Shaw celebrates record 8th PASS North title, 11th overall PASS crown

Nearly lost in the shuffle of last Sunday’s PASS 400 victory lane proceedings was the absence of D.J. Shaw. Shaw, after all, had entered the afternoon with a commanding lead in the Pro All Stars Series North points race.

Had protégé Gabe Brown, second overall in the season’s three-races-in-one finale, stolen the championship from his former boss?

But after the segment and overall winners were feted, Shaw’s team returned to the frontstretch, Shaw in street clothes, for a quiet championship celebration.

The on-track mood could be subdued, though, because Shaw’s record with the Maine-based touring series speaks quite loudly on its own.

Shaw capped off a winning season across the Northeast with his record eighth title in New England’s premier Super Late Model touring series, his third straight PASS North crown.

But the Center Conway, N.H. veteran, the son of 1994 NASCAR Busch North Series champ Dale, always wants more. And as his team pushed his car back to their hauler, he sorted through his sorrows about the day’s battle before celebrating the victory in the war.

“It seems more bittersweet this year,” he said. “Somber, I guess.”

The offseason brought significant changes to the Dale Shaw Race Cars stable. Brown, who made his move to stock cars under the wings of the Shaw family, struck out on his own to start his own setup shop, Factory 47. But Brown was also one of the Shaws’ only full-time employees, leaving a winning chassis fabricator shorthanded.

Evan Roy, one of Oxford’s weekly SLM stars, joined the Shaw operation full-time. Shaw’s father Dale increased his shop presence, with a notable absence: in order to focus on his health, the elder Shaw kicked a long-time smoking habit.

The Shaws refocused their competitive energies, too. Last year, the team started a full-time Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour program alongside its full-time PASS operation. Shaw had already won two ACT titles at the wheel of a customer’s car. But the challenges of preparing and competing with two different cars, often on the same day at the same track, were taxing.

Meanwhile, Speedway 95 was renamed under the ownership of Ricky Craven, signing a long-term name rights deal with Shaw’s sponsor. Now called Speedway presented by Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, the Hermon, Me. oval announced its own six-race slate of Pro Stock races, three in conjunction with the Granite State Pro Stock Series, a common extracurricular haunt for the Shaw team on PASS off-weekends.

Shaw reduced his ACT schedule for 2026, adding the full slate of Darling’s Pro Stock Series races at Speedway instead. The team could manage a single platform most of the year, while also running fewer single-day doubleheaders.

The touring focus remained with PASS, where Shaw competed full-time in 11 of the prior 14 seasons. Back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025 tied Shaw with Maine veteran Johnny Clark, with seven crowns a piece.

Shaw started the year in victory lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, winning the Northeast Classic and joining his father as a NHMS winner. A second major win came in July’s Celebration of America 300 at Oxford Plains Speedway, PASS’ home base.

Shaw backed up his wins with 14 total top-ten finishes and no finishes worse than 13th all year, completing all but one lap.

That lap came in the VoteReady.com 200, the long third segment of the PASS 400 and the final event of the year.

Understandably, Shaw was dissatisfied with his run Sunday afternoon. “Today didn’t go great,” he said. “We were just kind of average, and then we got the lucky dog there when everybody else pitted. Literally every car in the field got tires except for us. Probably would have been better off to just not take the lucky dog at that point, and try to race our way back on, like a few others did.”

Instead, Shaw fell a lap down under green again and had to pit under a subsequent caution.

“I don’t even know where we ended up,” he lamented. “Just felt off today, and a little disappointing way to end the season at Oxford. We started off just like we ended last year, battling for wins, and right through the [Oxford] 250, we had one kind of hiccup before the 250, and felt like we got it back before the 250. And then today, we were good yesterday, good this morning, went out for the heat and just didn’t really have good balance. Kind of just inched our way back to where we started. We weren’t really making any gains.”

Long breaks between the segments gave Shaw a chance to correct course. “At that point [Ryan] Kuhn was kicking my butt,” Shaw said. “So I tried to do as much different that we had, as [Kuhn] there for the last segment, and then, just…”

He trailed off, discouraged that their potential was left largely unknown.

“Who knows what we had for a car,” he said. “It just didn’t work out situationally. We didn’t get the results to show or even know what we had. We started on 100-lap tires and we went to lap 180 on them, so I’m just glad they were holding air and the car still had fuel in it.”

Shaw finished a discouraging 13th in the final 200-lap segment. His tenth- and ninth-place finishes in the first two segments were only good enough for 11th overall. Clark won the 200-lap feature. Kuhn, who became a Shaw customer earlier in the season with a brand new chassis, took the overall PASS 400 win.

But the PASS 400 was one triplet of races in a seventeen-race season in which Shaw once again displayed the mettle his father Dale praised last year.

“Proud of the accomplishment, proud of my team,” Shaw said. “We don’t drop out of races. And that’s why we got this year, that’s why we were able to have a good cushion coming into this. Anything can happen this day, three races like that. Proud of the cushion we built, absorbed a little more of it than I wanted to, but all in all, it doesn’t matter.”

Shaw’s eighth PASS North championship broke the tie with Clark. Shaw’s eleven combined PASS championships—he clinched his third PASS National Championship at the Oxford 250 in July—breaks a tie with Ben Rowe. Shaw sits third on PASS’ all-time win list behind the two Maine all-stars.

Shaw clinched the PASS National Championship honors for the third time in August, and won the Darling’s Pro Stocks title at Speedway two weeks ago, giving him three championships in New England motorsports in 2026.

It’s good for Shaw personally. It’s also good for business.

“It’s great for all of us,” he said. “We couldn’t do it without Bar Harbor Bank & Trust behind us. That’s what we all set up as a unit to do here, is win the championships. I’m glad we were able to sew up the Speedway championship, and get this one done, too. The last few weeks, it kind of felt like nothing was going our way, it was kinda coming unraveled. But you know, we had a cushion. We weren’t really coasting, but the misfortune wasn’t taking us out of it.”

And before his car was even loaded in the hauler, Shaw was looking ahead to 2027. “Just gotta go back to work and get better speed in the cars for next year,” he continued. “I don’t think we need to look too hard with Kuhn. Kuhn had great speed [Sunday] and they’re a great asset for us. I’m proud of them. Brings a bright spot to end my season, at least, beyond the championship. As a company, it was still a great day, and just, we’ll get back to work and try not to have days like this next year if we’re in the same situation.”

A day before, Kaiden Fisher won the season-ending Haunted Hundred at Seekonk Speedway to earn his first Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour championship. Gabe Brown placed second in the race and second in the championship battle. Fisher’s cars are prepared by Brown’s Factory 47 operation, which won eight of the 14 ACT races this season as well as the Vermont Milk Bowl. While Brown is responsible for the setup and final preparation, the Factory 47 ACT chassis derive from Dale Shaw Race Cars.

And earlier Sunday afternoon, Jeremy Sorel clinched the Granite State Pro Stock Series championship at Claremont Motorsports Park in New Hampshire. Sorel’s distinct blaze-orange chassis, a former Josh King-owned car, is a Shaw chassis as well. With his own driver’s championship, Sorel delivered Shaw an indirect honor.

Dale Shaw Race Cars chassis had won all three major touring Late Model championships in New England.

“It was great, for sure,” Shaw said. “All three had great seasons, and this one came down to the last week, Jeremy’s did, Kaiden’s did. We try to put out quality pieces and we’re proud of our chassis customers.

“And hopefully we can do that same feat again next year.”

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