"It’s a good-paying race," said Williams, the PASS South Series points leader and a native of Boothbay, Maine. "I don’t know why any more southern guys didn’t come up. I think they’re kind of crazy not to come up and try a race like this."

Though Williams is atop the South standings, he said his year thus far hasn’t compared to last season when he lost out on the championship to Ryan Lawler.

"We haven’t really been running that well," said Williams, who has a provisional for the TT250 after winning at Hickory Motor Speedway in March, his only win of the season. "We’ve been struggling with the rear end, fighting that. Finally got it somewhat squared away, and now we’re just still testing a few things, because I think we were a little bit stronger last year with where we were at. I’d like to get back there."

Williams said the team was only marginally happy with their Saturday practice. He’s only run a few races in his career at Wiscasset, and said the track is nothing like tracks down south because it is so worn out.

"It’s hard to get a handle because it’s pretty rough," said Williams, who works full-time for Andy Santerre Motorsports in Harrisburg, N.C. "We’ll get it. We’ll work hard, and we’ll get it squared away."

* TWO DRIVERS WITH hopes of the Toyota Tundra 250 were dealt serious blows during early-afternoon practice on Saturday at the track.

The No. 8 team of Farmington’s Cassius Clark was forced to pack up and head home to replace an engine, while former PASS Outlaw Late Model driver Mike Harnish’s engine expired forcing him to the sidelines for the remainder of the weekend.

Clark had a new setup under the car that provided the speed he was looking for, but it trailed a smoky cloud that intensified with each practice run on Saturday. Originally, Clark thought it was just some oil left in the pipes from the run last weekend at Scotia Speedworld – but the plumes of smoke were much worse the second time around, prompting onlookers to wonder where the fire was.

After the first hour-long practice of the weekend, Clark said the team was working to find what was wrong with the engine but was far from pressing any panic buttons.

"The car was pretty good, really,"Clark said. "But we’ve still got tomorrow, too, and we’ve got a crate motor we can put in it if we have to."

The team did, in fact have to put that crate engine in, after discovering that the valve springs broken last week in Halifax were not repaired. Clark ran that crate motor in the Ray Haskell Ford 125 in May at Wiscasset and ran in the top-5 most of the day with that.

* BEN ROWE SAID that his team made some wholesale changes to its setup prior to the Atlantic Cat 250 at Scotia Speedworld last week and is running better now than at any point early in the season.

"I’ve been saying all year that (teammate Trevor Sanborn’s) car was better than ours, but we just struggled with it. Last week at Halifax, during a practice day, we just sat around – we were sick of banging our heads against the wall," Rowe said. "I just tried to explain what was going on, and we started to try some other stuff, the only things we hadn’t tried. I think we’re starting to narrow it down.

"Here, we’re decent. I’m a little free off, but that was the first time out for everybody this week. We’ll let it get rubbered up, let it cool off later and then try it."

Rowe also said that even with such a large purse being offered, it’s important to remain mindful that this is a points race at Wiscasset.

"It’s too bad it’s a points race for us, but I look at it the same," Rowe said. "We want to win every race there is, whether it’s 30 grand or five grand to win.

"During the race, you can’t make stupid mistakes because it is a points race, but I try not to, anyway. But when you come down to 20 to go, you see where you are and start to take your chances. But that’s what you do every week, anyway."

* JOHNNY CLARK’S NEW car was fastest in Saturday’s first practice... Matt Lee was forced to change the transmission in his car.

Posted at 12:05 a.m. by TBarrett