Auto racing: Kevin Douglass earns wanted win at Wiscasset Speedway
Kevin Douglass picked up what he was taken into consideration his first genuine Pro Stock win at Wiscasset Speedway on Saturday, and he high-quality described each his night and his season in a single quick sentence.
“It’s been a terrific 12 months so far, however a terrible year at the equal time,” Douglass said after the victory early inside the night, a make-up function from a June 29 rainout prior to the begin of the music’s regularly scheduled racing card.
The Sidney motive force had no idea simply how prophetic those phrases could end up.
After cruising to an almost seven-2nd margin of victory inside the first of the night time’s two 40-lap Pro Stock functions, Douglass never saw the finish of the nightcap. He turned into stuck up in a destroy just eleven laps into the second one forty-lap occasion to cease his night.
That race win went to Jamie Wright of Woolwich, who used a bump-and-run off turn four with laps final to struggle the lead from Newcastle’s Chuck Colby and win for the second time inside the closing three races.
“I attempted to hold again a touch bit till the very quit,” Wright stated. “I knew if I used up the entirety, in the direction of the give up I’d be sideways and no longer going everywhere.”
The early go out from race No. 2 value Douglass a golden opportunity to take a massive chew out of his deficit to cutting-edge point chief and reigning track champion Nick Hinkley, who himself bumped into hassle inside the opener and could simplest start and park in a borrowed automobile within the second. Douglass trails Hinkley now by using 28 points, unofficially.
The largest benefactor of the night time become Newburgh’s Chris Ryan, who completed 0.33 in both functions and sits simply 10 factors lower back of Hinkley for the factor lead.
Though Douglass has “won” three times now in Wiscasset’s pinnacle department, the song’s 2008 Mini Stock champion considered Saturday’s victory his first. Last season, he become stripped of his most effective win when he failed publish-race technical inspection. On June 1 of this season, Douglass inherited his first career Pro Stock victory when race winner Jeremie Whorff himself failed post-race tech.
Though he’s established to be a few of the division’s fastest all season after completing runner-up inside the championship standings in 2018, Douglass was happy to peer all of it come together on Saturday with an on-tune win.
Two fake begins on the preliminary green flag penalized the front row, with the pole-sitter Colby opting to retire from the event on the first lap. Joey Peaslee of Jefferson crashed hard into the flip one wall on lap 2, bringing out a nine-minute purple flag. Hinkley pulled off the track on the halfway mark, and Wright spun on the backstretch on lap 8 and exited the race with a flat tire handiest a couple of laps later.
Douglass, meanwhile, squeezed beneath Shane Lane for 0.33 on lap 5, breezed beyond Hinkley on the backstretch for the runner-up spot on lap 6, and one lap later drove across the outside of Kevin Morse for the lead he’d by no means relinquish.
“I needed to do a little work early,” stated Douglass, who has won this season. “The grass is smoked, so I’ve got to go trade the take hold of before the warmth race. I simply fed it to it, and it went. I needed to be half-throttle the relaxation of the race, so fortuitously there wasn’t anyone close to me and I may want to chill it to the end.”
Unfortunately, that grasp damage placed Douglass in a precarious position. He overlooked the heat race whilst making upkeep, forcing him to begin on the rear of the second race. That tune position left him susceptible to the type of incident he became ultimately accumulated in.
The Super Street magnificence additionally ran a makeup function with Woolwich’s Bobby Mesimer earning his first victory considering 2013, protecting off Mike Hodgkins of Jefferson after Hodgkins went from fifth to 2d over the very last 10 laps.
“It’s been a while,” Mesimer stated. “I took five years off and did the circle of relatives thing. I determined to come back returned this yr.
