Speedway 95 in Hermon will open for the season on Sunday afternoon and co-owner Del Merritt is optimistic this could be a banner season based on last Saturday’s turnout for testing and tuning at Speedway 95.

“In my 28 years or so with the track, I’ve never seen a turnout of cars like that,” said Merritt. “We must have had 80 or more cars. That’s more than we had for the opening day of racing a few years ago.”

According to Merritt, that will translate into 120-130 cars that will be available for racing at the track.

“That’s a healthy field, all the way around,” said Merritt. “It looks like a super year.”

Merritt said there are a number of reasons behind the resurgence.

“Motor sports is on its peak right now,” said Merritt. “Ricky Craven has done a tremendous job promoting the sport in the state of Maine. With all the exposure [to Craven], the media is finally realizing there is something more than hockey or basketball. They realize stock car racing is a fairly important sport.”

Newburgh’s Craven, the NASCAR Winston Cup Rookie of the Year last season, is currently eighth in the points standings with 1244 points. But he is only 49 points behind fifth-place Sterling Marlin. Craven received even more media attention from a spectacular crash he was involved in two weeks ago that resulted in him suffering numerous minor injuries.

Unity Raceway owner Ralph Nason said because of Craven’s success, “you see a lot of local kids collecting Ricky Craven memorabilia now and they haven’t been to any races [in their lives] yet.”

Nason reasoned that once they get a little older, they will start attending local stock car races and that will help increase the fan base.

Nason pointed out that Craven began his racing career at Unity Raceway.

Speedway 95 will have a full race card as it begins its 30th year of operation at 2 p.m. Sunday.

There will be six divisions including a 35-lap sportsman feature.

There will be a pretty-car contest that will kick things off at 1:30.

Merritt said he and co-owner Alice Baker have a two-step plan for improving the facility in the next couple of years.

“We definitely want to put in bathrooms on the grandstand side by the end of the year,” said Merritt. “Then we’d like to add VIP booths, maybe by the following years. We’d like to have booths for the media and for our sponsors.”

Varney’s Auto Supply and Varney GMC Isuzu will sponsor Sunday’s opener.

Meanwhile, there will be racing at three tracks on Saturday night and at two more on Sunday afternoon.

Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough will feature racing for four divisions on Saturday at 6:35 p.m. with Unity Raceway and Wiscasset Raceway hosting full cards starting at 7. Unity Raceway will have a Salute to Mom night with the first 100 mothers receiving carnations.

On Sunday, besides Speedway 95, there will be a 75-lap Late Model Sportsman feature headlining a full docket at Oxford Plains Speedway. That will begin at 2 p.m.

Winterport Dragway will have its first points races of the year beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday.