The opening of Spud Speedway in Caribou has been pushed back until Sunday.

Newburgh’s Greg Veinote, who recently bought the track from Ralph and Nancy Nason, said they couldn’t hold racing this past Sunday because the fire marshal hadn’t inspected the facility.

He said even if the fire marshal had inspected the facility, the race card would have been washed out by rain. A Sunday practice session was rained out.

Veinote said the fire marshal kept canceling on him because he had other facilities to inspect last week, primarily hospitals.

“But I expect him to inspect the facility early this week,” said Veinote.

A practice session was held Saturday and Veinote said approximately 20 cars showed up to participate.

“A lot more would have turned out on Sunday. A lot of them called on Saturday and said they couldn’t make it because they had to work,” said Veinote.

There will be another practice session on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday’s practice will be followed by a 12:30 drivers meeting and racing will begin at 1 p.m.

There will be heat races followed by the features. It will be the first time the track has had racing since 2000.

Veinote said he expects two of his three classes to have at least 15 cars.

The Northern Lights division for four-cylinder Enduro cars should attract “20 to 25 cars” with the class for six and eight-cylinder cars drawing 15-20 cars.

The other class will be titled the Young Guns class and will be for drivers ages 13-16.

“That class will be a work in progress. We may get four, five or six cars on opening day but there will be kids in the grandstands who will see kids the same age on the track and they’ll have their parents put something together for them [so they can race],” predicted Veinote.

The track has undergone significant renovations since Veinote purchased it and those improvements will be ongoing.

“It will take five years to get to where I’d really like to have it,” said Veinote.

He said that Pat Patterson from radio station WEGP-AM will be the track announcer and 14-year-old Jordan Harnish from Winterport will be the flag man. Harnish is from a racing family including his grandfather, Mike, and father Mike Jr., who currently races in the PASS Outlaws series.

“Pat’s excited and he’ll bring that [excitement] to the fans. He’s never been a race car announcer but I think he’ll be a quick learner,” said Veinote. “And Jordan Harnish is a remarkable kid. His father will be spotting for him.”

Craven will run PASS race

Former Nextel Cup driver Ricky Craven of Newburgh will run the IWK 250 at Riverside Speedway in Antigonish, Nova Scotia on Saturday night.

The IWK 250 is a Pro All-Stars Series Super Late Model-sanctioned race.

He will be joined in the field by current Cup and Busch series driver Regan Smith.

Craven last raced full time on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series two years ago for Roush Racing. He wound up 14th in points, but by winning a race at Martinsville, he became just the 15th driver in history to win a Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck series race.

He previously won two Cup races and four Busch races.

He raced just twice a year ago, finishing 39th in a Busch race for FitzBradshaw Racing and 32nd in the TD Banknorth Oxford 250.

Craven does a weekly call-in show with John Kernan on Sirius Satellite Radio and he also does a weekly show on Yahoosports.com along with some video streaming.

Craven has 278 Cup races on his resume with 17 top-fives and 41 Top-10s.

The 23-year-old Smith is running part-time in the Cup and Busch series this season.

He is sharing his Cup ride with veteran Mark Martin. Smith has run five Cup races without a top 10 as year. His average start has been 21.7 and his average finish has been 27.3. He is 48th in points with earnings of $503,676. Martin is 18th in points with seven top 10s in 14 races.

Smith is 16th in Busch series points with five top 10 finishes and three top-fives while running 17 of the 20 races.

Caisse wins, moves up standings

What can a win do for you in the points standings of the Busch East series?

Sean Caisse of Pelham, N.H., who runs for the Andy Santerre Motorsports team, moved up seven places after winning the Pepsi Racing 100 at Thompson International Speedway Saturday night.

Caisse’s second win of the season moved him from 12th to fifth in the points, 196 points behind leader Joey Logano.

Caisse started on the pole and led all but two of the 108 laps. Cherryfield’s Santerre is his crew chief along with being the team owner.

Caisse’s Santerre Motorsports teammate, Jeffrey Earnhardt, grandson of the late Dale Earnhardt, finished 14th to move up two spots into eighth place in the points. The 18-year-old rookie is 259 points behind Logano.

The PASS North tour ran a 75-lap feature on Saturday at Thompson International Speedway with Turner’s Ben Rowe registering his first win of the season and first ever victory at Thompson.

Parsonsfield’s Trevor Sanborn was second and Turner’s Mike Rowe, Ben’s father, was third.