Trevor Sanborn of East Parsonsfield celebrates after winning the Boss Hogg 150 at Wiscasset Speedway on Sunday. Travis Barrett/Kennebec Journal
WISCASSET — Trevor Sanborn says he doesn’t believe in fortune telling. He may have to change his stance soon.
Sanborn, of East Parsonsfield, pulled away over the final 70 laps Sunday evening to win the Boss Hogg 150 at Wiscasset Speedway. The victory was his third in six starts with a car he purchased this summer.
“I don’t believe in that stuff, but she took me to have a medium read us back in the spring,” said Sanborn, 33, in reference to his fiancee, Nicholetta Ercolani. “(The medium) told me I’d have a skip in my car, and my other car had a skip in it for the first two or three races. She told me I would ‘exceed’ this year and keep doing it.
“It’s crazy, and I don’t believe in it – but look what’s happened.”
Whether it’s fate, divine intervention, or just a good bit of racing luck, Sanborn is happy to enjoy it.
“I haven’t had a car that good in 10 or 12 years,” Sanborn said. “I’ve raced at Beech Ridge and won some races, but that thing right there today at Wiscasset was on rails. It may not have looked it at the beginning of the race and it may not have looked it on restarts, but on the long haul, it was dominant.”
The race turned in Sanborn’s favor on Lap 122 after he emerged from a battle with 2019 Boss Hogg winner Ben Ashline of Pittston. Ashline and Sanborn swapped the lead five times between Laps 73 and 106, but soon after Sanborn finally cleared himself of Ashline, the defending champ’s car slowed on the exit of the .333-mile speedway’s second turn.
Ashline weaved his car back and forth on the track and limped around for several circuits before finally heading to pit road.
“Ran out of gas,” a dejected Ashline said.
Fuel became an issue because of a rash of caution periods – eight in all – in the first half of the race. Though the event went green for the final 74 laps with only 15 cars remaining from a 27-car starting field, all of the extra circuits under caution took their toll on teams with smaller fuel cells.
Ashline was worried early.
“Let’s just say that on every yellow, I rode around in high gear just to run the lowest RPMs I could go,” Ashline said.
Sanborn, too, was worried about how much fuel he might have in the car he purchased from Reid Lanpher – a two-time Oxford 250 runner-up before stepping away from racing at the conclusion of last season. By backing off his pace, Sanborn’s car actually got better.
“No exaggeration, I was literally quarter-throttle,” Sanborn said. “They told me I was going to run out of gas, so I was just babying it. It just rolled so good around the bottom, there was no stopping it.”
Mike Hopkins of Hermon, who won this race in 2017, finished second for the second year in a row. Hallowell’s Johnny Clark was third, one week after winning the Oxford 250. Hopkins and Clark finished a full straightaway behind Sanborn.
Wiscasset Speedway regulars Rodney Brooks of Thomaston and Kevin Douglass of Sidney completed the top five.
“They were racing hard, and I was riding early just to try and stay in the top five,” Hopkins said. “Me and Johnny kind of had the same plan. He’s proven, so if you play the game he’s going to play, you’re going to be there at the end. It was the same thing I did last year, and came up one spot short – just like I did last year.”
The biggest challenge Sanborn faced was reacquainting himself with Wiscasset Speedway. It had been 11 years since he last raced there.
“I didn’t know where to run,” Sanborn said. “The second (practice) I went out, and (five-time track champion Scott Chubbuck) was the car right ahead of me. I caught up to him and said to myself, ‘Chubbuck will get me around here.’ I got in his line and was better. I just went right around him.”
Ashline collected the $500 bonus for leading at halfway.
Adam Chadbourne of Woolwich finished 14th, good enough to earn a $1,000 bonus from Dave’s World. The company is owned by Dave St. Clair of Liberty, the former Wiscasset Speedway owner who the race is named for.
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