Joey Doiron races around Oxford Plains Speedway earlier this season. Contributed photo/Oriana Lovell
OXFORD — Imagine having the lead with only a handful of laps remaining. Imagine being on your way to your second Pro All Stars Series win of the season. Imagine being among the fastest cars on the race track, even when you know you’ve got suspension damage behind your left front wheel.
Imagine putting together this type of performance in the final major tuneup for the 49th annual Oxford 250 on Aug. 28, only to see it all go up in tire smoke when you are hit from behind and that certain victory turns into your worst finish of the season at Oxford Plains Speedway.
Now, imagine if you will, not being all that terribly upset about it.
Such was the case for Berwick driver Joey Doiron, the current Granite State Pro Stock Series point leader, after DJ Shaw nosed him out of the way to win last weekend’s Spencer Paving Group 150.
“I’m happy with how it turned out,” Doiron said. “Looking at it, we didn’t get wrecked when we got spun out. It’s still in one piece, so we’ll put it back together. We’ll come back in a couple of weeks.”
That Aug. 28 date is one that Doiron has had circled since the 2021 Oxford 250.
“All year, it’s just about that one race at the end of the month,” the 30-year-old Doiron said. “We’ve been close before, so we’ll try to put it all together.”
In eight career Oxford 250 starts, Doiron has a career-best finish of second, which came in 2013, his debut in the event.
He earned the pole for the 2016 Oxford 250, and he’s finished in the top five in each of the last three Oxford 250s having never started worse than sixth in any of those.
If that wasn’t enough confidence, Doiron has a win and a runner-up finish in the first two PASS races of the season at Oxford — in June and July, respectively. Had he held on for a podium finish Saturday night, he’d have an average finish of better than 2.0 going into the $25,000-to-win event later this month.
No wonder Doiron was able to put his disappointing night in the Spencer Paving Group 150 into perspective.
Drivers prepare to be introduced prior to the start of the 48th annual Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway on Aug. 29, 2021. Lee Horton/Sun Journal
“It’s just racing. Sometimes you’re on the wrong end of it, and (Saturday) I was on the wrong end of it,” he said. “It is what it is… We still had a good car in the long run.”
FOR THE FIRST time since the Oxford 250 returned to being a Super Late Model race in 2013 (after a seven-year run as an American Canadian Tour-type Late Model event), every lap is sponsored.
The track announced at the beginning of last week that all 250 laps have been sold, meaning that the race will once again pay $100 to the leader of every lap. If a driver were to lead all 250 laps in the main event, the purse would double to $50,000.
The largest purse collected by a race winner went to Ontario’s Dave Whitlock, who pocketed $52,150 in 1995.
AS OF MONDAY, there were 68 cars entered in this year’s Oxford 250, with more entries still expected to arrive.
Notable entries include 2021 winner Cassius Clark of Farmington, who has yet to make a start this season. The King Racing No. 13 Clark won in last August has been turned over to team owner Rollie MacDonald’s son, Austin MacDonald. MacDonald won the PASS event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in April.
NEWS OUT OF Wiscasset Speedway this week had to do with the Boss Hogg 150, the annual Super Late Model/Pro Stock race held each season on Labor Day weekend.
Track owners Richard and Vanessa Jordan announced during their weekly drivers’ meeting on Aug. 13 that this year’s Boss Hogg 150 would guarantee a winner’s purse of $10,000.
Copy the Story LinkComments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
