Green-White-Checker

ON SITE: Thrill of victory, agony of defeat for Joey Doyon

Charles Barkley made waves years ago by saying he was not a role model.

On Friday night at Unity Raceway, Joey Doyon tried hard to be the best role model he could – but felt as though he may have misled the young drivers looking up to him. Perhaps he should adopt the old adage ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’

Despite being the central figure in an early accident that wiped out nearly half of the contenders at Unity Raceway, Doyon rallied to win the 50-lap Late Model feature, his first Late Model win at the facility.

ON SITE: Brad Bellows and the Midnight Hour

The minutes click ever closer to midnight, but we’re still a long way from wrapping up here at Unity Raceway.

A long way – and it’s as though someone lost the GPS on the way to wherever it is we’re traveling. We’ve had ANOTHER DELAY FOR A BLACKOUT, and we’re hauling cars out of the dirt embankments here like it’s some kind of sadistic Easter egg hunt. The cars, of course, and not the eggs, are the brightly painted ones.

In case you were wondering.

ON SITE: Santa Claus brings a gift to Unity Raceway

Maurice Young is here. Santa Claus is here. And there’s a new PT Cruiser for one of the Fernald boys.

This is not your typical Unity Raceway.

I know this, of course, not because Santa and Maurice are here, but because for the first time since I started covering Unity a few years ago, I was stopped and asked where my credential was.

ON SITE: Grab a video, the motor's running

The "Rambo" poster on the wall isn’t for the original film, although you can never be too sure here.

I mean, who knew that honest-to-goodness video rental stores still existed? Then again, this is the only town in central Maine where I dare leave a laptop computer sitting on the backseat of an unlocked car.

I think Unity Variety and Video across the street from Unity Raceway is one of the – oh, I don’t know – about 100 or so reasons I just love this little place. Man, every time I feel like I can’t think about another stock car race (maybe you heard, but the Oxford 250 weekend just wrapped up about 12 minutes ago), this place rejuvenates me.

ON SITE: We're getting wet. Will get wetter later. More at 11.

Welcome to Oxford Plains Speedway, where I finally found a reason to watch Mini Stock racing.

Of course, doesn’t this guy know they’ve got a much more appropriate division for him at Unity Raceway? Heck, they’ve got an actual ‘Monster Mini’ class there. If I was this guy’s marketing director, I know where I’d tell him to race.

Mostly I think of these things because it’s been raining here for the last 2 hours, and it looks as though it might not stop until sometime in late August. I’m no weather man, of course, but I know what yellow and red mean on a radar screen.

ON PIT ROAD: Cups, combinations and curious decisions

It's Thursday 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...

* I"M HEARING THAT there will be "fewer" big races on the Wiscasset Raceway schedule in 2009.

The track is expected to do away with many of the automatic qualifiers for the Street Stock and Sportsman Nationals events in October, races held as part of the season-ending championship weekend for PASS at Wiscasset.

Dave St. Clair won't go back to Wiscasset Raceway

There are a lot of new things going on with Dave St. Clair.

He's got a clean-shaven look. He's got his first win at Unity Raceway in a long time.

And he won't be going back to Wiscasset Raceway.

ON SITE: It's finally over -- both the night and Brad Bellows' streak

It finally ended, and not a minute too soon.

Literally.

At 11:59 p.m., Mike Wilson put the Mini Stock win in the record books -- officially putting the wraps on a 10-division night of racing. While most people were already sleeping, Mark Dodge did the unthinkable, returning from 2 weeks off to end Brad Bellows' long Sportsman division winning streak.

In a feature shortened to 25 laps to account for the late hour, Dodge rolled to the caution-free win. That snapped Bellows' win streak at 8 races, including the first 5 of this season.

ON SITE: Dave St. Clair visits Unity's familiar victory lane

Dave St. Clair has turned so many laps in his long racing career at Unity Raceway, he knows that there's more than one way to get around the tight .333-mile oval.

On Friday night, St. Clair put that knowledge to good use, passing Deane Smart with 3 laps to go and then holding on to win the 25-lap Late Model feature.

"These young fellas have all kinds of time to win races," St. Clair said. "My time is running out."

ON SITE: Headlights would help at Unity Raceway

In the interest of keeping with our retro theme here -- "That's the night that the lights went out in, well, Unity." Maybe we can move the tiki torches over to turn 2.

We've been in a delay since 9:10 p.m. at Unity Raceway. Upon the completion of the 1st of 2 Wicked Good Antique Racers features, 4 banks of lights running through the track's 2nd turn and down the backstretch went dark.

Track officials are in the process of changing breakers.

ON SITE: We're rapidly losing control over here

What in the name of great googily-moogily is going on around here, anyway?

Unity Raceway operating manager George Fernald Jr. is dressed up like a fruit, Steve Perry of Mainely Motorsports is twirling a hula hoop around his, uh, 'ample' midsection and they're giving away pool noodles and bikini tops adorned with flower petals.

Seriously, I think I just found something worse than fireworks at the race track.

ON SITE: Beach bums crawling all over Unity Raceway

Don't look now, but Unity Raceway just stepped back in time about 3 decades or so.

They've got The Beach Boys blaring on the public address system. They've got the Wicked Good Antique Racers out on the track. And, most importantly, of course, the pits are jam-packed for the first time in years and there are actually people in the stands -- with more filing in as we write this.

It's as if George Fernald Jr. really is bringing in a "new spirit" at Unity, and he's doing it by going old school.

BREAKING NEWS: Unity Raceway eliminates Thursday night program

Unity Raceway will move to one night each week.

On Sunday, track manager George Fernald Jr. made the announcement to combine Unity's "Thursday Thrillas" entry-level program with the regular Friday night racing, effective beginning this coming Friday night, July 4th.

Fernald said the decision was purely a financial one.

ON SITE: Frank Moulton earns 1st career win

When Frank Moulton's car popped out of gear in turn 2 a few laps from the finish, he was understandably "freaked."

After all, the 18-year-old Late Model driver had yet to win a feature race at any level since turning 13, and he'd lost some in pretty dramatic fashion. While leading a race at Speedway 95 late last season, his car exploded into fire in the closing laps.

On Friday night at Unity Raceway, the bad luck finally bit somebody else.

ON SITE: Checking in with The Manager

The kid says he's "like the manager here," and, frankly, who am I to ask questions? Then he tells me his "grandparents technically owned the place" and I got real suspicious.

I've seen cop-and-robber movies where the perp gets less of an interrogation than little Nicholas Nason Ferreira gave me when I got to the Unity Raceway press box.

Nicholas tells me he's all over the place, then he questions what the laptop's for, whether I'm listening to music on it and what the Vegas line is on the New England Patriots going 16-0 in the regular season again.

ON PIT ROAD: Economics, economics and, well, economics

It's Thursday 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...

* MOMENTS AFTER FINISHING 3rd at Unity Raceway on Sunday afternoon, Joe Allard talked about how excited he was to have the Late Model division back at the track for the 1st time since 2005. But he also talked about how expensive it had been just to get there, spending more than $400 on a set of tires to race his car.

Brad Bellows won his 2nd straight Sportsman feature earlier in the same afternoon and wanted to issue a challenge to all the guys at Wiscasset Raceway to come on up and tackle the Unity oval this year. But with tire confiscation rules in effect at Wiscasset, it's asking a lot for support division teams to buy a brand new set of tires just to run 1 30-lap race without a commitment to a full season.

ON SITE: Smart move pays off

We're in the books, and Deane Smart will go into the books as the first Late Model winner in the new Unity Raceway era.

Smart led 24 laps to earn the $300 winner's check, beating out Scott Modery and Joe Allard in the 30-lap event. It was the first Late Model race at Unity since the Sportsman division was disbanded during the 2005 season.

Smart's fiercest competition came in a side-by-side duel with Modery -- Modery holding strong on the outside for almost 1/3 of the race as Smart nursed a lead no bigger than his front fender.

ON SITE: Brad Bellows continues to dominate

"Am I holding up the show?" Brad Bellows said while standing in victory lane after winning his 2nd straight Sportsman main at Unity Raceway on Sunday.

Holding it up? No, Brad, you're stinking it up.

Bellows led every lap against a light field of just 7 cars, beating Kris Watson by nearly a full straightaway. Ryan Robinson was 3rd.

ON SITE: Tim Robinson punches ticket to Nationals

Unity Raceway Mini Stock driver Tim Robinson won't have to worry anymore. Not that you get the impression he really was.

"The benefit of this is that now when I go down there again, I don't have to worry if I have trouble in qualifying," Robinson said after earning an automatic qualifying spot for the 4-Cylinder Nationals at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway next month.

Robinson bested Lewis Batchelder to win the 35-lap Mini Stock feature on Sunday afternoon. Robinson ran the nationals last year and finished 2nd and had already marked his calendar for a return trip this year.

ON SITE: Did somebody touch the thermostat?

Yeah, it's hot here at Unity Raceway, too.

Hot enough that it's kept some fans away, methinks. As heat racing gets underway, I can literally count on my fingers and toes the number of people sitting in the main grandstands. Attendance is only slightly better in the old-fashioned covered grandstands below me.

That being said, it looks as though they'll see a quick program.

There are just 6 Wildcats, 9 Pro-4 Late Models and -- the biggest surprise -- 7 Sportsman cars, which is half what they got for the starting field in the 108-lapper.