St. Clair family blends racing, track ownership

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Liberty’s Dave St. Clair was seeking $1.3 million for Wiscasset Raceway.

There were no takers.

So he held an auction and reduced the price to $500,000.

Still no takers.

So St. Clair, wife Sandy and their family members are making the best of the situation.

They continue to run the track and St. Clair finds himself racing and following the race careers of son Puncin and Puncin’s 15-year-old son Josh.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 17. I don’t know anything different,” said the 57-year-old St. Clair. “I have an 11-year-old grandson [Ryan] who drives hot rods and another one [Ashton Reynolds] who is 8 or 9 and drives four-wheelers and snowmobiles. He has no fear.”

St. Clair will start on the pole for the 50-lap pro stock feature at Speedway 95 on Sunday afternoon. He earned the pole last weekend but rain washed out the feature.

Wiscasset Raceway is in its second season without a pro stock division and St. Clair has instituted a three-race, 100-lap series for the late models that will pay the winner $2,000.

The first one already has been held with West Gardiner’s Duane Love taking the checkered flag.

“We weren’t able to attract a bunch of pro stock cars. I don’t know why,” said St. Clair.

St. Clair admitted he was surprised nobody expressed interest in buying his track for a sizeable discount.

“They don’t know what they missed,” said St. Clair, who has returned the asking price to $1.3 million.

St. Clair said if he lived in Wiscasset instead of Liberty “I’d never sell it.”

“But our other businesses are in Liberty,” said St. Clair, referring to his Dave’s World company that includes excavation, sand and gravel, and snow plowing.

The commute from Liberty to Wiscasset takes 45 minutes, according to St. Clair.

“I’m thinking about getting my helicopter license,” said St. Clair.

While some tracks may try to add classes, St. Clair believes in “downsizing to keep it competitive and inexpensive.”

There will five classes on Saturday nights: late models, super streets, strictly streets, light A demons and light B demons. There will also be Legends cars occasionally.

There will also be several doubleheader weekends with enduros racing on Sundays.

Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough has expanded its racing schedule although it has dropped the truck and lightning bug classes, according to spokeswoman Ruth Coburn.

The track will hold its first-ever Pro All-Stars Series feature, the Pullen Heavy Industries 300, the weekend of Sept. 23-24-25.

“We’ve had a lot of response to it already,” said Coburn.

The Saturday night race card will include pro stocks, sports, wildcats, and a new roadrunners class for six-cylinder cars.

For the second year, Beech Ridge will have Friday night car wars classes, which is a combination of racing and demolition derby. That will last from July 15 to Sept. 2.

They will also have three nights of days of destruction racing, a form of demolition derby.

In addition, Thursday Night Thunder for entry-level classes and Legends cars begins June 9.

There will be a modified tour race on July 23.

Oxford Plains Speedway opens with a PASS race Saturday night and owner Bill Ryan will add the track’s first Busch North race since the early 1990s, the Fisher Snowplows 150, on Aug. 27.

It will be the tour’s only stop in Maine this season.

“We had been talking to NASCAR [about holding a Busch North race] since 1998,” said Ryan. “They knew we were interested, but there wasn’t an opportunity before this year.

“This will be a nice opportunity for some of the drivers to return home. A lot of them started at Oxford. We’re going to promote it around the state. I think it will do real well.”

There will be another PASS race on June 11.

The 32nd annual Banknorth 250 will be held July 31 with 2003 Nextel Cup points champ Matt Kenseth headlining the field. He started last (41st) and finished third in his debut last year.

In addition to Saturday night cards, the Big Apple Summer Series entry-level series race features will go Wednesdays from June 8 to Aug. 31.

There will be an American-Canadian Tour race May 21, a Ford Focus Midget class race Aug. 13, and a Super Modified race Aug. 20.