Hopkins rebounds for his first win of season at Speedway 95

HERMON – A week ago, Hermon’s Mike Hopkins and Dixmont’s Lewis Batchelder got tangled up and spun out during a Sport-Four feature.

But Hopkins rebounded to capture his first 20-lap Sport-Four feature of the season on Sunday afternoon at Speedway 95 and one of the people he credited for the trip to victory lane was Batchelder.

“He helped me get the car back together on Monday and Tuesday nights. He was here until 2 in the morning. We’re good friends. He helps me out and I help him out when I can,” said Hopkins.

Hopkins started second but pole-sitter Travis Beale of Winterport had car trouble on the first lap and Hopkins wound up leading the entire race. He cruised to a 30 car-length win over Reggie Bickford of Oakland with Batchelder finishing third.

Points leader Justin Trombley of Winter Harbor wound up fourth and Winterport’s Ernie Wallace Jr., second in points, was fifth.

“The car [1980 Ford Mustang] was on a rail. The guys in the shop worked their tails off to get it under me,” said Hopkins.

Bickford said Hopkins “had the best car today. It obviously handled better [than mine]. I just couldn’t catch him.”

Two other races ended in controversy and the Legends car series became a race of attrition with just four of the seven cars finishing the event.

The Sportsman and Strictly Street features were postponed due to rain and rescheduled for June 4.

The Sportsman race got 10 of the 35 laps in but it needed to go at least 18 to be considered a complete race.

In the Limited feature, Liberty’s Puncin’ St. Clair was trying to hold off Hudson’s Glenn Curtis Sr. on the last lap when Puncin’s son, Josh, spun out on the backstretch.

Flagman A.J. Jordan threw the yellow caution flag after throwing the white flag indicating the final lap. Under track rules, if the flagman throws the white flag, he can only throw the red flag if an accident occurs. That would result in a one-lap shootout restart.

In certain circumstances, he could throw the yellow-checkered flags to indicate the race is over and cars will finish where they were when the yellow-checkered was displayed.

“I should have thrown the red flag. I had to make a split-second decision. It was my fault,” said Jordan.

A restart ensued and Curtis blew by St. Clair for the apparent win.

But track co-owner Del Merritt interceded several minutes after the race and said because a mistake was made, the one-lap restart shouldn’t have occurred so he awarded the win to St. Clair, who riled up the sparse crowd at the awards ceremony directly after the race by angrily stating the race should have ended without the re-start and he should have won.

At the time, Curtis was awarded the first-place trophy.

“I’m disappointed,” said Curtis. “Del said the race went one lap too many but I told him it wasn’t our fault. If they had wanted to call it good after lap 24 [with St. Clair winning], that would been all right by me. But they decided to run that one [extra] lap and I won it. I know in year’s past, when the track was at fault, they gave each of the top two first-place money.”

Jason Witts of Dixmont was third; Stephen Swanson of Trenton was fourth and Darrin Durrell of Newburgh finishedwas fifth.

In the Super Street race, three of the top five finishers failed technical inspection after the race and were disqualified.

Winner Steve Moulton of Holden, second-place Keith Pierce of Hudson and fifth-place Kris Watson of Hermon were disqualified.

John Kalel II of Orrington was awarded the win followed by Justin Brenton of Franklin, Deane Smart of Bradley, Greg Pung of Franklin and Van Kitchen of St. Albans.

In the Legends race, 60-year-old Terry Kirk of Durham collected his first victory in three years on the tour.

He held off a late-race challenge by Jacob Dore of Sanford. Josh Leach of Islesboro was third and Ed Getty of Gray was the fourth and final car to finish. Bob Weymouth of Topsham wound up fifth.

“I knew he was there [right behind me] but he had to beat me [and he didn’t],” said Kirk.

Dore said, “I knew going into turn three he had me. I tried but I couldn’t get him.”