Make that three drivers that ended up celebrating like they’d won the Pro All Stars Series race at Oxford Plains Speedway last Sunday night.
Wayne Helliwell Jr. and Joey Polewarczyk were both declared the winners of the H.P. Hood 150 at the track after PASS officials reviewed the race finish and declared it a dead heat. But Oakland’s Mike Landry, who finished third, felt as if he’d won, too, after posting his best career finish with the series.
“With the Sportsman car, I was used to winning,” said Landry, who had never finished in the top five in 25 career starts before Sunday. “A Top 3 in the Super Late Models is like a win to me. I’m really happy.”
Landry started eighth in the main event, a race he wasn’t even going to be in just 12 hours earlier.
“He texted me at 8:30 (Sunday) morning and said, ‘Let’s go do it,'” crew member Tony Pierson said.
Landry laughed and confirmed the story was, in fact, true.
“Racing a few times a year has hurt more than it’s helped,” said Landry, who made just his third start of 2016 — in any race, anywhere — on Sunday. “We’re building a house, and that’s really taking up all of my time and money. I don’t know if I’ll race again this year. This might have been my last race.”
He was one of four drivers to lead the race in the first 100 laps, having climbed all the way to second in just 28 laps. On lap 66, he took the lead from Manchester’s Reid Lanpher and held it until lap 84 when Polewarczyk grabbed it from him.
Landry’s No. 20 continued to hound Polewarczyk in lapped traffic and settled for third after a late restart.
It was only his second career Top 10 finish and first since finishing ninth at Star Speedway in Epping, New Hampshire early in 2015.
Landry won the Sport Series championship at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough in 2006, and he twice finished second in the final standings in the now defunct PASS Sportsman Series, winning five races on that tour from 2007-2010.
He made the jump to Super Late Models in 2011, running three full seasons at Beech Ridge while scaling back in the last couple of years to part-time efforts.
By far, this season is shaping up to be his least active — at least as a driver. He will not be racing the Oxford 250 at the end of this month, despite his breakthrough performance Sunday. Instead, he’ll be helping son-in-law Corey Bubar of Windham with his efforts in that race.
Landry said the work Jeff Taylor of Distance Racing did to his chassis over the winter was the biggest reason for Sunday’s success. That, and luck.
“I brought the car to Jeff over the winter, and he did a bunch of changes to it,” said Landry, who finished 25th in a PASS race at Oxford in April and 11th in a non-winner’s race in July. “This is our third time out with it here, and it’s been the best car we’ve had here. I think we got lucky.”
EARLY FAVORITES: Polewarczyk, of Hudson, New Hampshire and Helliwell, of Dover, New Hampshire, may have had to split Sunday’s Oxford win, but the two drivers stamped themselves as early favorites for the 43rd annual Oxford 250 on August 28.
Polewarczyk won the 250 in the final year it was a Late Model race in 2012 and finished fifth in 2015, while Helliwell led more than 100 laps in the event last season. Both are American-Canadian Tour Late Model champions who have taken some time to get adjusted to the Super Late Model cars.
“When we first started running Super Late Models, we definitely had our fair share of struggles,” said Polewarczyk, who won the PASS race at White Mountain Motorsports Park on July 23. “It’s been a lot of trial and error stuff. All the hard work is finally starting to pay off.”
“It was a group of things, and finally we got it all working together and it’s making sense,” said Helliwell, whose team, like Polewarczyk’s, struggled with getting a handle on Super Late Models at first. “Things that we found running ACT for so long, we tried to bring some of that over, because we’d had some success with Outlaw Pro Stocks with that same (setup). It just didn’t like that stuff.”
LEFT TURNS: Reigning Wiscasset Speedway champion Andy Saunders won the Boss Hogg 100 on Saturday night. It was the second consecutive win in the event by a driver from Ellsworth and Saunders’ third win of the season. … Part-time PASS driver Derek Griffith of Hudson, New Hampshire won the Super Late Model feature at Oxford Plains Speedway on Saturday. He became the 13th different winner in as many races at the track this season. … Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough ran six heat races and three features without incident Saturday night, completing an entire race card without a single caution flag. … The American-Canadian Tour is at Beech Ridge this Saturday night. PASS is off until August 12 at Lee (N.H.) USA Speedway.
Travis Barrett — 621-5621
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TBarrettGWC
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