Jeremie Whorff: An unlikely hero

I get the impression that Jeremie Whorff can't even believe that Jeremie Whorff won last year's TD Banknorth 250.

Ask him if he's got any experience in a Late Model, he tells you "not really."

Ask him if his PASS North Series season is going well, he tells you "not really."

Ask him if he thought he'd be in the 250 this year to defend his title, he tells you -- you guessed it -- "not really."

Even after winning the biggest race of his career last summer at Oxford Plains Speedway, Whorff can still float around in relative anonymity. Naysayers will tell you that he won the 250 because Kyle Busch and Cassius Clark blew up, because Mike Rowe and Ben Rowe met with misfortune, that there was so much attrition on the track the teams ran more than 100 laps under the caution flag.

But, Whorff also put himself in position for the win -- only days after telling a media gathering that he'd be thrilled if he could just make the feature, let alone win it. For taking the bull by the horns over the final half of that race, he deserves some credit.

"What the 250 did, it was a momentum builder for me," said Whorff, who only agreed to drive for owner Scott Fearn in this race last week. "I learned a lot of stuff that day and in the few days before that testing and everything like that. It really built me up to move on and go a little bit further than the weekly series at Oxford."

Even with Late Models taking center stage in the area's biggest race, Whorff isn't really sold on the cars. He's a Super Late Model driver at heart.

"I went toward the PASS tour, because the caliber of drivers is really huge," said Whorff, 23. "It's the best of the best that run in that PASS series, and I wanted to be involved in it and see how I could do."

For one day this weekend, he'll be involved with the best of the best in another arena.