second into an overall runner-up finish for his family operation.

“What an incredible day,” Theriault said. “I don’t know how hard Brian was going at the end, but we were catching him.”

Theriault took over second with five laps remaining and erased a six-car length deficit, closing to Hoar’s rear bumper at the white flag.

MacDonald won his heat and the pole position Friday, then breezed to victory in Saturday’s opening round, leading all but four of the 25 laps.

Hoar was his closest pursuer. By virtue of the race format, they were relegated to the 35th and 36th starting positions after the field was inverted for the 50-lap portion.

Scott Payea, Justin Holtom, Strong’s Scott Luce and John Donahue diced it out up front and kept the lead warm for MacDonald and Hoar, who rapidly ripped through the field.

Donahue took the lead from Holtom on a lap 18 restart, but MacDonald surged from sixth to second in the same exchange and needed only four more laps to run down the leader.

Hoar followed MacDonald into second and stayed in his tire tracks until lap 36, when a three-car crash brought out the fourth of five caution flags.

Ignition problems brought MacDonald’s car to a stop. A push truck returned the Massachusetts driver to the pit lane, and his day was over.

Donahue, Patrick Laperle and Pete Yetman rounded out the top five in the second segment.

Laperle finished third overall, with Brad Leighton fourth and Joey Laquerre fifth. Ricky Rolfe of Albany Township was the top local finisher in seventh.

MacDonald was credited with 18th.

Mike Stefanik, 53, won the Whelen Modified Series race. He also finished 16th out of 44 cars in the ACT challenge in Theriault’s former ride.

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