Andy Santerre back at Unity for DNK race

Andy Santerre of Cherryfield said he doesn’t think he has raced at Unity Raceway since 1994.

Santerre, the defending two-time Busch North points champ, is among the 75-plus drivers who will look to pocket the $25,000 that will go to the winner of Sunday night’s DNK Select 250 at Unity Raceway.

Heats begin at 1 p.m. and the 34 cars that qualify will begin racing at approximately 6.

Santerre and fellow Busch North driver Billy Penfold of Yarmouth will have to adjust to a pro stock car after running in the Budweiser 150 Busch North race at Seekonk (Mass.) Speedway on Saturday night.

“If I qualify and finish in the top 10 or 15, I’ll be pretty happy,” said Santerre. “The Busch cars and the [Pro All-Star Series] cars are so different.

“The PASS cars are a lot lighter, they’re an inch lower to the ground, their bodies are bigger and fatter, they’re six inches wider, and they have a lot of downforce.”

Santerre said Jeff Taylor, the owner of Distance Racing Products in Fairfield, built the car and has helped him considerably with the setup.

Santerre will be driving DNK Select Used Auto Sales co-owner Doug White’s Chevy Monte Carlo.

“I wish we had more time to practice,” said Santerre. “It’s a tough old track. It’s a good track to race on. The guys who know the track like the back of their hand will have a definite advantage.”

Sam Sessions of South Paris, who is running third in the PASS points, said the first key will be to survive the heat races.

“Those are going to be brutal,” said Sessions.

There will be a draw to determine where the drivers start in the heat races.

“There will be three or four cautions in each heat race,” predicted Sessions. “So getting a bad number in the draw isn’t a bad thing.”

Then there’s the race itself.

“You want to run up front and stay out of trouble,” said Sessions.

He said the list of drivers is “awesome. It’s going to be, without exaggeration, one of the best group of drivers they’ve ever had in the Northeast.”

Among the entrants, besides Santerre and Penfold, are Taylor of Mercer, Tracy Gordon of Strong, Dale Shaw, NASCAR modified series driver Ted Christopher, PASS points leader Johnny Clark of Farmingdale, Dick McCabe of Kennebunkport, Ben and Mike Rowe of Turner, Ralph Nason of Unity, and longtime racer Stan Meserve, who now works for Dale Earnhardt Inc. in North Carolina.

The race will be stopped after 125 laps, so cars can pit and crews can make adjustments.

Sessions said he has all the notes he saved from a Unity race a few years ago and his 2003 Monte Carlo has been “awesome this year.”

“I always like the big races. That’s what I live for,” Sessions said.