Swoboda surges late, posts win Driver takes advantage of foe’s handling woes

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HERMON – Hermon’s Dale Swoboda didn’t think he would be able to get by Little Deer Isle’s Matt Eaton to win the 50-lap Super Street series race at Speedway 95 Sunday afternoon.

Swoboda was able to move up from his sixth starting spot to second where he chased the pole-sitter for a healthy portion of the race.

But, with five laps to go, Swoboda found an opening on the inside groove and sailed past Eaton to win by seven car-lengths. Milton Ketch of Olamon finished third with Clifton’s Jimmy Carr and Hudson’s Glenn Curtis rounding out the top five in the 13-car field.

“I saw that Matt’s car was pushing more and more all the time so I went under him,” said Swoboda, who picked up his first win of the young season.

Eaton said, “If only the race was a little shorter.

“I held the lead for 45 laps. But the car had gotten loose. I made four or five changes to it and some of them didn’t work,” added Eaton. “Dale’s car was steady. I had to jump on mine [accelerate] to make it go. And my neck was killing me. We aren’t used to running 50 laps.”

Drivers have the pull of centrifugal force on their necks during a race.

The super street race is usually a 25-lapper but there will be three 50-lap super street races in this series.

Swoboda, who was second in points in the strictly street class a year ago before moving up, said making the victory even sweeter was the fact his sponsor, Linnehan’s Credit Now Auto Company, is sponsoring the series.

Ketch, who had started second, said his car was overheating so he had to race conservatively.

“I didn’t want to blow the motor up. I spent too much money on it,” said Ketch, who put $8,000 into his engine.

Hudson’s Mike Thayer and Corinth’s Lloyd Nickerson overcame even lower starting spots to pull off wins in their respective classes.

Thayer started 14th in the strictly street class and Nickerson was eighth when the flag dropped in the limited class.

Both were 25-lap events.

Thayer won for the third straight week and Nickerson made it two in a row.

Thayer and Nickerson both said they made adjustments to their cars between the heat race and the feature that paid off.

“I missed the setup in the heat race. I adjusted the air pressure [in the tires] and I put some wedge into it,” said Nickerson who was followed across the finish line by Ellsworth’s Justin Pickard and Winterport’s Fred Brown.

“Justin and I weren’t going as fast as we could because we were racing each other side-by-side. Lloyd was all by himself and that enabled him to catch up,” said Brown. “Lloyd is good and he has always been good on the bottom groove.”

Pickard added, “I didn’t even see Lloyd until he was right beside me.”

Nickerson won by 12 car-lengths.

Thayer, meanwhile, made up nine places in his race’s first five laps and took the lead for good five laps later. He won by nearly half the track over Bar Harbor’s Greg Pung and Eastport’s Eric Mitchell.

“Mike is unstoppable right now,” said Mitchell.

Pung added, “Mike has a little more horsepower than we do.”

Thayer said he thought either Pung or Mitchell would win.

“They do a great job,” said Thayer. “I changed the air pressure after the heat race and did a few more things to the car. And I stayed on the inside groove.”

In the 35-lap pro stock race, Stockton Springs’ Duane Seekins and Bar Harbor’s John Phippen started one-two and finished the same way.

Brewer’s Aaron St. Peter was awarded third after Hermon’s Scott Modery was disqualified for using an illegal spoiler and having too much left-side weight on his car.

“The car was loose all day long. It should have been faster. We should have done better. But we’ll take the win,” said Seekins, who led from wire-to-wire to post his first victory of the season.

“I stayed in the low groove. You couldn’t pass on the outside because everybody was up there,” said Seekins.

Phippen said, “I might have been able to get around him if we had gotten a restart but we didn’t.”

Chad Ashey of Frankfort won the sport four class followed by Hermon’s Steve Moulton and Stockton Springs’ Jim Johnson.