Auto racing schedule stalls in rainy weather

Tammy Reynolds, vice president of Wiscasset Raceway, quipped that she and her family “all went to church Sunday and prayed we’d have sunshine this weekend.”

That is the prevailing thought among the people who run Maine’s five stock car tracks.

The rain has postponed at least two weekends of racing and, in most cases, three weekends.

“You never want to start off the year like this,” said Oxford Plains Speedway owner Bill Ryan. “It definitely hurts you. There’s a lot of excitement for opening day and when it rains out twice in a row, it loses its pizzazz.”

“What can we do about it? There’s nothing we can do about Mother Nature. She does what she wants,” reasoned Unity Raceway owner Ralph Nason.

Del Merritt, co-owner of Hermon’s Speedway 95, said he has never witnessed this many rainouts to open the season in his 37-year affiliation with the track.

Merritt is actually one of the lucky ones.

He was able to get in a portion of his opening-day races on April 24 but three 50-lap features (pro stock, limited, super street) have been postponed for three successive weekends. They will try again Sunday beginning at 2 p.m.

Wiscasset Raceway and Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough were able to hold their season-opening races April 16 but the next three weekends have been washouts.

In most cases, the regular racing cards won’t be made up. The washouts result in lost revenue for the tracks. Not only do they lose the revenue from attendance, concessions and entry fees, advertising dollars are also lost.

“You don’t make them up because it’s tough to run on Saturday and Sunday,” explained Ryan. “It’s hard on the competitors. They have other things planned [for their day off]. It’s obviously hard on fans, too. You never get the same [size] crowd on Sundays that you do on Saturday nights.”

“We already have five doubleheaders planned throughout the summer,” said Reynolds.

Reynolds said this hasn’t been the worst stretch she has witnessed.

Yet.

“In 1994, we lost four weekends in a row. That was the worst season ever. We lost nine races [overall] that year,” said Reynolds.

Nason noted that at the track he owns in Quebec, Autodrome Montmagny, “we lost seven [race dates] out of eight in one stretch two years ago.”

Ryan, who has owned OPS since 1998, said he didn’t schedule his opening weekend of racing until the last weekend of April because of the unpredictability of the spring weather.

So he has lost only two weekends of racing.

However, the Pro All-Stars Series tour was scheduled to run its New England Dodge Dealers 150 on the opening weekend and it was rained out, as was the ensuing makeup date.

“We’ll make it up later this summer,” said Ryan.

Nason’s season-opening 105-lap pro stock feature has been a victim of the weather. Rather than try it again Saturday, he has moved that particular race to Saturday night, May 21.

That is the night before the Sunday afternoon Community Pharmacies 150 PASS race at Speedway 95.

“That might make a good deal. The PASS guys can do our show on Saturday night and then go to Speedway 95. They’d get two races that weekend. And it would be good for the spectators,” said Nason.

Merritt agreed.

“That would be smart. I like the idea. We were going to let them test and tune [on Saturday] but they won’t need to because they’ll be racing,” said Merritt.