Turner’s Rowe racing consistently

loading...

Every race car driver seeks consistency.

But Turner’s Ben Rowe has taken consistency to a new level.

In his 12 Pro All-Stars Series races this season, he has four wins and five second-place finishes. He also has a third and a fourth.

He was 15th in the season-opening event at Oxford Plains Speedway.

“I didn’t really expect this,” admitted Rowe. “A lot of luck goes with it. But I’ve had a great car week in and week out.”

He also credits crew chief Brian Burgess of Leeds and the rest of the crew for supplying him with a quality Chevy Monte Carlo every week.

Rowe goes to Tom Estes’ race shop in New Gloucester on Thursday night when they put the finishing touches on the car they will run.

Estes owns their two Monte Carlos and the equipment. One Monte Carlo runs the short track and the other does the longer tracks.

“I’ve had it pretty easy,” said Rowe who has devoted a lot of his spare time to wife Melissa and the couple’s first child, 10-month-old Chase Rowe.

Burgess is the ringleader and has worked with Rowe since 1994. He works on the cars every night. Minot’s Eddie Verrill is also there “if I need him.” The others come a couple of times a week.

“We’ve had a good year, as good as we could have expected,” said Burgess, who is joined on the crew by Verrill, South Paris’ Ken Lawrence and Windham’s Dave Willette, Rick White and and Bill Hill.

Rowe is a shoo-in to claim the points championship with a 104-point lead with three races remaining.

“The points are nice but we want to win races. If you win one, you want to win two. If you win two, you want to win three. The points will follow,” said the 27-year-old Rowe, who finished third on the PASS tour a year ago. He won five races but had some poor finishes in the others including a 25th in the final race at Star Speedway (N.H.) that cost him the championship.

“We broke the transmission at Star,” explained Burgess.

“We got the wins last year but we kept breaking stuff,” said Rowe. “We’re still breaking stuff this year but when we do, we’ve been able to get through the day. We had flat tires in two races and managed to win one and finish fourth in the other. We lost a valve spring at Star but still finished third.”

Mechanical Services is the primary sponsor this season.

Rowe credits a lot of his success to his father, current Busch North regular Mike Rowe, and several of the veteran drivers he has raced.

“You can learn so much from racing against guys like Ralph Nason, my father and Stan Meserve. They’re all better than me and I’m willing to learn from them,” said Rowe.

Burgess used to be a racer until he joined Rowe in 1994.

“I get just as big a kick out of being a crew chief as I did as a driver,” said the 37-year-old Burgess.

Burgess and Rowe were previously involved in the much more expensive Busch North series but are happy now.

“The PASS tour is affordable, there’s a good bunch of guys to race with and we have fun without going broke doing it,” said Burgess. “Tom doesn’t put a lot of pressure on us to perform. He lets me do the day-to-day stuff but I still go to him on any big money issues.”

“Tom gives us everything we need, we’re having fun and I get to bring the family with me,” said Rowe.

Of Rowe, Burgess says “there’s nobody I’d rather work with right now.”

The feeling is mutual.

“If someone offered me $500,000 to run the Busch North series, I’d probably do it but I’d want to bring the crew with me,” said Rowe.

Rowe will make his pro stock debut at Wiscasset Raceway on Sunday at the Wiscasset Quik Stop 150. Time trials begin at 1 p.m.

LeClair runs for charity at Unity

Denny LeClair, representing the Skowhegan-Madison Elks Lodge, will run in the sport four class at Unity Raceway on Saturday night to raise money for two charities: the Maine Children’s Cancer Program and the Elks National Foundation.

LeClair, who will be driving a Dodge Avenger, has already raised close to $1,000 as several lodge members autographed his racing helmet for $10 apiece while others made straight donations.