New $40K-To-Win Showdown, Star Speedway Return Highlight PASS Schedule Drop

In a region that trades on tradition and legacy, expecting big changes for the next season’s Pro All Stars Series calendar can be a fool’s errand. But New England’s premier sanctioning body for Super Late Model racing found a few ways to keep the schedule fresh.

PASS unveiled its plans for 2024 shortly after Thanksgiving, releasing schedules for its flagship PASS North Super Late Models, the supporting PASS Mods, and the developing New England Supermodified Series.

A few details for the coming year have yet to be firmed up, but even with the changes at hand, traditionalists will be more than appeased.

A quick glance reveals a PASS North schedule very similar to last year’s: sixteen events, a continued relationship with the American-Canadian Tour, a heavy focus on Oxford Plains Speedway and White Mountain Motorsports Park, races at two of New England’s fastest ovals, a home-track finale, and August’s 51st running of the Oxford 250, the crown jewel of Super Late Model racing in the Northeast.

The most eye-catching feature is one of those six dates at Oxford, the track that has served as PASS’ home base since 2013.

Billed as a “Celebration of America” in conjunction with the Independence Day holiday weekend, PASS is staging a new marquée event. The two-day card is headlined by a 300-lap Super Late Model showdown on Wednesday, July 3, paying $40,000 to win. The distance and the purse overshadow the Oxford 250, long touted as the richest single-day Super Late Model race in the United States.

Oxford Plains Speedway always factors heavily into the PASS schedule, having served as the series’ home base since the 2013 season. (STS/Jeff Brown photo)

Aside from a $10,000-to-win NESS feature, no other scheduling details have been confirmed for the two-day event. To maximize fan attendance, as well as avoid an extended evening program on a work night, Tuesday would likely be used for qualifying heats, with little spare room either night for support divisions. It’s a manageable plan for teams based in western Maine, though more complex for teams that have to plan on a two-night stay and likely a whole week off from their day jobs.

But PASS president Tom Mayberry knows that, above all, money talks. A $40,000 winner’s share of the prize kitty is a sure way to guarantee a packed paddock.

The other big change for 2024 reaches far beyond the Super Late Models. A three-year standoff between Mayberry and track owner Bobby Webber has seemingly been soothed, with Webber’s Star Speedway holding two dates on the PASS calendar.

Star, a popular quarter-mile oval in Epping, N.H., hosted sixteen PASS North events through the end of the 2019 season. But the relationship between Mayberry and Webber soured after a COVID-inspired cancellation in 2020. Star was off both the PASS and ACT Tour schedules the next year, and Webber withdrew his race team from ACT and PASS competition in the offseason.

Neither party has struggled without the other, but all parties are stronger together.

With the rift resolved, PASS will lease Star on June 22 for a PASS-ACT double-bill that includes the PASS Mods and NESS as well. The date pits PASS and ACT against Saturday support races for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the biggest race weekend of the year. But PASS has traditionally run at White Mountain Motorsports Park on NHMS’ July NASCAR weekends. The assumption is that hardcore race fans desire to “double-dip” between the two tracks, but the number of fans who actually do may be overstated.

NESS’ presence at Star highlights another benefit of the mended Mayberry-Webber relationship. Big-block Supermodifieds will also return to Star’s annual Star Classic after a one-year absence, with NESS sanctioning the main event of the three-day September show. A PASS North feature, accordingly, replaces the Granite State Pro Stock Series as the weekend’s main fendered attraction. And in turn, Webber’s own 350 Supermodifieds will be on the support roster for a number of events under the PASS-ACT umbrella.

Webber, whose father Bob purchased Star in 1980 to preserve Supermodified racing at the track, is one key player in the continuing path of the discipline in New England. Mayberry is the other. Resolving their differences is a win not only for Supermodified racing, but for racing in the Northeast.

Aside from those two changes, PASS’ plans for 2024 look fairly familiar.

After a conspicuous absence from last year’s Sunoco World Series at Thompson Speedway, PASS returns for 2024, giving the series two dates at Connecticut’s fastest oval. (STS/Jeff Brown photo)

The PASS North schedule formally opens on April 6, with the Super Late Models co-headlining Saturday action at Thompson Speedway’s Icebreaker. A week later, PASS and ACT pair up for their first combined event of the year with the 4th Northeast Classic at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Oxford’s first date of the year is a PASS-ACT doubleheader on April 28, opening the season for the venerable oval. Early-season recesses give teams some time to breathe between a May 19 date at WMMP, the first of three at the North Woodstock, N.H. quarter-mile, then a June 7 return to Oxford and the June 22 PASS-ACT show at Star.

Early July’s PASS 300-lapper is the third race at Oxford in PASS’ first seven events.

WMMP retains its mid-July feature, though without NASCAR action at nearby NHMS to schedule around, the race moves to a Sunday show this year. Two weeks later, PASS returns to Seekonk Speedway for the Bay State Summer Classic. Last year’s Bay State Classic was rained out, then ultimately scratched when a replacement date could not be found.

Oxford welcomes PASS back on August 4 for one final tune-up before the most iconic race in the region, the 51st annual Oxford 250. The race is scheduled for Sunday, August 25, with a full slate of support races and festivities to be confirmed in the months ahead.

A spacious summer schedule gives way to a backloaded autumn itinerary that kicks off with three quarter-mile bullrings in a row. The aforementioned Friday-night Star Classic feature at Star on September 13 leads into Fall Foliage Weekend at WMMP, moved back one week to accommodate PASS’ presence at Star. PASS will share the high-banked oval with ACT on Saturday, September 21. Two weeks later, PASS makes its lone stop at Thunder Road International Speedbowl on October 5, in conjunction with the track’s 62nd Vermont Milk Bowl.

The penultimate event of 2024 is the PASS-ACT co-sanctioned Sunoco World Series at Thompson, where PASS returns to the card after a conspicuous absence last year. PASS was not initially planned for the World Series, but when a non-points Super Late Model feature was floated to teams late in September, not enough entries were filed to secure the event.

Rather than employ the Milk Bowl-inspired scoring of last year’s season-ending PASS 400, it appears this year’s season finale will be scored as three separate points-paying features. (STS/Jeff Brown photo)

PASS’ 2024 schedule wraps up once again with the PASS 400 Weekend at Oxford on Saturday, October 19, ending the year with a three-week stretch run to the title. In a change from last year’s Milk Bowl-inspired three-segment show, this year’s plans are to contest three separate features, each scored and paid as a separate race.

That makes eighteen points events toward the PASS North Super Late Model title, the most ambitious schedule for a fendered touring series in the Northeast.

A nineteenth event on the calendar has been foreshadowed as well, with PASS releasing rules and an entry blank for a PASS Open 200 on the Friday night before the Oxford 250. PASS has frequently organized qualifying races for teams to secure a provisional starting position in anticipation of a major event; July’s Celebration of America has such a qualifier in early May as part of Oxford’s weekly schedule. Whether the Friday-night show will lock any drivers into Sunday’s Oxford 250 remains to be seen.

Off the schedule this year are Lee USA Speedway, where late-breaking negotiations resulted in a last-minute cancellation, and Spud Speedway, home of the Feed The County 150. Spud, buoyed by new ownership and expanded plans for 2024, lists a July 20th running of the Feed The County 150 on its schedule. While a free weekend for PASS, the date conflicts with the ACT Tour’s CAN-AM 200 at Autodrome Montmagny, and PASS and ACT have taken great pains to avoid head-to-head conflicts. Whether Spud will soldier on with its own event will surely be determined in the coming months.

PASS will also preview its Super Late Model season with a March road trip to North Carolina. Hickory Motor Speedway has hosted the Easter Bunny 150 since the days of the defunct PASS South series, and March 15 and 16 are earmarked for yet another Easter Bunny doubleheader.

The road trip to the “Birthplace of the NASCAR Stars” is not part of the PASS North title race, but will be scored toward the as-yet-unreleased PASS National Super Late Model Championship. Once a melding of the PASS North and PASS South schedules’ marquee events, the National Championship in recent years has been a subset of major Northeast events along with the Easter Bunny doubleheader.

Schedule announcements for PASS’ in-house support series, the PASS Mods and NESS, promise at least a dozen races each for the street-stock-derived open-wheelers and the big-block winged warriors. The PASS Mods schedule largely follows the PASS Super Late Model circuit with a single standalone date at Oxford in July. NESS’ itinerary has two true standalone dates, though the series will headline some events—like September’s Star Classic—on separate days from the fendered cars.

At the core of all three series, even the Super Late Models, is a measure of cost control. That seems at odds with an eighteen-race romp through the Northeast. But PASS is, by fiat, the premier touring series in its class. To some degree, quantity of events is a factor in that assessment, especially when judged against previous seasons and other series.

And for many fans, PASS’ Super Late Models serve as a spiritual successor to the halcyon days of the NASCAR Busch North Series, with second and third generations of the Busch North stars among PASS’ current ranks.

While ACT trades on legacy and history, PASS trades on prestige and presentation. Balancing that notion of prestige with New England’s working-class ethic is a challenge.

But it is a challenge that PASS welcomes year after year.

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