Wiscasset Raceway host of $100G event Big Dawg Challenge richest race in state

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Pro All Stars Series President Tom Mayberry has put together an impressive 16-race schedule for year three of the tour next season. But the man who is leasing Wiscasset Raceway for three years has something else in store, also. It is called…
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Pro All Stars Series President Tom Mayberry has put together an impressive 16-race schedule for year three of the tour next season.

But the man who is leasing Wiscasset Raceway for three years has something else in store, also.

It is called the Big Dawg Challenge.

The person who takes the checkered flag at the 400-lap Big Dawg Challenge on Oct. 11-12 at Wiscasset Raceway will pocket either $75,000 or $100,000.

With the exception of the Busch Grand National series, it will be the richest payday for a pro stock race on a short track in the country, according to Mayberry.

If the winner of the Big Dawg Challenge had attempted to qualify for any combination of seven PASS races or Wiscasset Raceway events, they would pocket $100,000. If not, they would earn $75,000.

The race will satisfy a life-long dream for the 41-year-old Mayberry, who was the driving force behind the flourishing PASS tour and signed his three-year deal to lease Wiscasset Raceway along with partner Harry Franssen last August.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a real long time,” said Mayberry. “I was happy when the Wiscasset deal happened. I figured I’d hold the race there.”

He has already heard from drivers as far away as California.

The event will begin with time trials on Saturday and the top seven finishers in four 50-lap qualifying races will make the final field on Sunday.

The non-qualifiers will run other qualifying races after that and there will eventually be a 40-car field vying for seven more spots.

That will bring the field to 35 cars.

Two provisionals will go to the top two PASS drivers in points who hadn’t already qualified; the top two pro stock cars from the Friday night races at Wiscasset who hadn’t qualified will get two more provisionals and the fastest car in time trials that hadn’t qualified will get the final provisional.

Mayberry will finance the race by selling advertisements in a 400-space billboard at the track – sponsors can buy a space and have it there for the entire race season – and through other sponsorships, attendance revenue and the entry fees.

Turner’s Ben Rowe, the PASS points champion, said a race for $100,000 is something “we’ve never seen around here. That’s what we like to see.”

The annual True Value Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway pays the winner as much as $50,000.


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