March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Seekins ready to defend title Unity to try for 3rd time to open season

Duane Seekins of Stockton Springs is refreshed from a two-week vacation to Florida. Now it’s back to business.

The business at hand is defending his back-to-back late model-pro stock championships at Unity Raceway starting Sunday afternoon when that stock car track will try for the third time to open this season. A muddy infield and parking area have resulted in two postponements.

Racing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday’s feature race will be a 95-lap Coca-Cola Late Model/Pro-Stock Spring Bounce worth $1,200 to the winner.

Seekins, the terminal manager for C.H. Sprague and Sons, will again be driving his Chevy Lumina which, he said, has a new engine and a new body.

Defending his championships won’t be easy, he said.

“It should be more intense this year,” said Seekins. “There’s new management and more rookies in the field. There are a lot of things changing at the track. I don’t know if they’re good or bad.”

Ralph Nason Jr. will manage the track owned by his dad, Ralph Sr. Dick Whitney used to manage the track for Nason and, for the past three years, he and wife Donna leased and managed the track.

Seekins expects his primary competition to come from Albion’s Steve Nelson and Winslow’s Jimmy Burns.

“They’re very good cars to race with. We go at it pretty hard,” said Seekins.

The elder Nason said a few new wrinkles will be featured at the track this year, including the first of four Maine Legend Cars races this weekend and a $20,000 point fund. The leaders of the five classes will split $10,000 midway through the season and again when the season ends.

All drivers will start fresh after the middle of the season.

The overall points winner will win a cruise for two.

Racing in six divisions will be featured Sunday.

The Maine Legend Cars races, according to Nason, involve “1930 to 1940 vintage replica cars that have 1100cc motorcyle engines. We want to give the fans something different to watch.”

Elsewhere this weekend, Wiscasset Raceway will hold regular racing at 2 p.m. Saturday including two 35-lap late model-pro stock features, and Sunday racing includes afternoon events at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway and Oxford Plains.

Maine’s Ricky Craven has spent two days taking instruction at the Skip Barber Driving School in Sonoma, Calif., to prepare for the hilly, winding Sears Point Raceway that will host next weekend’s Save Mart Supermarkets 300 NASCAR Winston Cup race.


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