Ben Rowe has five Pro All Stars Series victories this summer.

Watching Rowe recently make an unequivocal mockery of a PASS event at Wiscasset Raceway left me with only one question.

How the heck did he not win the other five races?

Nothing against Scott Fraser, Tracy Gordon, Mike Rowe, Joe Bessey and Larry Gelinas, the quintet of drivers who have prevented Ben Rowe from making a complete season sweep.

Those short track titans would make any intelligent fan’s New England and maritime all-star team of the last 20 years.

The 28-year-old Rowe, however, is on another level at the moment.

He has the total package, at this point, from the best car (a Chevrolet courtesy of Jeff Taylor’s Distance Racing) to the best synergy with his crew chief (Brian Burgess) to the best team owners (Tom and Eileen Estes).

It adds up to a driver who’s faster, smoother and miles ahead of his competition at the moment.

Such was Rowe’s dominance of last Sunday’s race that the rumblings have begun.

Change the qualifying format. Scrap time trials.

Devise a system that requires the point leader to start deep in the field.

Make the most recent race winner start dead last.

And so it goes.

All of it nonsense.

Punishing achievement is no less unfair on the race track than it is in the real world.

Rowe shouldn’t be penalized

for the fact that many of his pursuers aren’t worthy to carry his Hutchens device.

Thank goodness PASS director Tom Mayberry is a

racer himself who understands the need to balance the fury

of a few fans with the best interests of his drivers.

For that reason, I don’t expect Rowe to face any management-inflicted handicaps in spite of his overwhelming success.

Luck-of-the-draw heat races wouldn’t be a bad idea. Then again, that’s precisely the format Rowe will face when he aims for the $100,000 payday at Wiscasset’s Big Dawg Challenge 400-lapper on Oct. 11 and 12.

Given the amount of time, money, personal sacrifice and every other intangible ingredient that the Mechanical Services/Hi-Tech Insulation team has invested in PASS over the last three seasons, the last thing they deserve is to start a 150-lap race with the driver staring down two dozen potential roadblocks through his windshield.

There’s nothing unusual about Rowe’s run of nine podium finishes (first, second or third) in 10 races.

Take a look at the center spread of schedules and race winners in any mid-summer issue of Late Model Digest.

Look over the results from the handful of independent series running similar cars with similar rules in other parts of the country.

You’ll find that Rowe’s stranglehold on the 2003 PASS is mild, if anything.

It’s no shocker when a series champion bats .750 or better in one of those other divisions.

Of course, racing is the only sport in which frequent winners are vilified, not worshipped.

Should Ben Rowe continue to dominate PASS while winning the premier pro stock open competition races at every other speedway in the region,

he can expect the same reac-tion his father, Mike, and car builder Taylor encountered when each made Oxford Plains Speedway his personal playground.

That is, lots of boos, accusations and cries for help.

On behalf of those of us

who are enjoying the show, I have only one word for what Rowe is accomplishing these days.

Wow.

Kalle Oakes is sports editor. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].