Unlike a lot of 16-year-old girls, Tasha Dyer likes to spend her Saturday nights at the steering wheel of her race car.

She’d rather drive around Beech Ridge Motor Speedway than chat with her Facebook friends.

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Tasha Dyer

“It’s a family thing, pretty much,” said Dyer, who lives in Arrowsic. “My uncle started me, and my grandfather pretty much funds the process.”

Her uncle, Mike Orr, also of Arrowsic, won the track championship in 2005 at Wiscasset Raceway. Her grandfather, Ed Orr, operates an auto body shop.

“My grandfather is the one that pretty much built the cars,” Dyer said. “He’s an auto body man, and he did all the body work.”

Dyer, an honor-roll student finishing her junior year at Morse High in Bath, is in her fourth full racing season.

This spring, after spending the past three seasons competing in the Teen Division or Mini-Stocks at Wiscasset Raceway, she began racing in Roadrunners, the introductory division on Saturday nights at Beech Ridge.

“This is my first time in a rear-wheel drive,” she said. “Everyone says it’s different but I don’t see any difference at all. I just drive it the same. I don’t think it’s any different.”

In her first two races at the Ridge, Dyer, who began driving race cars when she was 13, has finished seventh among 17 cars.

“I was more than satisfied,” she said. “I didn’t expect to crack the top ten.”

Dyer plans to make a career in auto racing. After high school she intends to enroll at NASCAR Tech, an automotive training center in Mooresville, N.C.

“They train you on how to work on NASCAR race cars, and they train you how to work on a pit crew,” she said. “If I can’t drive them, I want to work on them.”

Dyer already has some experience working under the hood of a car.

“Grampy puts me to work every day,” she said. “(It’s) pretty much the basic stuff like figuring out the tire sizes, the setup and changing springs, anything that needs to be changed. If I don’t work on it, I don’t drive it. That’s the rule.”

Dyer has enjoyed racing at the Ridge.

“The drivers are wicked nice,” she said. “They give and take. It was a pretty good experience.”

Dyer isn’t the only female in the Roadrunner Division. The others are Taylor Lampron and Nicole Timmons of Windham and Kari Thibodeau of Standish.

AFTER PULLING OFF back-to-back victories in the 40-lap Pro Series features at Beech Ridge, Trevor Sanborn of East Parsonsfield will head north Saturday to drive in the PASS North race at Speedway 660 in Geary, New Brunswick.

Sanborn, 22, will pilot Richard Moody Racing’s Super Late Model around the one-third mile paved oval.

Maine drivers expected to compete in the 200-lap event include three-time PASS North champions Mike Rowe of Turner and Johnny Clark of Hallowell, Kelly Moore of Scarborough, Scott Chubbock of Dresden, Joey Doiron of North Berwick and Donnie Whitten of Wells.

TOMMY RICKER of Poland made it two in a row, charging to the front last Saturday to capture his second consecutive Late Model feature at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Ricker, who started in the next-to-last row in the 21-car field, completed a pass on the outside of Jeff White of Winthrop.

White finished second and Tim Brackett of Buckfield was third.

The Oxford Championship Series continues Saturday night.

BEECH RIDGE will hold the Advance Light Pro Series 100 and a 50-lap final for the Wildcat Division on Saturday night.

Normally, drivers in both divisions race in 40-lap finals.

“The way the calendar fell this year, we didn’t have room to run these events on different weekends so we lumped them together,” said the track owner, Andy Cusack.

RAIN WASHED OUT racing at Wiscasset Speedway last Sunday, but the track will hold a full slate of events this Sunday to benefit the Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

In addition to regular racing, the track will run all of its Enduro divisions in one race.

Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:

pbetit@pressherald.com