Green-White-Checker

Joey Logano 6th in Nationwide Series debut

Prior to Joey Logano's NASCAR Nationwide Series debut on Saturday, Denny Hamlin let everyone know that Logano's talent would match the pre-race hype.

After winning the Heluva! Good 200 at Dover International Speedway, Hamlin glanced up at the scoring tower in the track's infield and smiled. He knew he was about to cash in on the wager he'd made with some fellow drivers.

"I told everyone (Logano) would finish in the top-7, and he proved me right and wins me a little bit of money, which is good," Hamlin said of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate while standing in victory lane.

Rained out at The Ridge

Beech Ridge Motor Speedway became the 2nd track in Maine to succumb to nasty weather.

The Scarborough Track has canceled its racing card slated for Saturday night under the threat of more rain, including thunder showers.

The facility's Coors Light 100 for the Super Late Models has been rescheduled for next Saturday night.

Wiscasset Raceway rained out

After the carnage that obliterated last weekend's Coastal 200 day, local race teams will have an extra week to repair their machines in time to race again.

Saturday's regular racing card at Wiscasset Raceway has been rained out. It is the 2nd rainout of the season for Wiscasset, which lost opening day to wet weather in April.

The program will be made up on Sunday, Sept. 28.

ON PIT ROAD: Shortcomings, short races and short fuses

It's almost the weekend again. That means it's time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup with a spin around the dirt track at the end of the street. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks...

* SO, UNITY RACEWAY'S much-anticipated opening is just a couple of days away, and already I feel like the buzz is starting to wear off.

I say good for George Fernald for doing what's in his heart, for having the means to try and keep a place going that has meant so much to him for the last 3 decades or more. In racing heaven, he'll certainly have a seat at the dinner table.

But now that we're oh-so-close to the green flag on a season-opening 108-lap Sportsman event, I'm starting to worry about the reality of it all.

COLUMN: Joey Logano cut from current NASCAR mold

How is it that you already know who Joey Logano is? Because that's the way the NASCAR game is played these days, that's how. Logano has yet to turn so much as a qualifying lap in any of NASCAR's top 3 national series, but already he's treated like royalty.

Have we come to expect any less in this day and age?

Logano, who will make his Nationwide Series debut on Saturday at Dover, Del., may well prove to be one of the most talented race car drivers the sport has ever know. Or, he may be one gigantic dud that will leave the "experts" with egg on their collective faces.

FEATURE: Brad Hammond finds a new calling

His surname is synonymous with driving at Oxford Plains Speedway, but that doesn't mean that Brad Hammond wasn't open to new challenges.

Last Saturday night, Hammond found that there may be something just as rewarding as steering a car to victory lane at Maine's most historic facility: preparing a race car to make the turn to victory lane. Just 3 weeks into his first gig as a crew chief, Hammond had led 2nd-year Late Model driver Travis Stearns to victory in a 40-lap feature event.

Somehow, Hammond left the impression that watching his driver win was just as satisfying -- maybe more so -- than any of his own 16 career feature wins at Oxford.

NOTES: Long Coastal 200 day needs some fine-tuning

Even after sitting through one of the worst races I've seen in a long time, the Coastal 200 won by Bill Whorff Jr. on Sunday at Wiscasset Raceway, my feelings about the event haven't changed.

A $10,000-to-win race with the local guy in mind, the guy who does everything on his car himself, is a fantastic notion, one that has a lot of merit. Like Travis Benjamin said to me at one point during the day, motioning to family friend Seth Raven's pit stall, "This is the Daytona 500 for a guy like that."

And I love that idea.

ON SITE: Bill Whorff Jr. works overtime, wins Coastal 200

Bill Whorff Jr. has worked overtime both on and off the track at Wiscasset Raceway this year. On Sunday afternoon, he cashed his overtime check.

Whorff took advantage of a carefully thought out pit strategy and heavy attrition in the early going to win the Coastal 200 -- the biggest win of his racing career and first ever at Wiscasset. Whorff was one of only 2 cars to finish on the lead lap of the race which took nearly 2 1/2 hours to run and was marred by 19 caution periods.

Darren Ripley finished 2nd. T.J. Watson was 3rd, one lap down, and one of only 12 of 31 starters running at the finish.

ON SITE: Maurice Young crushes Strictly Street field

Maurice Young is one step closer to a $3,000 payday.

The 6-time Wiscasset Raceway champion thoroughly dominated the 50-lap Street Stock Nationals qualifier for the Strictly Streets on Sunday afternoon, leading 44 laps en route to the win.

Young started 3rd and was never challenged.

NEWS: John Donahue wins Thunder Road ACT race

John Donahue won one of the fastest races in American-Canadian Tour history on Sunday afternoon, beating out Scott Payea and pole-sitter Eric Williams to win the Mekkelson RV Memorial Day Classic 100 at Thunder Road. The True Value Modified Series has a 100-lap event of its own to run later this afternoon.

The ACT race was slowed just one time, on lap 71, and took less than 29 minutes to complete.

ON SITE: Mike Landry wins not-so-super Super Street feature

Don't you just love a long day made even longer by an hour-long Super Street feature? I mean, seriously, don't you?

It took more than 60 minutes to complete a race which I could have told you who would win after just a couple of laps. Mike Landry of Oakland, who is running at Wiscasset Raceway on a full-time basis this season after bidding adieu to Beech Ridge, took the checkered flag in an event shortened to 30 laps -- 5 laps shy of the advertised distance.

It was Landry's first win of the season in his new digs, and first of the former Beech Ridge champ's career at Wiscasset. Last week's winner, Shawn Austin, was 2nd with Brian Fortin rounding out the top-3.

ON SITE: Childs, Chadbourne will lead them to green

And we're underway at Wiscasset Raceway, where there are 31 Late Models here to run the Coastal 200 a little later this afternoon.

Had about an hour delay at the start of the program for "Operation Recognition," a ceremony honoring military personnel and war veterans in attendance today, but Bill Childs Jr. of Leeds, an Oxford Plains Speedway regular, and rookie Adam Chadbourne will start the 200 from the front row. We'll post the whole lineup in the CURRENT EVENTS section ASAP.

NEWS: Ben Rowe wins at White Mountain

After nearly winning in the season opener at Beech Ridge last month, and then finishing on the podium last week at Wiscasset Raceway, Ben Rowe finally landed where he wanted.

Rowe took the lead from pole-sitter Cassius Clark on a late restart and then held him off on a green-white-checkered finish to win the PASS North Series 150 at White Mountain Motorsports Park on Saturday night. Clark held on for 2nd.

ON SITE: It's wreckers-to-checkers for Travis Stearns

After nearly destroying his car in a violent crash a week earlier, Travis Stearns thought it would look cool just to hang some white body panels on the car with duct tape everywhere and bring it back to the track looking like that.

But crew chief Brad Hammond stopped him.

"No, I told him it would look cool to get it painted back up, decal the car and put our sponsors on it, just like nothing ever happened," Hammond said. "I told him if we went out there and won the race like that, then that would be cool."

It was. Very cool.

COLUMN: Will Coastal 200 survive beyond this weekend?

The Coastal 200 is at a pivotal crossroads.

Tomorrow's running of the $10.000-to-win Late Model race at Wiscasset Raceway will be the 2nd in as many years run under different ownership. Last year's race was a no-pit stop, lightly publicized event that attracted a relatively small field of cars and a small gathering in the grandstands. Sunday's version of the event has been much more heavily advertised, and the rules have been changed to allow teams to pit for both tires and fuel.

Car counts and grandstand attendance remains to be seen.

Can a Memorial Day weekend event make it in today's television world? Can the Coastal 200, even with a picture-perfect spring afternoon on the horizon, draw a crowd and produce the kind of racing that will prompt people to put the Indy 500 and the Coke 600 on the DVR?

ON SITE: Fired up for the pyrotechnics, baby

It's a tripleheader weekend for the Green-White-Checker gang this weekend, and it's leg 2 here at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Yes, I decided to come despite the fireworks display that's slated for the break between the Strictly Stock and Mini Stock features later tonight. By coming here, however, I did catch a break.

I finally discovered the 1 thing worse than fireworks: singing race fans. They're holding their own version of "American Idol" here tonight, giving the best set of vocal chords on the grounds a chance to win an air conditioner.

NEWS: Late Model class to return to Unity Raceway

The mission was simple: Keep Unity Raceway going.

In order to do that, George Fernald feels as though he needs to answer every phone call that comes in -- even if that call is from someone with an old race car in the garage looking for a place to race. On Saturday afternoon, during another lightly attended pre-season practice session at the track, Fernald met with the representatives of roughly a half-dozen race teams interested in having a Late Model Sportsman division at Unity.

The division will make its debut with a 30-lap feature paying $300 to the winner on June 8, one week after the track's opening day. The purse is contingent on at least 10 LMS teams making an appearance.

COASTAL 200: Chris Thorne in the title hunt

Chris Thorne just shakes his head and laughs when you ask him about his history in extra-distance races. And then he starts in with the list, every item with a title that comes straight out of the Seinfeld archives.

There's "The Water Bottle Issue." And then there's "The Shifter Rod," "The Flat" and "The Straight Rail Chassis We Can't Run Anywhere Else."

The chapter the defending Late Model champion at Wiscasset Raceway would like to add is that of "Biggest Payday" at the Coastal 200 this Sunday afternoon. At the very least, he has to be considered one of the morning-line favorites.

Is New Hampshire's Cup date in trouble yet again?

Bruton Smith just keeps on buying up race tracks, and with every purchase, New Hampshire Motor Speedway's hold on 2 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series dates each year loosens a little more.

Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI) agreed to a purchase of Kentucky Speedway on Thursday, giving Smith yet another track in search of a coveted and hard to come by Sprint Cup race. Already the schedule has 36 points races plus 2 exhibition races, the Budweiser Shootout and the Sprint All-Star Race.

Kentucky currently has not been awarded a Cup race by NASCAR.

REPORT: Lee Roy out at East Series

The Backstretch, the auto racing blog of the Hartford Courant, is reporting that Yarmouth's Lee Roy is out as the director of the NASCAR Camping World East Series.

In the report, NASCAR public relations representative Jason Christley confirmed that Les Westerfield has assumed the responsibilities of Roy's former post.

Roy had been the director of the East Series since 2001.