HERMON – Dave “Boss Hogg” St. Clair feels young again.

The 40-something stock car driver from Liberty has a renewed spark toward the sport of stock car racing and it shows.

St. Clair picked up his sixth victory of the 1994 season with Wednesday night’s victory in the Carquest-sponsored Walker Sportsman 100 at Speedway 95 here.

It was St. Clair’s fourth victory in four feature starts at the one-third-mile track.

St. Clair inherited the lead from John Phippen Jr. of Bar Harbor on the 54th lap and never looked back in posting the victory.

Phippen, who had tangled with a lapped car which allowed St. Clair to grab the top spot, recovered to finish second. Gary Smith of Bangor was third. They were the only cars on the lead lap.

“His car is working super, but more than that, he’s got the eye of the tiger,” said Phippen. “We’ll sit down in the pits and have a beer and he’ll just grin. It’s like he’s 25 again.”

“Me and that car get along good,” St. Clair said. “That car has been a bear. I’ve won six races this year and five last year with this car. The year before that (without the car) I won one race and I was ready to quit. I took a ride in one of these cars and I ordered one the next week.”

St. Clair started third on the 17-car starting grid and had moved around Stan Meserve (driving Jim McCallum’s car) on the 26th lap. Still, he was almost a quarter-lap behind Phippen, whose car was dominating the early action.

Three yellows in a six-lap period closed the gap, but St. Clair couldn’t get past Phippen until Phippen tangled with the lapped car of Matt Lee in turn two of the 54th lap.

“I was right there behind John coming into it,” St. Clair said. “Had I braked, I’d have been (involved). I turned left to avoid it and went up the inside because there was all kinds of room. I couldn’t stop and wait for John at that point.”

It was the break St. Clair needed to pull out the victory.

“I don’t like to win them that way and I hate to see people lose them that way,” St. Clair said. “But, it’s happened to me. I guess that’s racing.”

Phippen’s car received front end damage and was never the same.

“It upset my car so bad, it wouldn’t steer around the corners,” said Phippen. “Before that, it was hooked up as good as it has been.”

One last yellow, with seven laps to go, bunched up the field, but St. Clair got a good jump and Phippen could not fight through a pair of lapped cars.

In other feature-racing action at the Speedway, Cliff Buzzell won the 50-lap strictly street division race, finishing ahead of Ikey Dorr and Mark Strout.

In the super street, Scott Modery bested the field in a 35-lap feature. Jim Carr was second and Greg Bergeron was third.