Turner’s Mike Rowe was 15 when Hermon’s Speedway 95 opened.
Fifty years later, Rowe would love to repeat last year’s victory on Sunday afternoon when the Pro All Stars Series North 150 Super Late Model race highlights a busy day of racing that kicks off the track’s 50th anniversary season.
Practice for the PASS SLM cars and the other four classes will begin at 10:20 a.m., and heat races will start at 1:30 p.m.
The other classes include the PASS Modifieds, the Outlaw Super Series, the North East Mini Stocks and the Legends cars.
“I like [Speedway 95],” said Rowe, the defending PASS SLM North points champion. “If you don’t like it, you might as well not go. You have to have a lot of patience. If you get overanxious, you aren’t going to finish.”
Farmington’s Cassius Clark won the 2014 PASS race at Speedway 95 and was second last year.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Clark, the 2013 PASS points titlist. “It has been a good track for me.”
This is the fourth PASS North race this season, but Clark will be making his season debut.
He has been driving for King Racing of Pictou, Nova Scotia since the middle of last season and he said they intend to just run longer races such as 150-, 250- and 300-lappers.
Morrill’s Travis Benjamin, the 2012 PASS champion, said he didn’t like Speedway 95 when he first started racing there.
“It was a one-groove track. But they have done a lot to improve the track. The inside lane is just as good as the outside lane,” he said. “Now it’s one of the best races of the year.”
Several years ago, Speedway 95 owner Del Merritt began applying a compound to the inside groove that gave it more grip and enabled cars to pass on the inside.
“You can go a lot better on the bottom now,” observed Clark.
He also said you need a good handling car, “and you have to stay out of trouble and be there at the end.”
“If you make a little mistake, you usually wind up in a dirt bank,” said Benjamin.
Benjamin is in his first year driving for Petit Motorsports out of Biddeford and said he has had a fast car only to get wrecked in the first three races.
“It has been frustrating. I’m working with a great group of guys, and I’ve had the best of equipment. We just need a little luck. Once we have a couple of good runs, it’s going to snowball,” he said.
Points leader D.J. Shaw from Center Conway, New Hampshire, has finished second and third in the last two Speedway 95 races and is among a long list of potential winners as is former Speedway 95 regular Mike Hopkins from Hermon, who is fourth in points.