WISCASSET — If Chris Thorne never runs another stock car race, he’d leave the sport a happy man.
The Sidney driver recovered from a mistake in pit strategy in the final third of the race, rallying from the back of the field with a furious charge Sunday to win the Coastal 200 at Wiscasset Speedway.
It was the first Coastal 200 win for Thorne, a three-time Late Model champion at Wiscasset.
“If I never win another race at Wiscasset, I’ll be OK with that,” said Thorne, who collected $3,525 for his victory. “We’ve won a lot of races and we’ve won championships here, and now we’ve won the biggest race. We’re happy.”
Jeff Burgess of East Madison finished second, and 2015 winner Dave Farrington Jr. of Jay was third. Winterport’s Joey Doyon and Wiscasset’s Nick Hinkley completed the top five.
Burgess started on the outside pole on the 24-car grid and immediately took the lead at the drop of the green flag, staying at the point until he spun while running under a lapped car on Lap 67.
That spin handed the lead to Hinkley, who held the top spot through the halfway mark until Thorne worked past him on Lap 103. At that point, most of the leaders had yet to pit for right-side tires. All of the lead lap cars except Thorne pitted during a caution on Lap 135.
When another caution flag flew almost immediately on the restart, Thorne pitted alone and had to restart in ninth place, behind a total of 16 cars (including lapped cars).
“I thought I was in trouble,” Thorne said. “I wanted to stick to my plan. I wanted to wait (to pit) until 50 to go and no more, and I didn’t end up doing it. I figured I better not take any more chances.
“I didn’t think the whole field was going to pit then, but it all worked out.”
While Thorne was second-guessing his own pit strategy, Burgess was making his way back to the front following the Lap 67 spin and another incident in the first half of the race that left him with cosmetic damage to his left front fender.
By Lap 141, Burgess was back in the lead, with Thorne in fourth nearly half a lap behind.
Thorne’s big break came on Lap 185, after he raced his way into second place, 1.2 seconds off the lead. As Burgess came up on the lapped car of John Kalel in Turn 4, he ran into the back of the slower machine and got trapped behind him. He slowed considerably and Thorne dove to the inside – bursting through an opening between Burgess, Kalel and Jay Bailey, another lapped car running on the bottom side of the track.
From there, Thorne cruised to the win by more than three and a half seconds.
In earlier races, Shawn Kimball of Augusta won the 25-lap Outlaw Mini Stock feature, Mark Lucas of Harpswell won the 30-lap Modified feature, and Montville’s Bryan Robbins survived a caution-marred, 25-lap Strictly Street main event.
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