A South Paris man has been charged with arson in connection with a 2007 fire that destroyed thousands of automobile racing collectibles that belonged to Bobby Walker, the former announcer and publicist at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Steve McCausland, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety, said Sunday that 34-year-old Robert G. Conrad has been charged with arson in connection with the March 13, 2007, fire that destroyed Walker’s Country Club Road home.

At the time, Walker was recovering from a stroke at a local rehabilitation center. “The hard part right now is just, why me?” he told a Portland Press Herald reporter in 2007.

Walker’s home was never rebuilt. Walker, who had suffered five strokes before the fire, was the announcer at Oxford Plains Speedway for more than three decades. Strokes sidelined him in 2005.

Conrad, who works as a maintenance man, was arrested Friday night at his parents’ home in Oxford.

Conrad is being held at the Oxford County Jail, pending his first court appearance today.

McCausland said investigators got new information Friday while police were investigating another arson on an outside deck of a home on Jenny Lane in Oxford. That fire is still under investigation. No one has been charged.