Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Maine: HABS/HAER Photography

The sport of stock car racing quickly became immensely popular in Maine during the post-World War II years, and much of this popularity is due to the construction of the Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Scarborough, Maine. Constructed in 1949, it was the first purpose-built race track in the state, and continued to operate until the fall of 2021 when its sale was announced. In 2025 my colleagues at Sebago Technics contracted with me to conduct the Maine Historic Engineering Record documentation of this complex, including comprehensive HABS/HAER photography.

I did not grow up as a racing fan, but I found this a fascinating subject to research and write about. The track was built by Jim McConnell, a mechanic, lumber mill operator, and auto racing enthusiast, who purchased a tract of land in Scarborough that, in the nineteenth century, and housed a prominent horse racing track. McConnell built the one-third-mile oval track, originally a dirt track, using his own equipment and built the original wooden grandstand with wood from his own lumber mill. Beech Ridge Motor Speedway quickly became popular with its weekly races throughout the summer, and quickly spurred the creation of several other stock car racing tracks throughout the state, including at Oxford Plains, Unity, and Wiscasset.

From its beginning, Beech Ridge developed an intensely loyal set of racers and fans from the Scarborough area, who remained with the track even after it was paved in 1986. Although it was affiliated with NASCAR for several years during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the successive owners of the track continually emphasized their support for local drivers, and for the large and local set of fans who made Beech Ridge a staple for summertime entertainment. Since the track closed in 2021, fans of Beech Ridge have continued to promote its history, with a fantastic Facebook group run by Steve Pellerin, the track’s unofficial historian, whose support was crucial to the report that I wrote. It was an honor to document this track, and to make a small contribution to preserving its memory.