Dave St. Clair doesn’t expect to win Sunday’s Coastal 200 Late Model race at Wiscasset Speedway.
“But I will be the most popular driver out there,” said St. Clair, the 74-year-old Maine Motorsports Hall of Famer.
That’s because St. Clair will again be racing against his grandsons, defending champ Josh St. Clair and his brother Ryan. Another grandson, Ashton Reynolds, will race earlier in a 30-lap Strictly Streets feature.
Racing begins at 2 p.m. with a 20-lap Roadrunner and 50-lap Modifieds along with the 30-lap Strictly Streets preceding the Coastal 200.
“It’s a ton of fun to race with the kids,” said St. Clair, who is also in the Wiscasset Speedway Hall of Fame. “They treat me pretty good, and I treat them pretty good. We have a lot of fun.”
Josh and Ryan are the sons of St. Clair’s son Puncin, who was a former racer himself. Ashton Reynolds is the son of St. Clair’s daughter, Tammy.
St. Clair has been racing since 1965.
“I should have outgrown it, I guess. But I haven’t,” said St. Clair. “I’ll probably do it until I’m 80 and see what happens after that.”
The Coastal 200 began in ’93 or ’94 according to St. Clair, who used to own the track with his wife, Sandra.
His best finish was a fifth in 2014 when his grandson Josh won it.
“I was leading at lap 118 last year but I had to drop out because of a fuel problem at 131,” St. Clair said.
He will be driving a 10-year-old Chevy Camaro with a new engine in it. He drove that car to two wins in 40-lap races in 2016 but hasn’t won in it since.
“It won’t be the fastest car out there. But it goes pretty good,” said St. Clair, who has the nickname Boss Hogg.
His car will be steady and, unlike a lot of the other cars, it won’t slow down toward the end of the race, he said.
“I would like to finish in the top 10. I would love to win it. But it’s probably not going to happen,” St. Clair said. “I’ll be happy if I finish the race. If I do, I’ll burn the tires off the car. It’s all about entertainment. A lot of people don’t understand that.”
He said winning the Coastal 200 requires drivers to stay on the lead lap, be patient and have a lot of luck.
“You can get taken out not by your own doing,” he noted.
He has raced once this season, finishing seventh in a 40-lap race at Wiscasset after starting 13th in the 20-car field.
Grandson Josh will be one of the favorites with wins in the 2014 and 2021 Coastal 200s to his credit. Ben Ashline won back-to-back races in 2018 and ’19, Andrew McLaughlin was the 2017 winner, and Chris Thorne took the checkered flag in 2016 after Dave Farrington captured it in 2015.
The winner will pocket $5,000, with the second place finisher taking home $3,000 and the third-place driver earning $1,500.