What happens when a guy called ‘Redneck Jesus’ travels to Maine?
He wins a stock car race, of course.
Bubba Pollard added to his extensive resume on Sunday night with a victory in the prestigious Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway. The southern-based superstar outdueled 2012 race winner Joey Polewarczyk over a series of late-race restarts.
But even more impressive is that Pollard had never seen Oxford Plains until this weekend, showing flexibility to adapt to a new track against a world class field of competitors.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about this place,” Pollard said in Victory Lane. “I’ve heard the things people say about it. Fans have wanted me to come up — said I was too scared to travel up north.
“But I’ll tell you what, I have a lot of respect for this place and track and I’ve got to give credit to (PASS series owner, track owner) Tom Mayberry because this is incredible. The campers and all the fans. This is what short track racing is about and it’s a hell of a track to put on a show.”
Polewarczyk had fresher tires than Pollard, having taken his last set a few laps after but it didn’t make a difference.
Pollard was simply faster.
“We played our strategy a little different than most,” Polewarczyk said. “I knew it was a gamble, but our plan was to get track position. I never thought we could drive back to the front like we did. I have to hand it to Bubba, he’s a top racer and he sure proved it here tonight. He’s a very impressive racer.”
Garrett Hall led the first 103 laps before getting passed by Jeff Taylor. At the same time, Pollard started 29th but methodically worked his way towards the front of the field. He was just outside of the top-five at the time of that lead-changing moment.
Pollard first took the lead from Travis Benjamin with 31 laps remaining. From there, it was just a matter of Pollard playing his strategy out and holding off the beasts of the northeast behind him.
“When we took back off, we just needed track position,” Pollard said. “We had a good race car. We kind of got shuffled around and these guys start racing three and four wide and I’m not used to that, so I went to the back and I didn’t know what to do.
“I got to watching them, and they do that all the time here, so I said the hell with it, and we did it too.”
Ten cautions slowed the race, but there were no major incidents. Five drivers led laps at one point and Hall led the most laps at 166.
For his efforts, Pollard earned $28,300 — consisting of the $25,000 winner’s portion of the purse and $3,300 for 33 laps led at $100 per lap.
Other notable finishers include former 250 winner Eddie MacDonald (11th); 1995 NASCAR Busch North Series champion Kelly Moore (17th); former Oxford track Late Model champion Shawn Martin (20th) and 2017 ARCA Racing Series champion Austin Theriault (30th).
The race took just short of two and a half hours.
Nearly 70 cars were on site Sunday morning to try to make the field of 42.
- Bubba Pollard
- Joey Polewarczyk
- Reid Lanpher
- Garrett Hall
- Joey Doiron
- DJ Shaw
- Travis Benjamin
- Mike Hopkins
- Brandon Barker
- Ben Rowe
- Eddie MacDonald
- Wyatt Alexander
- Ray Christian III
- David Farrington
- Joe Sequelia
- Calvin Rose
- Kelly Moore
- Wayne Hellwell Jr
- Nick Sweet
- Shawn Martin
- Derek Griffith
- Johnny Clark
- Tim Brackett
- Kyle Reid
- Bryan Kruczek
- Cole Butcher
- Scott McDaniel
- Tracy Gordon
- Mike Rowe
- Austin Theriault
- Lonnie Somerville
- Jeff Taylor
- Gabe Brown
- Austin Teras
- Glen Luce
- Cassisu Clark
- Curtis Gerry
- Kodie Conner
- Scott Robins
- Ryan Robbins
- TJ Brackett
- Alan Tardiff
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Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.