Speedway fixture will be missed

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Upon beginning my tenure as an auto race beat writer, Portland Press Herald columnist Steve Solloway gave me some valuable advice.

He told me it was the people involved in the sport who made it such an enjoyable beat.

He said there was no shortage of colorful characters involved in auto racing.

He was exactly right.

Melba “Mel” Crockett was one of those characters.

Mel lost her battle with cancer earlier this year and there was a distinct void at Hermon’s Speedway 95 this past Sunday.

Mel was the judge and scorer at Speedway 95 for several years. She had been a fixture at the track for more than 40 years. Her ex-husband, Dana Crockett, had been a flagman at 95.

“She was a special person,” said Speedway 95 co-owner Del Merritt.

Mel loved the sport. She was passionate about it. She had her Nextel Cup favorites and villains.

She was refreshingly opinionated.

She was also kind-hearted and sincere. She was like a loving grandmother. And she was always willing to help you out.

“She was always happy. She knew everybody at the track. She was approachable. And she knew all the generations [of racers]. She used to talk to people in the pits at every event,” said Speedway 95 co-owner Alice Baker.

Mel was a very efficient judge and scorer.

There was nothing that irritated Mel more than drivers who cheated, especially those who tried to move up spots on re-starts, figuring they could pull one over on her and her fellow scorers. That was the quickest way to get on her bad side.

She also had a low tolerance for irresponsible drivers: ones who were reckless because they wanted to win at all cost; ones who were simply lousy drivers or the ones who lost their tempers if they felt somebody had spun them and decided to seek immediate retribution.

Clean racers often got swept up in the wrecks caused by irresponsible drivers and that didn’t sit well with her.

Scoring races isn’t easy.

Scorers chart the position of the racers on every single lap. They are constantly jotting down the numbers as the cars cross the start-finish line.

It requires teamwork among the scorers to determine where cars should be placed on restarts after a caution; which cars were on the lead lap and which ones were a lap or more down.

It’s not easy to sort things out, especially when you have drivers heading to the pits during caution laps.

Unlike Nextel Cup, Busch and Busch East races, where caution laps are counted toward the number of laps in the race, they aren’t counted at the tracks in Maine because the races are so much shorter.

So drivers will stay in the pits as long as they can during cautions to get their cars repaired.

The scorers also have to listen to irate fans who felt their favorite driver was misplaced on a restart or shouldn’t have been a lap down.

Auto race fans are rabid about the sport and have no problem voicing their displeasure with a particular decision.

I once witnessed a fan standing in front of the scorer’s booth challenging the track announcer to a fistfight.

Mel had a place in her heart for the drivers who consistently abided by the rules and raced clean.

But she didn’t play favorites.

She was fair and honest.

It won’t be the same at Speedway 95 without her.

Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231, 1-800-310-8600 or by email at lmahoney@bangordailynews.net.