November 22, 2024
AUTO RACING

Knox holds off Bowley for Unity Raceway victory

UNITY – They saved the best for last at Unity Raceway Saturday night.

Fairfield’s Shawn Knox and Canaan’s Bill Bowley took the street stocks restart on the 18th lap side by side and that is the way they finished as Knox took the inside groove to nip points leader Bowley by inches in the duel to the checkered flag.

“That was awesome,” said Bowley, who was behind the wheel of a 1984 Chevy Monte Carlo. “I liked that. That was good racing. It was pretty close.”

Knox, who posted his second feature win in three weeks, agreed.

“I figured it would be me and Bill at the end. I had a good car tonight and held on for the win,” said Knox, who drove a Chevy Nova.

Andy Turbovsky of Fairfield was third.

Twenty-three street stocks started the race.

The most fortunate racer of the evening was China’s J.J. Wentworth, who was seemingly en route to a third-place finish when leader Mike Hodgkins of Jefferson and Jake O’Brien of Jackson, who had been closing the gap, were involved in a multi-car collision with lapped traffic with three laps to go in the super sportsman class.

“Mike got tangled together with two cars he was passing and got spun around. I went to go outside him but he looped and came up the track [and hit me]. That’s racing,” said O’Brien, who was the points leader entering the race.

Wentworth conveyed his good fortune in claiming his first feature win of the season.

“Things just fell my way. I was very lucky,” said Wentworth, who was driving a Monte Carlo. “I was third and I didn’t want to push it because there had already been enough cautions. So I was going to follow Mike. If I got the opportunity [to pass Hodgkins] I was going to take it. But, if not, I was going to sit comfortable in third and get the car home in one piece for a change.”

Belfast’s Tony Faulkingham and Chelsea’s Jason Ellis finished second and third in the 12-car event.

Hodgkins suffered damage to his car and began the restart at the back of the pack.

There was very little drama in the 16-car pro stock race as Dean Fuller of Albion sailed around pole-sitter Scott Albee of Norridgewock on lap two and cruised to a comfortable second victory of the season.

Ellsworth’s Andy Saunders passed Albion’s Matt Lee with a couple of laps to go to wrest second from him. Lee took third.

“He had us all covered for sure,” said Lee about Fuller. “I was doing all I could to hang on for second but Andy ended up getting underneath me. I was glad to get third. We’ve struggled every race this year.”

Fuller credited Jeff and Butch Burgess and the work they did on his Monte Carlo over the winter with making his win possible.

“We wouldn’t be up here today if it wasn’t for them. The car is awesome. They helped us tremendously,” said Fuller.

Fuller added that his car was too loose in the heat race.

“But we closed up some stagger. That tightened her up and it worked pretty good after that,” said Fuller.

Saunders said, “Our car goes a little better than it did tonight. It looked like a lot of guys were struggling. I don’t know if it was the weather or we missed the set-up. The 04X [Fuller] went pretty good.”

In the mini-truck division, Starks’ Mike Radcliff won the 14-vehicle event after converting his Ford Ranger from two barrels to one barrel.

“I didn’t know how good it was going to go but it worked out all right,” said Radcliff.

Lawrence High School of Fairfield students Lance Chapman and Chad Dow were second and third.

In the mini-stocks division, Dixon Smith of Sidney came from 17th starting spot to beat Unity’s Matt Picard and Rome’s Seth Wills across the finish line in the 19-car division.

In the sport-fours, Fairfield’s Joe Ritchey was the winner followed by Starks’ Steve Radcliff and Canaan’s Rusty Ramsdell. There were nine cars in the class.


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