Unity to race Thursdays

loading...

Entry-level stock car racing is popular in Maine.

Hermon’s Speedway 95 has its Wacky Wednesday series; Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough has Thursday Thunder and Oxford Plains Speedway has its Big Apple Food Stores Summer Racing Series on Wednesday nights.

Now Unity Raceway will join the weeknight racing community with its Thursday Thrillers beginning July 31.

“This is a good way for people to see if they like to race and a good opportunity for fans to go to races without paying a big price,” said Unity Raceway manager John Crawford, who also noted that the success of the other weeknight series played a role in his decision to add the Thursday Thriller series.

“And I had a lot of calls from guys racing at Speedway 95 right now who live just outside Unity. They asked me why we didn’t have anything,” said Crawford.

It will cost $5 for fans 13 and older to attend the Thursday Thriller races.

The Saturday night racing card costs $10.

Crawford said the Thursday Thriller racers eventually will move up to the Saturday night series.

“That will make our Saturday night series stronger,” said Crawford, who is looking to increase his Saturday night car counts from between 90 and 95 to between 110 and 120.

There will be four classes in the Thursday Thriller series: Wildcat (for six- and eight-cylinder cars), Peanuts (for four-cylinder cars), Ladies Peanuts and the Ramp Race.

“The Ramp Race is something they had here in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. We will have two ramps 10 inches to a foot high on the front stretch. One will be on the outside groove and the other on the inside groove. They will be around 15 feet apart,” said Crawford.

“Every car will have to run two tires along one of the ramps on every lap except the first one.”

He added that every car will have to have a four-point [safety] cage.

The races will last 10 laps.

“I used to watch ramp races when I was a kid. They were awesome,” said Crawford.

Santerre won’t run BGN race

Cherryfield’s Andy Santerre will try to add to his Busch North points lead Saturday when the New England 125 is run at approximately 3 p.m. at New Hampshire International Speedway.

However, Santerre won’t run in the Busch Grand National race to be held before the Busch North race.

Santerre, who used to race in the BGN series, couldn’t find a sponsor, according to his wife and publicist Sue Santerre.

“Joe [Aubuchon Hardware team owner Joe Bessey] has a Busch [Grand National] car and we had hoped to do it. But it didn’t come together so Joe felt it best to focus on Busch North. Hopefully we’ll have a good week,” said Sue Santerre.

She said that without a sponsor, the team wouldn’t have been able to hire other people to work on the Busch Grand National car.

“We don’t have a big enough team to do both,” said Sue Santerre.

Andy Santerre, the defending Busch North points champ, has a 132-point lead over Matt Kobyluck of Uncasville, Conn., thanks to his three wins and five top-five finishes in seven races.

Santerre qualified fourth Thursday. Martin Truex Jr. of Mayetta, N.J., will start on the pole and 19-year-old Ryan Moore of Scarborough will start on the outside pole. Moore is fourth in points but leads the rookie points.

Center Harbor, N.H.’s Brad Leighton will start third and Kobyluck will start fifth.

As for other Mainers in the field, Scarborough’s Kelly Moore, Ryan’s father, will start ninth; Strong’s Tracy Gordon will begin 20th; Eliot’s Carey Heath, Santerre’s Aubuchon teammate, will start 29th; Sanford’s Mike Gallo will go off 30th and Morrill’s Travis Benjamin qualified 32nd.

There will be 39 cars in the field.

Craven has altered test philosphy

Newburgh Winston Cup driver Ricky Craven said he and his Tide Pontiac-PPI Motorsports team actually have gone full circle when it comes to testing. He tested at Loudon a couple of weeks ago.

“Last year, we needed to improve on our restrictor plate [and superspeedway] programs so we tested at those tracks,” said Craven. “And we did improve.”

Craven and his team felt their strengths were their programs at the short tracks and flat tracks.

“But we’ve since felt it was necessary to improve our programs on the short and flat tracks so we’ve tested on those tracks this season,” said Craven.

His average finish in 13 NHIS races has been 24.5.

“It’s important that I do well there Sunday, not just to me but to a lot of other people,” said Craven. “I finished sixth there in the last race [the New Hampshire 300 in September]. But that’s not good enough.”

PASS tour changes schedule

The Pro All-Stars Series has canceled a Sept. 20 race at Star Speedway in Epping, N.H., and replaced it with an Aug. 1 race at Wiscasset Raceway.

The PASS tour will race at White Mountain Motorsports Park in North Woodstock, N.H., on Saturday night with time trials at 6.

Points leader, defending points champ and newly crowned Oxford True Value 250 winner Ben Rowe of Turner has won three of four races at White Mountain.