Hours before Wednesday’s Coldbrook Trailers & Equipment Celebration of America 300, Garrett Hall’s hopes for a big win were going south.
Just like his hauler.
But Hall put on the drive of a lifetime, wheeling a backup car from last to first in the second leg of Oxford Plains Speedway’s big-money, non-points Oxford Crown Jewel Triple Crown.
The second iteration of the Pro All Stars Series-sanctioned Independence Day week spectacular had all the storylines fans crave: two evenings’ worth of racing action, disparate pit and tire strategies, visiting all-stars, an underdog story, and even a dash of controversy in the closing laps.
All Hall craved in the aftermath was a chance to catch his breath.
“Just so much has happened in the past couple of days up here,” Hall told PASS’ Michael Stridsberg after the race. “Just really proud of my crew for keeping their head high and keep moving forward, and striving to always be better.”
The driver from Scarborough, Me. started the two-day Celebration of America program from behind Tuesday night. After finishing fifth in the night’s first of two qualifying races to set the Wednesday grid, Hall’s car was bounced from the lineup in post-race technical inspection. Qualifier winners Austin Teras and Brandon Barker would lead the field to green. Hall would start dead last.
Hall’s problems compounded on Wednesday afternoon, when he blew an engine in practice. With only a few hours before the feature, Hall headed back to his shop, an hour south of Oxford, to retrieve his second car, the one he drove to a PASS win at Star Speedway only two weeks before.
Once the backup arrived at the track, Hall’s Black Point Motorsports team thrashed to prep the other car, rushing through technical inspection and getting onto the grid in time to take the green for the 300-lap main event.
“We made the executive decision to run back to Scarborough real fast and pick up the other car and get back here,” Hall added. “Everybody was hands-on-deck putting this back together, and we went off our [Oxford 250] notes from last year at the 250, and I guess you can say we winged it.”
Teras, eager to avenge early exits in both of last year’s 300-lap PASS events, shot out to the early lead as pit strategy already began to take shape. Teams were given a choice to start on their qualifying tires or fresh rubber, giving those who gambled on the old tires an extra set of stickers for later in the feature. Johnny Clark and Sylas Ripley were among those going the wrong direction early, while Teras lapped traffic into the top-20 by lap 50.
Five laps later, contact between Dave Farrington, Jr. and Dennis Spencer, Jr. brought out the first caution flag of the night. Defending race winner Joey Doiron, one of the pre-race favorites, was among those who opted to pit early, cycling Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. and Derek Griffith to the front for the restart.
Equipped with fresh rubber, Doiron chewed through the field in the next ten laps, cracking the top five in time for another caution. As Teras and Hall made their own way through traffic, Doiron closed in on the leaders, passing both Griffith and Renfrew to take the lead on lap 73. Trevor Sanborn and Kyle Busch, both lapped under green, mixed it up with the leaders while vying for the free-pass position.
Both Sanborn and Busch would get their laps back, with Renfrew getting back to the lead briefly before Doiron pulled ahead on a lap-123 restart. Teras settled into second while Clark emerged in third with fresh tires.
Grifith, still nursing his original tires, was about to go a lap down when the caution waved on lap 181. He and Renfrew pitted for tires under the convenient yellow, working through the field on the restart with Busch in the mix as well. With a third of the race remaining, Doiron was still in command with Clark, Teras and D.J. Shaw in his mirror.
Hall, who also pitted on lap 181, was up to seventh in his backup car. Fourteen laps later, Hall had climbed to fifth as the yellow waved again. Doiron, close to the edge of his fuel window, led a pack of lead-lap cars to the infield as Renfrew, Hall, and Griffith stayed on the track to assume the lead. Hall shot out to the lead on the restart, but one lap later, Busch was sent for a ride down pit road. Sanborn and Mike Rowe headed for the pits as Busch, out of the running for the win, called it a night early.
As Hall pulled away with the lead, Doiron wove his way through the top five, emerging in second with forty laps remaining. Hall’s pace slowed as he worked around lapped traffic, but in the moment, it looked like his race to lose.
But when the yellow flew again on lap 275, Hall’s advantage evaporated. Doiron, who had helped Hall’s team get their backup car dialed in earlier, lined up to Hall’s door. Early frontrunners Teras and Barker lined up third and fourth.
Hall and Doiron filed into first and second, intent on settling the race among themselves. Teras had other plans. The polesitter closed the gap to Doiron, skating around the defending winner on the outside.
With ten to go, Teras was at Hall’s bumper, pressuring Hall for the win.
Then Doiron came back to life, moving around Teras for second and setting off after his friend at the front. Hall, Doiron and Teras worked the outside line around slower traffic as the white flag waved halfway around the track.
But as they passed the slower car of Mike Rowe in turn three, Rowe faded up the race track and into Teras, shoving Teras up the race track and spinning the young racer out of third. The flagstand displayed the yellow with lap 299 showing on the scoreboard.
The fireworks had only begun, as Teras waited for the field to circle back around before pulling away from the wall and drilling Rowe in the right-side door, ending the evening for both drivers. Teras was disqualified on the spot.
Meanwhile, the leaders remained on track. PASS typically scores forward in the case of a yellow flag, meaning the yellow and white flags would have ended the feature. Instead, the field was reracked for a shootout restart, Hall alongside Doiron, Barker alongside Clark, with $20,000 on the line.
Hall took the green flag, Doiron digging in to battle for the big win. As the leaders came off the fourth turn, both anticipated the white flag, but it was the checkered that waved ahead.
Hall edged out Doiron at the stripe by .098 seconds to capture his first Celebration of America 300 victory.
“I thought it was a green-white-checkered, so I fired off,” Hall said of the final restart. “Come around, and it’s the checkered flag, and I said, ‘oh, okay, that’s awesome.’”
Doiron, who had the dominant car through the middle of the race, knew it would be tough to unseat his friend at the front.
“I just wanted to finish second at that point, unless something happened, he missed a shift or something,” he shared with Stridsberg later in the evening. “It was gonna be hard to pass him. I got a lot closer than I thought I was going to when we got back around.”
Doiron, too, was perplexed by the end-of-race procedure that had transpired.
“I’ve never seen a one-lap finish in PASS,” he said. “Usually, if we’re on lap 299, that means the race is over because we’re coming back to the checkered. But apparently not tonight.”
Barker, in another strong performance for Archie St. Hilaire’s Go FAS Racing team, was third, with Clark fourth and Sanborn racing his way back to fifth.
Mike Hopkins, who won a Celebration of America qualifier in June, was sixth, followed by Shaw and Griffith. Hopkins’ teammate Travis Stearns finished ninth, while rookie Robie rounded out the top ten.
Early leader Renfrew was 13th at the checkers. Busch, who dropped out early, was scored 25th; his NASCAR spotter, Maine native Derek Kneeland, outperformed him in 22nd.
Only 32 cars attempted to qualify for this year’s Celebration of America 300, with expected contenders like Ryan Kuhn and Eddie MacDonald absent from the lineup. This year’s race fell squarely mid-week with the Independence Day holiday on Friday, making Thursday a work day for racers and fans who have to travel. And with three big events to budget for this year, some teams surely had to make difficult choices of where to aim their focus.
Much of the post-race attention was centered on the lap-to-go fracas between Teras and Rowe. Rowe, the 74-year-old Maine racing legend, has a long memory, waiting months or even years to exact on-track revenge. What precipitated his shot to Teras’ left rear is unclear. Past precedent suggests that Teras will likely be suspended as well for seeking retaliation under the yellow flag, a move PASS president Tom Mayberry has always decried.
The unofficial results shared immediately following the race suggested that Rowe’s finishing position, too, was under review. The official results published on Thursday confirmed that Rowe was ultimately disqualified for his role in the incident.
Ironically, Rowe was the beneficiary after Teras’ June disqualification, earning his first PASS victory in nearly a decade.
The air of controversy even bled over into the winner’s corner Thursday, with social media commentators claiming that Hall’s $20,000 payout was likely to be reduced. Early speculation centered around Hall’s use of a backup car, though the backup car cleared pre-race inspection and there has been no past prohibition against backup cars. Others speculated on specific technical violations. Ultimately, the official results rundown declares Hall the race winner. PASS does not typically address or elaborate on disqualifications, and no further comment from the organization is anticipated.
Short Track Scene reached out to Hall regarding the rampant speculation. “I don’t really get into the social media talk because it benefits no one,” Hall replied. “People are upset because I went and got our other car that we won with at Star. It’s no different than anyone else there that has a stacker trailer with more than one car; fortunately enough, we live close enough to be able to drive back to Scarborough and get the other car and bring it back, trust me it was no simple task. We started dead last, no one in a million years would have thought we would’ve been able to be in contention to win that race, not to mention being able to hold off competitors with 70 lap fresher tires at the end there, that is something I’m proud of.
“People can say what they want, create controversy, and drama but [at] the end of the day we pulled something off that drivers and teams dream of doing. It is a Cinderella story that I will forever cherish and be proud of, no one can take that away from my team and I. Have to thank everyone that lended a hand in getting the car ready at the track after I got back, it really means a lot to me.”
And after going winless in PASS competition since late 2022, Hall suddenly has back-to-back victories in PASS-sanctioned events. Wednesday’s win, his biggest under the PASS banner, is his fourth touring win at the oval; he picked up a pair of PASS wins at Oxford in 2019, plus the Granite State Pro Stock Series’ sole trip to the track in 2017.
The win was also a big moment for team sponsor Norman Sherman, whose eponymous car dealership in coastal Maine is a longtime supporter of both Hall and Doiron. Norm’s Used Cars was prominently featured on both race cars in the duo’s one-two finish.
With Hall’s sixth-place finish and Doiron’s win in May’s Memorial Day Clash, the two are at the head of the class for the third and final leg of the Oxford Crown Jewel Triple Crown. Of course, the Triple Crown pales in comparison to the crown jewel itself, the newly-sponsored All That’s Metal Oxford 250. Hall has the momentum of a long-distance race in his pocket, but a little luck in the big August showdown would help. In ten prior attempts, Hall has four top-ten finishes with a best of fourth in 2018, but he has not cracked the top ten since 2020. Doiron, on the other hand, has finished no worse than sixth in the race since 2018, excluding 2019, when he did not field an entry.
The Oxford 250 has its own qualifying wrinkles, its own pit strategy, and a mystique that has proven hard to crack for many of the region’s best drivers.
But for the moment, the momentum is swinging toward a pair of racers from southern Maine.
Official Results
Pro All Stars Series | Coldbrook Trailers & Equipment Celebration of America 300
Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Me.
1. (94) Garrett Hall
2. (73D) Joey Doiron
3. (32) Brandon Barker
4. (54) Johnny Clark
5. (44) Trevor Sanborn
6. (15) Mike Hopkins
7. (60) D.J. Shaw
8. (12G) Derek Griffith
9. (153) Travis Stearns
10. (29R) Cole Robie
11. (23) Dave Farrington, Jr.
12. (09R) Sylas Ripley
13. (00R) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
14. (5R) Ben Rowe
15. (12X) Corey Bubar
16. (14) Scott McDaniel
17. (5P) Troy Patterson
18. (63) Kyle Salemi
19. (12V) Brandon Varney
20. (32CT) Tom Abele, Jr.
21. (18) Michael Scorzelli
22. (90) Derek Kneeland
23. (5C) Dominic Curit
24. (14S) Josh St. Clair
25. (51) Kyle Busch
26. (24) J.P. Josiasse
27. (12) Dennis Spencer, Jr.
28. (60B) Tim Brackett
29. (61) T.J. Brackett
DNS (72R) Scott Robbins
DQ (29) Austin Teras
DQ (24) Mike Rowe
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