WISCASSET — To say Cory Creamer has done everything there is to do at his home track isn’t to say that he’s won every big race or a number of championships across a bunch of divisions.
No, Cory Creamer has literally done everything there is to do at Wiscasset Speedway. The 37-year-old from Randolph has competed in spectator drag races and enduros, interviewed race winners in victory lane on the track’s public address system, worked as part of the cleanup crew on race nights, lined up starting grids in the pit area and even driven the pace car.
Now, though, Creamer can add the one thing he’s always really wanted on his resume — racing in Saturday night competition at the track. Creamer is running a part-time schedule in Wiscasset’s Super Street division this season, and for someone who grew up playing with matchbox cars in the dirt out behind the grandstands at the .333-mile banked race track, it’s still sinking in.
“I remember watching in the grandstands and saying, ‘Those guys are so fast. I could never imagine competing with them ever,’ ” Creamer said last weekend after finishing ninth, nearly half a lap behind race winner Mark Lucas. “The goal is just to come out here and have fun with it, maybe be the only guy that races that still just has fun with it.”
A DJ by trade whose summers are usually filled with wedding dates and special events where Creamer supplies the party, he’s blocked out three Saturday nights this season for racing his car. Not coincidentally, the car he ended up with came via a trade, where he traded his DJ services at a wedding for a race car.
Because his career is so dependent on summer weekends, finding time to race is hard. But Creamer got a taste of it last summer when Zac Poland let him wheel his Super Street in a race at Wiscasset, and from there he was hooked.
Suddenly, all the behind-the-scenes tasks he’d gladly taken on at the speedway after graduating from Morse High School in 1999 didn’t measure up.
“After that, I just had to buy one,” Creamer said of his first full-speed laps. “I had to get into this. Even if I only race four times a year, I’m still going to have the car that’s mine. And if I wreck it, I’ll put it out back until I can fix it.”
How happy is Creamer to have his current opportunity, even if the car itself isn’t yet close to contending for wins in the Super Street class?
Last Saturday night, while riding around in eighth-place in a 10-car field, Creamer was simply turning laps and staying out of the way of everybody else. When Michael Harrison spun to the infield in turn two all by himself and pulled up onto the track, he drove straight into the driver’s side door of Creamer’s No. 30 Chevrolet — tearing sheet metal off the car from nose to tail and sending Creamer to the pits for repairs only a handful of laps from the finish of the 35-lap race.
Where most would have been steaming mad, climbing from their car and surveying the needless damage in front of them, Creamer was smiling.
“It was all about seat time for me and learning the car. Every lap I definitely learned something new — ‘I can’t get in that hot next time’ or ‘I can’t hit the brakes that hard,’ ” said Creamer, who plans to race again in September. “It’s just inexperience. He’s another new driver in the class, too. Not that I have any more seat time than anybody else, but it happens. What are you going to do? I’ve got a month before it has to be ready. I have great friends who will help me fix it. I’m not worried about it. I walked away, and that’s all that matters.”
Pofoke (pronounced “Po-folk”) Racing is an homage to those in Creamer’s family who came into racing before him. His grandfather, Sonny Mackenzie, was a mechanic on several race cars at Wiscasset in the late 1980s, when Creamer would play with his matchbox cars and fall asleep on the wooden grandstand slabs. His grandmother, Helen Mackenzie, offered Creamer money toward his race car, and he allowed her to put whatever she wanted on the rear quarterpanels — lucrative advertising real estate often reserved for a team’s biggest sponsors.
The number 30 was the number of Creamer’s uncle, Butch Holmes, when he raced.
“We grew up pretty poor, so this was the only fun we had as kids, because we had an uncle that raced,” Creamer said of his introduction to Wiscasset Speedway. “My grandfather and grandmother, they lived in Alna, and they spent a lot of time here. My grandmother always said that she was the po’ folk in town. She had a license plate made that said ‘Pofoke.’
“She really wanted to help with the car… and she donated money I didn’t want to take. I said we’ll put ‘Pofoke Racing’ on it, and it was kind of in memory of my grandfather who passed away and for her.”
Creamer comes by his love for Wiscasset Speedway honestly. It is anchored by the nostalgia of his family’s involvement when he was just a boy, and it’s blossomed as he’s made lifelong friends in the pit area and poured his own energy into helping the track through its third owner in the last 15 years.
“Why?” Creamer asks, repeating the question. “The love. I grew up around this place. These guys devote their lives to doing this, and they do it every weekend on a shoestring budget and they can be competitive.”
Creamer might not be competitive just yet, but he’s got all the other bases covered.
And he’s doing it with a smile, just as he did when he was a pit announcer or part of the on-track cleanup crew.
Travis Barrett — 621-5621
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TBarrettGWC
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