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He has been conspicuous by his absence.
Love him or hate him, Racin’ Ralph Nason has always spiced up any stock car race he has been involved in.
But the 63-year-old Nason, who won consecutive Oxford True Value 250s in 1998, ’99 and 2000, hasn’t driven a race car yet this season.
“I don’t miss it when I see cars all piled up in turn one, knowing I would have to go and repair my car [after the accident],” said Nason. “But, the other night, I saw side-by-side racing for 27 laps before the first caution and I wanted to be in that race.”
He had intended to race a Scott Mulkern car earlier this season “but Scott had engine trouble and had to use mine.”
The truth is Nason has been too busy to race.
“I don’t have time to do it. We [Ralph and son Ron] started a new company and we’re trying to nurture that along,” said Nason.
The company is NewEnglandAutoParts.com.
The Nasons distribute recycled auto parts for passenger cars across the northeast.
Nason also owns three racetracks: Unity Raceway, Autodrome Montmagny (Quebec) and Spud Speedway in Caribou. He also owns Jim’s Salad Co. in Unity.
“I was on my way to Montmagny and saw the biggest junkyard in North America in Pintendre [Quebec],” explained Nason. “So I swung in there, talked to the owner’s son [Dave Carrier] and we hammered out a deal. We are the exclusive New England distributor for them. They did $30 million in sales last year.”
He said he has also hooked up with “another independent conglomerate that owns 84 small junkyards.
“So we have access to a lot of inventory,” said Nason, who makes two trips to Quebec every week to pick up parts which he eventually ships to customers.
“We’ve had a pretty good success rate. We’re shipping stuff all the time,” said Nason, who also checks in on Autodrome Montmagny.
He would like to run the Oxford True Value 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway on July 13.
“Our car [Ford Taurus] is 80 percent together. If we can finish it up, I’d first like to race at Unity,” said Nason.
He indicated he might also “work out a deal with Mulkern” to drive one of the Falmouth native’s cars.
Gorveatt dedicates season to wife
Dave Gorveatt of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, who is currently second in the Pro All-Stars Series points standings, said he has dedicated this season to the memory of his wife, Diane, who died of an aneurysm in April.
“We were married for 28 years,” said the 47-year-old Gorveatt.
Gorveatt is off to his best start in the three-year series.
He has three top six finishes through the first five races and trails Turner’s Ben Rowe by 43 points.
“I’m really happy so far,” said Gorveatt who opened the season with an 11th-place finish in the Wiscasset Quik Stop 150 but changed Chevy Monte Carlos after that and has stuck with the same car from then on.
“We had a little bit of trouble with the car we ran in the first race but we may bring it out later,” said Gorveatt.
Gorveatt finished 11th in points in 2001 but improved to sixth a year ago and collected his only win in the fourth race, which was held at Autodrome Montmagny.
“We hope to finish in the top five in points this season and we’d like to take the checkered flag somewhere along the line,” said Gorveatt. “We’ve been close. We’ve got to keep working to try to get one before the season is out.”
Gorveatt and his four-member crew, all from Prince Edward Island, do a lot of traveling from race to race.
“We’ve got a little camper and we can all sleep in it,” said Gorveatt.
They leave on Friday after work for the next race. They prefer Saturday races to Sunday events “because we can’t get home in time to work Monday if we race on Sunday.”
Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231 or lmahoney@bangordailynews.net
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