WISCASSET – Ben Rowe’s systematic domination of Sunday night’s Pro All Stars Series Wiscasset Raceway 150 could have served as the very definition of the expression “stinking up a show.”

If it hadn’t been so much fun to watch, that is.

The 28-year-old Rowe tightened his hammerlock on regional pro stock competition this summer with perhaps his most one-sided victory ever.

Only Tracy Gordon, Dale Shaw and Larry Gelinas remained on the lead lap at the end of defending tour champion Rowe’s fifth win in 10 PASS starts.

That doesn’t include the Turner driver’s triumph in the True Value 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway, the most prestigious independent race in the area.

“Jeff Taylor built us a great car. Our team gives me the equipment to do it, and I just drive the thing,” Rowe said.

His competition, meanwhile, was driven to distraction.

With the inaugural Big Dawg Challenge and its unprecedented winner’s share up for grabs at Wiscasset in October, even Rowe’s toughest and most experienced challengers wonder if he can be beaten.

“We have to get a lot better to win that $100,000,” said the runner-up Gordon.

“Our car wasn’t going to be much better than third place today,” said Shaw, who held off Gelinas for third in the only significant battle for position in the closing stages.

Rowe faced his only major obstacle off the track. After blistering the field with a lap of 14.863 seconds (90.830 mph) in time trials, Rowe pulled the 10th and final starting position in the re-draw prior to the 12-lap Dash for the Pole.

He rallied to fifth in that race, which gave him a starting position inside the third row for the 150.

Unlike June’s Coastal 200, when Rowe took his time sifting through the field before pulling away late to a half-lap victory, Rowe raced to the head of the class in the main event with a purpose. He took second from Shaw on a lap 12 restart and overpowered Johnny Clark to seize the lead on a lap 23 resumption.

Seven yellow flags slowed the race in the first 46 laps. Then came an uninterrupted, 81-lap stretch of racing, during which Rowe staged an exquisitely effortless clinic.

By the midway point, he put eight-time Oxford Plains Speedway champion Taylor a lap behind. Fifteen circuits later, Rowe inflicted the same fate upon his regionally famous father, Mike.

Wiscasset champions Scott Chubbuck, Peter Oakes and Kenny Wright came next, and when Clark spun while scrambling with Gelinas to stay in front of Rowe on lap 127, it left only the eventual top four finishers on the lead lap.

Hard to imagine that Rowe, who cut his racing teeth at OPS, not long ago considered Wiscasset a thorn in his side. When his PASS schedule permits, he races a Modified at the 1/3-mile coastal oval on Friday nights.

“When I finished second twice last year and got second in the first race this year, I said, ‘I’ve got to figure this place out.’ Running the modified has helped me a ton,” Rowe said.

Rowe, car owners Tom and Eileen Estes and chief mechanic Brian Burgess are running away with the Mechanical Services/Hi-Tech Insulation team’s second straight series title.

“Everybody said when Dale and Tracy came into the series this year that we wouldn’t be able to win four or five races,” said Rowe, “and we still have a ways to go.”

Scott Mulkern edged Kenny Wright for fifth, one lap down. Richie Dearborn, Gary Drew, Oakes and Alan Wilson rounded out the top 10 in a race that narrowly beat a fine mist at nightfall.

Pit notes: Dave St. Clair, the longtime Wiscasset track owner now leasing the track to PASS promoter Tom Mayberry, won his third straight Limited Sportsman feature in supporting action. OPS regular Phil Mitchell III also carried his third Street Stock checkered flag of the season at Wiscasset.

In other weekend action, Kelly Moore of Scarborough won the NASCAR Busch North race at Seekonk, Mass., and cut Andy Santerre’s lead to 11 points. Santerre experienced mechanical trouble and wound up last in the 24-car field.

Scott Dragon won the ACT Dodge Tour 100 at OPS, followed by Phil Scott and speedway regular Shawn Martin of Turner.

The tandem of David Higgins and co-driver Daniel Barritt won for the fifth time in six Sports Car Club of America ProRally starts, winning the Maine Forest Rally in Rumford and Oquossoc.

koakes@sunjournal.com

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