Beech Ridge Motor Speedway drivers often talk about how the point series battles come down to the final laps of the season.

Dave Farrington Jr. of Jay, is close to adding an addendum: Except in 2014.

Farrington, 22, has six consecutive top-five finishes, driving his No. 23 through the Pro Series pack. In that time he’s gone from his low-water mark of third in the standings to a 53-point lead heading into Saturday’s next-to-last race.

“We could almost wrap it up this week or we could make it more interesting for the fans next week,” Farrington said. “If we do our jobs and do everything we’re supposed to do, we’ll be fine and we’ll still get the results.”

Saturday’s racing begins at 7 p.m. The card also features an autograph session with each driver from the Pro Series, Sport Series and Wildcat divisions.

Farrington has 643 points. His closest pursuers, veteran Kelly Moore, 55, of Scarborough, and 16-year-old Reid Lanpher of Manchester, are tied for second with 590.

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The maximum number of points a driver can earn in one night is 65.

“Well, mathematically, yes, we have a chance,” said Moore, the 1995 Busch North champion. “Truthfully speaking, probably not. Dave has things in hand. At this point it’s his to lose and I don’t see that happening.

“He seems to be there every week and he deserves to win it.”

Farrington has 12 top-10 finishes – and seven top-fives – in 13 races.

His Hilltop Collision Center team had one night of misfortune when it blew an engine in practice July 1. In the points lead at the time, Farrington asked Scott Lanpher if he could use his son Reid’s backup car for the feature. The Lanphers agreed.

On paper the 11th-place finish in a borrowed car is Farrington’s worst finish. It also could be the most significant.

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“I figure out the points myself on a week-by-week basis when I get home on Saturday on an Excel spreadsheet,” Farrington said. “What I figured out that night was we fell from first to third but if we had not raced we would have fallen to ninth.”

Farrington, a 2009 graduate of Jay High, has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Maine and is pursuing a master’s in business management. He just took a job as a project manager at Bath Iron Works. He and his father claimed the race team as a small business in 2009 and it’s run at a profit the past two seasons.

Farrington also has experience closing out championships, albeit in go-karts. He started karting when he was 7. Two years later he moved up to the World Karting Association, racing up and down the East Coast and as far west as Indiana, winning 21 championships against the likes of the 2011 Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne.

Farrington made the switch to full-sized cars in 2008, racing pro stocks at Wiscasset. After one year on the ACT Late Model tour in 2011, the family-operated team selected a grab bag of races in different series at different tracks.

This year Farrington ran an April ACT race at Lee USA in New Hampshire and qualified for his fourth straight Oxford 250. But his early season success at Beech Ridge quickly made racing for the track championship and the separate NASCAR Whelan All-American track title, which he leads by 66 points, 2014’s best option.

The only thing to elude Farrington this season is a victory. He’s finished second four times at Beech Ridge.

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“We’ve had battles with Kelly Moore, Corey Bubar and Tyler King, and it always seems to come down to needing one more lap,” Farrington said. “What we keep saying now is we may not win the battle but as long as we win the war, that will be the ultimate goal.”

Steve Craig can be reached at 791-6413 or at:

scraig@pressherald.com

Twitter: SteveCCraig


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