Dan Trask of Chelsea races through the corner during the 25-lap Super Street feature last Saturday night at Wiscasset Speedway. Wiscasset Speedway photo by Peter Taylor
WISCASSET — The car nicknamed “Lois Lane” was averse to kryptonite last Saturday night.
Chelsea’s Maurice Young has won in virtually everything there is to drive at Wiscasset Speedway, amassing some 70 wins and a track-record seven championships in his career. In addition to his six Strictly Street titles, he also won a Late Model championship as a rookie in 2004.
But there has long been one division where Young has tried, and failed, to find the same level of success he’s been accustomed to. The Super Streets.
“I raced this class back in ’98, and it’s been my kryptonite,” Young said. “We named the car ‘Lois’ with the whole Superman theme. We really just wanted to get the monkey off our back.”
So when his No. 03 rolled into Wiscasset’s victory lane last weekend at the end of a 25-lap Super Street main event, it was an emotional moment for Young.
It was made all the more emotional for the fact that Young himself was not driving the car. Sidelined this season by health concerns, Young turned the wheel over to fellow Chelsea resident Dan Trask, a former champion in the division and a longtime friend of Young’s.
The victory snapped a four-year winless drought for Trask, whose last win came in 2015.
“To get into a car that is built by Maurice, and to have him be actually willing to let me sit in the seat, is more than words can say,” Trask said.
The first half of the season had not been a smooth one for the Young-Trask tandem. The car was involved in wrecks on two different occasions. In four trips to the track this season, twice it didn’t even make it to the feature event that night. A third time, the car failed to finish the 25-lap distance.
Saturday’s win marked the first time in 2019 that the car even finished a feature race.
“That’s seven body panels, four wheels, two track bars, a tie rod and a spindle later,” Young said. “It’s all part of the deal, I get it. But to come home (Saturday) in one piece with a win, we’re pretty excited.”
Bad luck seems to have followed the car. Young bought the chassis from Johnny Clark, a six-time Pro All Stars Series champion who suffered his own misfortune with it — having failed to finish a 250-lap race at Speedway 660 in Geary, New Brunswick, last September.
Young took ownership of the car following that event, and he spent the winter turning it into a Super Street-eligible machine. In an age when even support-division race cars are purpose-built and can be bought from chassis builders, Young still insists on doing all of his own work.
Young, 43, had some work to do Saturday night, too.
Trask relied heavily on Young during the race, first retaking the lead from Woolwich’s Bobby Mesimer early on and then holding off division point leader Mike Hodgkins of Jefferson to get the win. Young was Trask’s spotter, providing constant radio communication.
“He kept me calm,” Trask said. “He just kept telling me, ‘Little bites, little bites,’ and he guided me through the race. With these cars, you can’t see anything. The visibility is just horrible. Maurice described it as sitting inside of a box looking out. It’s really hard to see out of the seat. You’ve got to rely on your spotter. It’s so hard to judge how close somebody is.”
“He gives me his all. It’s a pretty good combination,” said Young, who expects to return to driving next season. “I’m a few years older than him, but we’ve had some pretty good shenanigans together. He was there in the garage helping me all winter, and when I couldn’t (drive) it, he was the first one I thought of.”
Trask was emotional in victory lane. The opportunity to race for Young, and to win again, was second only to his anticipation of Young’s own return to the track.
“I dug pretty hard. I was driving all I could to get back by (Mesimer), and thankful that I’ve got a car under me and a car owner that is the best of the best,” Trask, 40, said. “He got me started racing. He’s helped me all the way up through. You look 20 years ahead, and now I’m in his car. It’s just amazing.
“I know Maurice wants to be driving it. He’ll be in it again — and I’ll be here every week with him just like he is for me.”
It was fitting that Young built a car capable of winning in a class he hadn’t previously been successful in — especially so considering it came on the night Wiscasset Speedway celebrated its 50th anniversary season and honored more than 40 of its former champions during a lengthy intermission ceremony.
Young was one of those previous champions who took his walk across victory lane Saturday, and none of the others had as many titles as he does.
“I haven’t really thought about that yet, but that is very special,” Young said.
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