Doiron awarded PASS Chummy Brown Memorial 144 win in photo-finish thriller

After a nail-biting battle to the checkers in Friday’s Pro All Stars Series Chummy Brown Memorial 144, timing and scoring gave the nod to a jubilant Derek Griffith over Joey Doiron.

But long after the winner had been celebrated, officials were still poring over all evidence at hand to confirm the victor.

And ultimately, Griffith’s .006-second victory on the scoresheet was reversed.

Doiron prevailed by a whisker instead to claim his second PASS North win of 2025, and his fourth PASS-sanctioned victory this season.

“It was a close finish,” Doiron said moments after receiving the first-place trophy. “It was a good race for the fans. It could have gone either way.”

Star Speedway’s signature Star Classic Weekend kicked off Thursday night, but Friday night’s thriller shifted the weekend’s momentum into high gear. The biggest stock car event of the 18-division weekend, Friday’s PASS North Super Late Model feature was rechristened this year to remember the late Kennison “Chummy” Brown, a fixture at short tracks in southern Maine and the grandfather of defending race winner Rusty Poland.

Poland, whose first-ever PASS triumph came in a car owned by speedway owner Bobby Webber, Jr., was racing for longtime backer Mike Bryant Friday night, while Poland’s winning ride was piloted by reigning Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour champ Gabe Brown in his second start for Webber this year.

Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. and Jeremy Davis led the 20-car field to green for the 144-lap bullring brawl, with Renfrew jumping out to an early lead. A multi-car incident on lap seven dealt race-ending damage to sophomore Brandon Varney and minor scuffs to Brown and local racer Bobby Baillargeon.

Dan Winter spun a few laps later, nearly ending the evening for Doiron, who ran into Poland as they slowed for Winter’s stalled car. Poland’s car was unaffected, while Doiron ducked into the pits to assess their front-end damage. Renfrew charged to the point on the restart, with Davis holding off Sylas Ripley for third.

The evening took a dramatic turn on lap 24 when Ryan Green’s throttle stuck entering turn one. Green’s car rocketed off the banking and down into the woods off turn two, drawing a red flag for the track crew to tend to the hard-luck Mainer.

Green exited the car under his own power, but was tended to by paramedics while his car was extricated from the gully.

The race resumed just over a half-hour later. Davis was quickly punted from the top five, with D.J. Shaw powering to second. Renfrew continued to show the way, but Griffith and Brown began marching forward. Griffith chased down Shaw for second, easily making the pass on lap 50.

Shaw dropped back as Griffith closed the gap to Renfrew, jumping to the outside line with sixty laps in the books. Griffith needed just two circuits to clear Renfrew before driving off with the race lead.

Brown, on a mission to put Webber’s car in his own track’s victory lane, made quick work of Renfrew just past halfway. Doiron had patiently picked his way to fourth and was pressuring Renfrew for third when Renfrew spun, bringing out a caution on lap 102.

Poland, meanwhile, had clawed his way to fifth and slipped past Doiron coming to the caution. Poland lined up third for the restart, but the field stacked up in his mirror as the green flew.

On a lap-114 restart, Brown shuffled Griffith to the middle, opening the door for Poland to sneak underneath. Poland was relentless, clinging to second as Trevor Sanborn brought out another yellow on lap 119.

Renfrew had rebounded from his spin and surged to second on the restart. Deeper in the field, contact between early frontrunner Ryan Kuhn and Baillargeon collected Scorzelli and drew yet another caution. With 20 laps to go, Brown lined up alongside Renfrew for the restart.

But as the field thundered into the first turn, neither of the young guns backed down, with both Brown and Renfrew spinning. Poland dodged the calamity, emerging as the leader as the yellow flag waved once again.

Suddenly, Poland was poised to take advantage of a gritty second-place battle for the second year in a row.

Poland escaped Doiron and Griffith on the restart as the two raced for second. Brown and Renfrew, on the other hand, were not done with their disagreement. Brown shoved his rival through turn two, spinning Renfrew to the backstretch apron. Brown’s car snapped around and tagged Renfrew’s left front, ending the polesitter’s night once and for all.

Poland and Griffith drag-raced to the green flag with nine circuits remaining. This time, Griffith made the outside stick, rallying back to inch into the lead ahead of Poland. Poland clung desperately to the inside, but as Brown spun once again in turn four, Griffith edged ahead at the line, securing the lead for a restart with four to go.

Griffith got the jump on Poland, and Shaw followed up with a light tap, shooting Poland into the third groove and ending his Cinderella story. Doiron advanced to second, finding a line under Griffith and closing under his rear quarter with two to go.

Griffith and Doiron took the white flag side by side, Griffith leaving Doiron just enough room on the inside while Doiron kept from forcing Griffith too high. Griffith held the advantage in turn three, but Doiron powered off the inside off turn four, coming to the line in a dead heat.

Electronic timing placed Griffith six thousandths of a second ahead at the finish, and while officials scrambled for evidence to confirm the win, race control awarded Griffith the victory. Griffith celebrated with wife Emily, newborn son Daxton, and his Louie Mechalides-led crew. Doiron accepted his runner-up finish in stride.

Doiron admitted after the race that he had not escaped the lap-12 skirmish unscathed. “The car didn’t drive that good,” he said, “but it was a messy race, so you just gotta keep fighting, and trying to gain every little bit you can gain. That’s all we did, just tried to claw our way back through, and the car wasn’t as good as it was earlier.

“But at the end I felt like the two best cars probably all day ended up 1-2. So there’s not much more you can ask after that.”

Doiron, who raced Brown’s spare car to a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour Fall Foliage 200, was diplomatic about his expectations as he watched the leaders trade paint.

“Just trying to be heads-up so I didn’t wreck myself,” he said.

Griffith echoed the self-preservation sentiment.

“Star’s a rough little race track, and on top of it…” He paused. “There’s just quite a bit of, uh…rough, rough racing out there. So I just tried to bide my time, and I kind of got run over a couple times, and lost the lead after getting run over.”

After years of campaigning a secondhand car purchased from Garrett Hall, Griffith debuted a new Fury chassis earlier this summer. In only its third race, his new mount’s full potential was on display.

“This thing’s awesome,” he said. “I think if our Oberg valve didn’t have issues, or the fuel filter, whatever was going on, I don’t even think it’d have been a question. I rolled around the top, and it was just so good. It wouldn’t have even been close, I don’t think. Whatever restart it was breaking up on me, I thought I was running out of fuel, and I was, in a way.”

But Griffith was guarded about taking credit for the win. And after a prolonged review, officials reversed the initial call, giving Doiron his second PASS North win of 2025 and his second in three events this year at Star.

Doiron and his family were still at the track, allowing the Berwick, Me. veteran to revisit what he had thought was a narrow defeat.

“I’ve finished second in this race, I think, for the last four years, so it felt good to finally get a win on the Classic,” he said. “Excited to have my car on the T-shirt next year.”

Doiron was the runner-up in last year’s Star Classic PASS feature. The Granite State Pro Stock Series sanctioned the Star Classic’s stock car preamble in prior seasons; Doiron finished second in 2019, 2022 and 2023, with a victory in 2021.

Griffith was relegated to second, a strong performance yet a disheartening outcome after the team’s frontstretch celebration.

Lost in the late-race drama, the sixteen-year-old Ripley threaded through traffic to finish third. Shaw was fourth, with seven-time PASS champ Johnny Clark rounding out the top five.

Poland slipped to sixth on the final run, a bittersweet result for the defending winner and late-race leader. Outside polesitter Davis was seventh, with Dominic Curit and Bobby Therrien the last two cars on the lead lap. Brown finished tenth, a lap down, after his late-race fireworks.

In PASS’ first points-paying race in a month, Shaw maintained his lead over Clark for the PASS North championship. An early exit for Sanborn was offset by troubles for the rest of the title challengers, but left them at a bigger deficit to the two racers who hold a baker’s dozen of PASS championships between them.

Doiron’s “outlaw” campaign, meanwhile, continues to pay dividends for him and for car owner Peter Petit. Doiron has two wins in PASS points races, plus non-points victories in March’s St. Patrick’s Day 150 at Hickory Motor Speedway and in May’s Memorial Day Clash at Oxford Plains Speedway. A GSPSS win at Lee added to the accolades, while the team stunned onlookers with a third-place finish in their first visit to Michigan’s Berlin Raceway in August.

With major events at Lee and Oxford in the next month, Doiron and Petit Motorsports still have plenty of work to do before the season’s end.

Unofficial Results
PASS North | Chummy Brown Memorial 144
Star Speedway, Epping, N.H.
1. (73D) Joey Doiron
2. (12G) Derek Griffith
3. (09R) Sylas Ripley
4. (60) D.J. Shaw
5. (54) Johnny Clark
6. (44P) Rusty Poland
7. (09D) Jeremy Davis
8. (5C) Dominic Curit
9. (5X) Bobby Therrien
10. (47) Gabe Brown
11. (18S) Michael Scorzelli
12. (72) Ryan Kuhn
13. (82) Bobby Baillargeon
14. (00) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
15. (5VT) Pat Corbett
16. (44) Trevor Sanborn
17. (81) Dan Winter
18. (63) Kyle Salemi
19. (93) Ryan Green
20. (12V) Brandon Varney

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