Wright shows his stuff in winning Intown Auto 100

HERMON – At least one driver had the Wright Stuff at Speedway 95 here on Wednesday night.

Kenny Wright of Woolwich went wire to wire, surviving 11 restarts, to win the Intown Auto 100 and the Summer Sizzler Series points championship.

Wright, a Wiscasset and Unity regular, started on the pole and never looked back en route to the victory over 26 other drivers at the one-third-mile oval.

Chris Stanley of Norridgewock, who led the series entering Wednesday’s finale, finished second in both the race and the series. Dwayne Seekins of Stockton Springs was third in the race.

For the record, the Intown Auto 100 was actually the Intown Auto 99 because the flagman threw the checkered flag one lap early.

Not that it mattered. Wright was pulling away from Stanley following the final restart with four laps left.

“The car has been great everywhere we go,” Wright said from Victory Lane. “We struggled all day with it today. We changed the chassis a lot to get adapted to this place. We made three changes right before the feature. Once we got it, boy, it went good.”

Last Friday at Wiscasset, Wright was dominating the “Boss Hogg 100” before mechanical problems slowed his car. On Saturday, he won a 100-lap feature at Unity. That led up to his performance Wednesday night.

Stanley, who inherited the second position following a spin by Andy Santerre of Cherryfield on the 63rd lap, could not match Wright on the restarts.

“We lost our clutch, so I had to come up (on the restarts) in high gear,” Stanley explained. “There was no way we were going to catch him.”

Wright, who also won the first Summer Sizzler Series event at Wiscasset, had tied the series heading into the feature by virtue of his victory in the heat race.

The pair ran 1-2 for most of the second half of the race and started side by side on two restarts in the final 10 laps.

Wright had built a commanding lead over the first half of the race before Roger Richards, running second, spun in the homestretch, knocking himself and two other cars out of contention. Gary Smith of Bangor, running third, and Jon Austin of Otis, running fourth, were collected in the wreck and were not a factor the rest of the way.

That closed up the field and put Santerre, a NASCAR Grand National North regular who returned to his home track driving Bob Coburn’s car, into second place.

Santerre stayed with Wright for a couple of laps before spinning out on the 63rd circuit, setting up the showdown between the series points leaders.

Wright had raced only one previous time at Speedway 95, a couple of weekends ago when he showed up on a Saturday night just to “check out the track.”

In other racing action, Cliff Buzzell continued his dominance in the Street Stock division, posting a victory in the 50-lap feature event.

Buzzell, who recorded his 15th victory of the season, held off Mark Strout of Harrington over the final five laps to earn the win.

Ikey Dorr of Addison was third.