Dearborn holds off challenges for PASS win

HERMON – Hollis’ Richie Dearborn hadn’t won a Pro All-Stars Series Super Late Model North race in nearly two years.

And he had never finished in the top three at Hermon’s Speedway 95.

That changed on Sunday afternoon as Dearborn took the lead from Farmingdale’s Johnny Clark on a lap 117 restart and used four more strong restarts to hold off the challenges of Clark and rookie Trevor Sanborn of Parsonsfield to take the checkered flag.

Dearborn’s margin of victory over Sanborn was .219 seconds. Brunswick’s Scott Chubbuck was third, 1.186 behind Dearborn.

Rounding out the top 10 in the 21-car field were Turner’s Ben Rowe, Morrill’s Travis Benjamin, Corinna’s Paul White, 16-year-old Derek Ramstrom of West Boylston, Mass., Brewer native Mike Thomas, Curtis Gerry of Waterboro and Ryan Deane of Winterport.

There were 10 cautions, eight over the final 75 laps of the 150-lap race. Fourteen drivers finished on the lead lap.

“This feels awesome. We had never had a top three here,” said Dearborn. “The car was pretty good. We were a little tight off the corners. Other than that, it was all right. It stayed pretty consistent throughout the whole race.”

Despite the fact Dearborn had to restart on the slower inside groove when leading the race, he was always able to pull away from Clark and Sanborn.

“Restarts are key up here. We had a few good inside [restarts] and we came home and won it,” said Dearborn. “You have to watch the flagman and we have a real good spotter on the radio and that helped us out a lot.”

Sanborn said he thought he’d have a shot at Dearborn on the late restarts “but I just didn’t have quite enough for him.”

He said Dearborn “squeezed me [up the track] a little bit. It was hard to get around him. He wasn’t as loose on the restarts as I was and he got a little better jump. I spun the tires a lot. This car has a lot of power. It’s kind of a handful.”

Sanborn, who just turned 20, said his car improved over the course of the race and was particularly dialed in at the end when cloud cover changed the track.

He was pleased with his second although he was hoping to earn his first win in the series.

Dearborn, who started on the pole, led the first 42 laps before Farmington’s Cassius Clark impressively overtook him after starting 12th.

Johnny Clark got around Cassius Clark on a lap 76 restart but Cassius Clark was riding comfortably in second place until his car fell off the pace on lap 94 and he had to go to the pits.

“We ran out of gas,” said Cassius Clark, who finished 20th. “We got wrecked at Wiscasset last weekend and I think the wreck knocked the fuel pickup halfway up the cell. So even though there was still gas in the cell [it wasn’t getting to the engine]. We had a fast car. That’s for sure.”

Johnny Clark, who entered the race third in points, lost his chance to contend for his fourth win of the season when a slow leak in his right front tire caught up with him with seven laps to go. He wound up 13th.

Turner’s Mike Rowe, who was second in points and leads the series in wins with four, blew a right front tire on lap 137 and finished 15th.

Points leader Ben Rowe suffered damage to the right front fender in the opening laps of the race but persevered to finish fourth and he increased his points lead over his father Mike and Johnny Clark.

He entered the race with a 12-point lead over his father and a 49-point lead over Johnny Clark.

“The toe of the car was knocked out. We were just trying to stay alive. We kind of worked out way up through. It’s a miracle we came out of here in one piece,” said Ben Rowe.

“We had a bad week a couple of weeks ago in Halifax and lost 30 points. It’s a good points day for us to gain some back,” said Rowe.

Chubbuck said his car was “tight all day.”

Drivers who win features can’t start higher than 10th in future PASS races.