Justin Drake has driven Late Model and Super Late Model cars at virtually every race track in Maine, but his win Saturday night at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough might have been his most impressive.
Drake, of Burnham, won the 40-lap NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Pro Series feature. Drake led every lap after starting on the pole for his first career victory at the track. It was also just his second career Super Late Model win — the others came at a feature at Oxford Plains Speedway in 2014.
“I don’t know that it’s totally sunk in yet, to be honest,” said Drake, 26. “It feels really good though.”
This marks Drake’s first full season of competition at Maine’s only NASCAR-sanctioned track after a couple of years of making just a handful of starts on the .333-mile oval. Through three races, he’s eighth in the Pro Series standings.
“I’ve never started a season down there. I’ve never gone down there for opening day and started the season and run every race,” Drake said. “At a place like Beech Ridge, with the way they do the lineups and the (handicap) points, it’s a really important part of things. It’s pretty crucial.”
Drake started sixth in his heat race and won that to earn the pole for the feature event. He then held off multi-time track champion Dan McKeage of Gorham, stretching out his lead over the final 10 laps en route to the win.
His father, Ed Drake Jr. of Vassalboro, spotted for him Saturday night. Ed is a veteran of the Late Model ranks at Unity Raceway and Wiscasset Speedway.
“He usually doesn’t do that,” Justin said, noting he had a new chassis built by Distance Racing in Fairfield over the winter. “I don’t think he ever let off the ‘talk’ button the whole race — I knew every corner of every lap where Dan was. I had it in my mind that he was fading and my car wasn’t.
“I’m not saying I wish there had been a caution, because I wouldn’t want to change anything, but I think I still would have won had there been one and I didn’t get used up on a restart.”
He earned his spot in the first heat race, for the drivers lower in the point standings, after crashing in the previous race.
“I thought (getting the first win) would take a little longer, but by the same token, in week two I tried plowing down the backstretch wall,” Justin Drake said. “My father told me before the race, ‘You’re not going to have any better chance to win win one of these,’ and he was right.”
The plan now for the No. 09 team is to run the rest of the season at Beech Ridge with a goal of winning another race and finishing in the top five in the final point standings. Justin said the team is unlikely, at least at this point, to enter the Oxford 250 in August.
“If we could finish in the top five in points, that’s saying something to do that down there against that field of guys,” he said. “Wherever we go, if we don’t feel like we can win, there’s no sense in going. I don’t want to go and be a field filler. I want to be competitive wherever I go.”
LANPHER SECOND AT BEECH RIDGE
Back in early spring, Manchester native Reid Lanpher wasn’t sure how much time he’d be devoting to weekly competition at Beech Ridge this season. But the reigning track champion has made two NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts, a couple of Pro All Stars Series runs and a few weekly division starts at Oxford Plains Speedway. In the meantime, he’s run every Saturday night at Beech Ridge since the track opened its weekly program Memorial Day weekend.
With a win in the season opener, Lanpher is second in the Pro Series standings heading into this weekend’s Pro Series 125 — the longest race on the season schedule at Beech Ridge.
CLARK HEADS NORTH OF THE BORDER
Farmington driver Cassius Clark is having plenty of success in Canada this year.
Clark has won two of the first three Parts For Trucks Maritime Pro Stock Tour races of the season, including last weekend’s Nova Truck Centres 150 at Scotia Speedworld in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Unsurprisingly, Clark leads the series standings at the quarter pole.
Since teaming up with King Motorsports on a part-time basis in 2012, Clark has won five races for the team based out of Picou, Nova Scotia. Three of those wins were 250-lap events.
LEFT TURNS
The first race of the Pro Stock Triple Crown Series is scheduled for this Sunday afternoon at Unity Raceway. … Chris Thorne of Sidney backed up his Coastal 200 win at Wiscasset Speedway with a win in the Late Model ranks the next time out for his first 35-lap win of the season. Thorne leads the division by four points over Harrington’s Andrew McLaughlin. … Oxford Plains Speedway’s top division has produced eight different winners through eight races this season. Scott Robbins of Dixfield, a former Oxford 250 champion, won the 50-lap Super Late Model feature Saturday to move into second in the division standings behind Tim Brackett of Buckfield. … 2014 track champion Dave Farrington Jr. of Jay leads Beech Ridge’s Pro Series ranks through three races.
Travis Barrett — 621-5621
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TBarrettGWC
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