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HERMON – A mistake may turn out to be a blessing in disguise at Speedway 95 which will now feature a banked track.
The inside groove of the one-third mile stock car track was paved earlier this month.
“But it made the inside faster than it used to be, so in order to correct it, we had to take care of the outside. And we decided to bank it,” explained co-owner Del Merritt.
“For the first time, we’ll have a banked track,” he said.
Instead of spending $10,000 to improve the inside groove, Merritt and co-owner Alice Baker will pay $47,000 to have Lane Construction of Hermon bank the track.
It will be transformed from a one-groove track to a two-groove track.
“We will go from having a 2.5-degree bank to a 7-degree bank,” explained Merritt. “This will really make things exciting because we’ll be able to have side-by-side racing. It’ll make our drivers and our fans happier. It’ll be a racers track.”
Merritt said one-groove tracks aggravate the drivers.
“You can have slower cars in the lead on a one-groove track and the faster cars can’t get around them,” he pointed out. “Nobody wants to start at the back of the pack with a fast car and not be able to come up through.”
Merritt said he hopes to attract more cars to the speedway.
“It’s going to be a lot better,” said Bill Harnish of Winterport, who races in 95’s super street division. “The bank will make it faster on the outside. It’ll be a lot better for passing. It’ll also be safer because we can ride side-by-side.”
“They needed to do something,” said Dave St. Clair of Liberty who races in the sportsman class and who owns Wiscasset Raceway. “They’ve got a 100-lap race coming up and the track isn’t real good the way it is now. Racing on a one-lane track is very frustrating.
Merritt said work on the track was expected to be finished Wednesday. Drivers will be able to test and tune their cars at 95 beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday.
The Maine Dodge Dealers Sportsman 100 will be held there Sunday. Racing will begin at 2 p.m.
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