WISCASSET — Conventional wisdom suggests that consistency is the path to a stock car racing championship.

Andrew McLaughlin scoffed at conventional wisdom this season at Wiscasset Speedway.

McLaughlin finished third in Saturday night’s final 40-lap feature of the season, and in doing so the Harrington driver won his first career Late Model championship in the most dominant of fashions. McLaughlin won a division-best three races this season and finished in the top five in all 11 races he ran at the speedway this season.

“To start in the back with all these guys every week, there’s so much respect in this field,” the 33-year-old McLaughlin said. “The guys that you’re racing and how much talent there is out here, it will probably take a few days to set in just how good of a season it was.”

McLaughlin was left to wonder how you would draw up a better season than the one he just finished.

“Win every race?” he joked. “I started out the year just planning on traveling around and racing as many races as I can. Halfway through the year, I was like, ‘I want to win a championship.’ To be the champion at this track, it feels so good. It’s crazy. It’s amazing.”

The championship was clinched for McLaughlin only six laps into the feature, when Jay’s Logan Melcher retired to the pit area. That left only 20 cars on the track, eliminating any hope four-time champion Chris Thorne of Sidney had of pulling off a miracle upset on the final night of the season.

Thorne finished sixth Saturday night.

Daren Ripley of Appleton won the Late Model feature, his first at Wiscasset, over Will Collins of Waldoboro. McLaughlin had them both in his sights over the final two laps before running out of time. On a night when he only had to turn a few ceremonial laps to win the title, McLaughlin decided limping to the finish was no way to close out such a memorable campaign.

“We came here to win tonight,” McLaughlin said. “If I’d have had a caution or 10 more laps, I think I could have. This thing was absolutely awesome to drive tonight.”

Josh St. Clair of Liberty and Frank Moulton of Burnham completed the top five.

For the fourth time in the six-year history of the event, a Hewins won the Amsoil Dominator Strictly Shootout at Wiscasset.

Kurt Hewins of Leeds led all 50 laps en route to his second career win in the featured event of the season for the Strictly Street division. Hewins held off a hard-charging Jonathan Emerson of Sabattus for the $1,000 victory, with five-time champion Maurice Young of Chelsea crossing under the checkered flag in third.

“My car changed after about 10 laps,” Hewins said. “It started getting looser, but it was still pretty good. It still had drive off. It was a good race. I had a lot of fun.”

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded for Hewins, who started on the pole in the 24-car field. He had his car in cruise control — with brother Kyle Hewins settled into second from the outside of the front row — for the first 40 laps before Emerson suddenly became a factor in the race. On lap 42, Emerson became the first driver to seriously challenge the top two.

One lap later Kyle Hewins, himself a two-time winner of the Shootout, lost control of his car on the backstretch, opening the door for Emerson to make a bid for the lead.

“I wasn’t too worried,” Kurt Hewins said. “I just figured I’d stay on the bottom. It takes a pretty good car to go around you if you’re decent, so we just stayed on the bottom and pecked away.”

“I could not go on the outside, so I figured I was going to try to work him on the bottom,” said Emerson, 17, who finished second in the event for the second straight year. “He did a good job protecting the bottom. I got a little aggressive, kind of bumped him a little bit, but that’s just racing.”

Young was hoping the two leaders would tangle while racing for the win.

“I wished I could have been there pushing the issue. That’s what I was wishing for,” said Young, who struggled in qualifying, finishing sixth out of seven cars before lining up 16th for the feature. “But for what we went through to finish third, we’ll take it.”

In other racing, Jake Hendsbee of Whitefield won his second straight Outlaw Mini championship at Wiscasset. He unofficially beat Jimmy Childs of Leeds by 12 points for the title after entering the weekend facing a four-point deficit, pending final technical inspection.

“It feels pretty good,” Hendsbee said after finishing second to Brent Roy of Vassalboro in the final 25-lap feature of the season. “It was really worth it. We worked our butts off to get this.”

Nick Reno of West Bath won the 30-lap Modified feature. Adam Chadbourne of Woolwich had clinched the division championship prior to the start of racing Saturday. It was his first career Modified title and third championship overall at Wiscasset.

Travis Barrett — 621-5621

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TBarrettGWC

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