The record book will show that Fred Astle Jr. of North Westport, Mass., won the pole for the inaugural New England Toyota Tundra 250 at Wiscasset Raceway.
The stories, however, will reveal a lot more.
Astle, the Super Late Model points leader at both Seekonk Speedway and Thompson International Speedway, survived a wild opening heat race at Wiscasset on Sunday afternoon to win the pole position for the $30,000-to-win feature. On the caution-filled 15-lap race’s third restart, all four leaders ahead of Astle were taken out in a wild frontstretch wreck.
It left everybody scratching their heads about what had happened, and forced Albion’s Matt Lee and Falmouth’s Scott Mulkern to the sidelines for the remainder of the day.
"I saw someone spin Randy Turner from the lead, saw Scott Mulkern get sideways and then my car was totaled in the fronstretch wall," said Lee, who was running in the fourth and final transfer spot at the time. "The caution before, Mulkern clearly dumped Gene Green and they put (Green) back and I asked the flagman if they were going to put Mulkern to the back, too."
Lee put the burden of blame on Ipswich, Mass., driver Steve Knowlton – who made contact with Turner coming off of turn 4.
"It (expletive) sucks. The PASS drivers – I don’t know who drives that No. 10, but they’re supposed to be the professionals. What the (expletive)? We’re already qualified. There’s no need to drive like that."
Astle said he had heard from fellow Massachusetts driver Rick Martin that the heat races would be wild. And he was ready.
"He told me you don’t want to bring that (new) car there the first day, and he was right," Astle said. "Actually, it was about getting in the race today. And once we got in the back of the pack, it was about getting to fourth. And then when it all came unglued at the front, it was the Astle family glue that stuck together."
Turner was as surprised as anyone after drawing the pole for the first heat of the afternoon and leading most of it before being spun. He rallied to finish fourth and make the main event, behind Astle, Knowlton and Scott King.
"I’m not sure (what happened)," said Turner, of Unity. "On those restarts, (Knowlton) was leaning on my right rear quarter panel. I didn’t appreciate it, but some guys race that way.
"We were leading the race. I don’t know if (Mulkern) got us, or (Knowlton) just turned too hard. I don’t know. It was just a wild race."
Travis Benjamin, Corey Williams, Derek Ramstrom and Chuck LaChance also won heat races.
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