Thorne claims Wiscasset title

Chris Thorne's 1st Late Model Sportsman championship at Wiscasset Raceway wasn't exactly what he had expected it to be.

"It's nice," Thorne said after finishing 4th in Saturday night's 30-lap feature for the division to claim his 1st title since winning the 2005 Super Sportsman championship at Unity Raceway in 2005. "I guess it would mean a lot more if more guys went after it. I think just Kevin Sherman (who finished 2nd) and I were the only 2 guys to run every week."

But running every week is part of winning a title in a weekly racing series. And, though Thorne only won 2 races and was beset by more than half a dozen tire failures this season, he continued to rally each week on his way to top-3 and top-5 finishes weeks after week.

If you're not there, you can't win a championship.

"That's part of it," Thorne admitted. "I mean, you have to be here every week to do that. And every week we had to come from the rear and we'd end up in the top-5, and then you'd start at the rear again the next week because we finished in the top-5."

Thorne won the season-opener to get off to a good start and spark some early-season momentum in his family-owned No. 17. But late in the summer, as his results began to taper off, he and his crew chief -- father Gary Thorne -- made a crucial decision. They dusted off Gary's idle car, slapped Chris' engine in it, and ran the No. 20 for the remainder of the season.

"I probably have to admit that I was a little nervous," said Chris Thorne, who also said that once they made the switch, they never looked back, never looked over his car to see where the problems came from. "We had a 70-point lead and it dwindled down close to 10 points. I had to do something. It was more embarrassing to run like that than anything else."

In the end, the decision won him a significant championship. With no plans to move up and run a Pro Stock, which will supplant the LMS division as Wiscasset's premier one in 2008, Thorne capitalized on the opportunity to be crowned the track champion.