Stan Meserve is a busy man.

But you won’t hear him complaining.

The Damariscotta-born Meserve, who used to own Distance Racing Products in Unity and was a top-notch pro stock driver in Maine, does the suspension setup on Michael Waltrip’s Winston Cup cars in North Carolina.

Waltrip is one of three drivers in the Dale Earnhardt Incorporated stable along with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Park.

Meserve’s job for DEI involves making sure the cars’ springs, shock absorbers, sway bar and weight ballast are ready for qualifying and the race.

“It’s a great place to work,” said the 60-year-old Meserve. “We even have a real nice restaurant in the complex where we eat lunch. And it’s only five bucks. They really take good care of us.”

Meserve works from 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. five days a week. He has his weekends off.

“I’m so busy all the time,” said Meserve, who considers it a labor of love.

“I’ve always enjoyed the suspension end of the business,” said Meserve.

Meserve said he starts working on a car approximately 10 days before its intended race. He said it takes him approximately 12-14 hours to prepare a car for a race.

He works on two to four cars every week. In addition to working on cars scheduled to race, he also plies his trade to cars earmarked for testing.

Meserve left Unity four years ago and became a member of the fledgling SBIII Motorsports team along with Newburgh native Ricky Craven, who was hired to drive for the Winston Cup team.

Craven and Meserve were released by SBIII and both landed with Midwest Transit.

Meserve went on to become the crew chief and jack of all trades for Craven’s Busch Grand National team.

When Craven joined the Tide Ford No. 32 PPI Motorsports team and shut down his BGN shop, Meserve became the crew chief and all-purpose man for Cherryfield native Andy Santerre’s Santerre-Reece Motorsports team on the BGN circuit until it shut down due to a lack of a primary sponsor.

He heard about the job opening on Waltrip’s team, applied and landed the job in January.

Waltrip will enter this Sunday’s race at Dover Downs International Speedway 14th in the points standings.

He is 17 points behind 13th-place Craven

Waltrip finished 24th in points last year.

“We’re doing well. The program has turned around and is headed in the right direction. We all feel pretty good about it,” said the 60-year-old Meserve.

Meserve has been pleased about Craven’s resurgence.

“Ricky is doing fantastic. He’s not far from the top. He’s really getting a lot of notoriety down here,” said Meserve.

Meserve said the business is extremely competitive and requires him to stay on top of any new trends or technological breakthroughs.

“I’ve got a lot of responsibility. You have to keep up. There are changes every day. You can’t afford to get behind,” said Meserve, who has two pages of information that he regularly loads into a computer. He said DEI is equipped with state of the art equipment.

Meserve is a happy man and said he has no desire to climb back into a race car.

“That was another life,” said Meserve.

PASS will race at Unity Saturday

The Pro All-Stars Series will visit Unity Raceway on Saturday night for the third race in the series: the D.N.K. 150.

The race had been scheduled for May 18 but was postponed due to rain and snow.

The time trials get underway at 4:30. There will also be a regular Saturday night racing card.

West Buxton’s Gary Drew and Turner’s Ben Rowe won the first two races but defending series champ Sam Sessions of South Paris leads the points.

Sessions has 436 points based on his back-to-back second place finishes. Johnny Clark of Farmingdale is second, 22 points back.

Rounding out the top five are Rowe, Fort Fairfield’s Kirk Thibeau and Wayne Helliwell of Oelham, N.H.

Craven team significantly improved

Just how much has Ricky Craven and his Tide Ford team improved over last season?

Craven’s 13th-place standing in the points is 17 places higher than he was at this time last season.

His three top-five finishes and four top-10s through the first 12 races are two more than he had in each category a year ago.

Mechanical failures and engine problems occurred during six of the first 12 races last year.

They have yet to experience one this season.

The Cal Wells-owned PPI Motorsports team is the highest-ranked single car team on the NASCARWinston Cup circuit.

Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231, 1-800-310-8600, and lmahoney@bangordailynews.net.