UNITY, Maine — Levant’s Shane Tatro and Center Conway, N.H., native Andy Shaw enjoyed a first-time experience Saturday, one that Hallowell’s Johnny Clark has enjoyed many times over.
Tatro and Shaw won for the first time ever at Unity Raceway and Clark returned to victory lane at a track that has been good to him over the years as the Pro All-Stars Series tour visited the track for the first time since 2007.
Tatro triumphed in the closest finish of the day, squeezing past Dan McKeage of Gorham on the outside in the front stretch to claim the 75-lap Sportsman feature by three-quarters of a car-length.
Shaw maneuvered past Freeport’s Jerry Harrison soon after a lap-22 restart and led the rest of the way, taking the checkered flag by five car-lengths over Harrison in the 40-lap Modified feature.
Clark collected his second PASS North Super Late Model triumph when he eased past Randy Turner of Readfield on lap 112 and withstood two late cautions to win by six car-lengths over Dresden’s Scott Chubbuck. Turner finished third.
Clark passed Turner right after a restart caused by a wreck involving pole-sitter and race leader Travis Benjamin of Morrill and four-time points champion Ben Rowe of Turner.
Rowe was trying to wrestle the lead from Benjamin on the inside but his car slid up the track and bumped Benjamin’s driver side panel which sent Benjamin’s car careening into the barrier in turn three.
Both were sent to the back of the pack for causing the caution.
“Ben did the same thing I’d been doing all day. When you hit a bump, it shoots you up the track and he accidentally got into [Benjamin],” said Chubbuck.
Benjamin said Rowe apologized to him right after the race and said the incident wasn’t deliberate.
“Ben said his car got a little loose,” Benjamin said. “I think he just overdrove it a little.”
Chubbuck started outside Clark on the final restart with 26 laps remaining but Clark pulled away.
“I thought [Chubbuck] had us. The outside was better. I don’t know. Somehow we were able to pull it off,” said Clark, who started 11th.
Chubbuck said he couldn’t make a serious challenge “because the car was getting pretty tight.”
Chubbuck also credited Clark and his crew for enabling him to have such a good finish because Clark’s crew and his crew teamed up to put a new clutch in his car between the heat races and the feature.
“I’ve got to thank them for that,” said Chubbuck.
Turner said he was hampered by gear troubles.
“Sometimes third gear would work and other times it wouldn’t,” said Turner. “And restarts killed us. It felt like we had a flat tire when we got going.”
Scarborough’s Kelly Moore was fourth and rounding out the top 10 in the 23-car field were D.J. Shaw of Center Conway, N.H., Rowe, Brunswick’s Chris Staples, Hollis’ Richie Dearborn, Wells’ Donnie Whitten and Adam Bates from Warner, N.H.
Benjamin finished 19th as his car wound up overheating. Bangor’s Gary Smith and John Higgins were 12th and 18th, respectively, and Glenburn’s Scott Alexander, who started on the outside pole, was 22nd.
In the Sportsman race, McKeage was poised to cruise home with his second win of the season when a caution flag came out on the last lap resulting from a Kyle Hart spin-out.
There was a green-white [two-lap] finish and Tatro started outside McKeage and was able to nudge past him coming off turn four.
Tatro and McKeage both thought since the caution had come out so late, the race was over and there wasn’t going to be a green-white checkered finish.
“We had [finished] 95 percent of the last lap. I thought the race was over but I guess it wasn’t,” said McKeage.
Tatro knew this was his chance to notch his first-ever win in three years on the tour and he capitalized.
“I couldn’t get by him on the bottom but the outside groove was really working for me today,” said Tatro. “I knew it would come down to racing hard. I had to let it all hang out and it paid off. He ran into me a little bit but we were both racing for the win. We’re real good friends. I love racing with Dan. He’s always stellar. It felt pretty cool to beat him.”
“I had been running the outside since lap one in practice. I just couldn’t get up off the corner on the bottom like I wanted to,” said McKeage.
However, he was happy for Tatro and recalled stealing wins from him in a similar manner before.
In 2007 and 2008, McKeage used late-race restarts to beat Tatro at Hermon’s Speedway 95 as he took advantage of the faster outside groove.
Rounding out the top five were Denmark’s Casey Martin, Windham’s Clyde Hennessey and Oakland’s Mike Landry.
In the Mods, Shaw was able to overcome Harrison and a left rear tire that was going flat to post the victory.
“The car was awesome,” said Shaw who rubbed tires with Harrison on the decisive restart.
“I had to keep [Harrison] in his in line. That’s the only way to pass here or you’ll get in big trouble,” said Shaw.
“He spun his tires and we banged tires. But that’s racing. That’s the way it goes,” said Harrison who absolved Shaw of any wrongdoing.
Waterboro’s Scott Grant was third and completing the top five were West Gardiner’s Gary Norris and Belgrade’s Dan Somes.
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