Bangor featuring $10,000 pace in busy promotional package

Bangor Raceway will feature the first $10,000 invitational pace ever held at Bass Park this summer. The race on Sunday, July 23, will be one of a series of special promotions scheduled during the 41-date extended summer race meet, according to Fred Nichols, the track’s general manager.

The Bangor track has entered into an agreement with The Penobscot Indian Nation High Stakes Bingo group to sponsor the pace.

In the glory days of racing, Bangor featured a number of $5,000 special paces, but this is the first time an invitational pace at Bangor Raceway has reached $10,000.

Last year, under Nichols direction, an ambitious promotional program rejuvenated the attendance at the Bangor track. This year, Nichols hopes to increase attendance even more. His promotion package contains some proven repeat winners and new promotions.

A fan will have the chance to win a new automobile each race night. The promotion proved successful last year and the auto was driven off the track once by a winner and the fate of two other autos were decided by a print from the photo-finish camera.

On opening night, Friday, May 26, a Standardbred horse will be given away to someone with all expenses paid for the new owner through the end of the race meet. Fran Richard of Hancock, who won Chip ‘N Putt on opening night last year, will draw the winning name this year. Every Saturday night will feature Pick Six, a random selection of race winners for an all-expense week trip for two to Aruba.

Also planned is a driving championship. The Bob and Jean Ferland promotion is planned for Sunday, June 11, and will include such nationally ranked harness drivers as: Jimmy Doherty, Herve Filion, Teddy Wing, Dave Ingraham and others. The track is also exploring the possibility of repeating a pacing invitational that would have Lorryland Butler make another attempt at lowering the track record. And Nichols says there will be a number of blanket races. “We want the communities of Bangor, Brewer and surrounding areas to get involved in the track’s activities,” Nichols said.

There are a couple of changes in racing positions at Bangor Raceway this year. Frank Hall Jr. will serve as horse classifier in the race secretary’s position, while Walter McIntire of Hampden, a professor at the University of Maine who was a Bangor racing official a decade ago, heads to the perch on the roof as the raceway’s new presiding judge.

Meanwhile, for the horsemen, Bangor will hold schooling for their young colts who have never had an opportunity to get in behind the starting gate. It will begin just as soon as the track dries up and is measured off, probably in about two weeks. Call Warren Strout at 947-6744 for more information.

Scarborough Downs adds another racing day to its schedule today. Kathryn Rolston, director of publicity, said the seaside racing oval’s racing schedule will be: Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m. and Monday, 4 p.m.

The Monday post-time move, according to Ralston, was by mutual agreement with Foxboro Park in Massachusetts, so that both might benefit by simulcasting each other’s races and not run head-to-head post times. Both Scarborough Downs and Foxboro Park will be simulcast into Maine’s off-track betting facilities. Bangor will begin simulcasting its live races on its opening day.

Foxboro Park opens Saturday for 150 days of racing, ending on Monday, Oct. 30. Its racing schedule is: Sunday and Monday, 1 p.m.; Thursday, 4 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m. The minimum purse is $1,200 and the minimum invitational is $5,000. Their race secretary is Larry Miller and presiding judge is “Cat” Stockman. Foxboro’s simulcasting has been expanded to include tracks in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maine, and OTBs in those states, plus Connecticut, and casinos in Atlantic City and Foxwoods in Lenyard, Conn. The Foxboro signal is also being taken at the new Hoosier Harness Park in Indiana. Foxboro’s racing schedule is: Sunday and Monday, 1 p.m.; Thursday, 4 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.

The Maine racing community has been saddened by the passing of two great friends of the harness sport, Clyde Crane and John Peason. Crane, a horsemen for most of his life, was a familiar sight jogging his horses along the roadside in Whiting, in Washington County. No one was any prouder of a horse than Crane was of his outstanding stakes-winning filly, Jody Overlook.

Pearson, a retired Bangor fireman and former employee of Miller’s Restaurant in Bangor, was the epitomy of the old-time harness fan. And without fans, no sport can survive. John’s knowledge went way back, to Lewiston in the 1930s or Rockingham, he remembered names, horses, times and events and was seldom wrong. A dapper dresser with a great tenor voice, John, for years, was part of the coffee clash on the final turn at Bangor Raceway. Rest in peace gentlemen.