PASS and ACT serve up Friday-night Oxford 250 prelude

Sunday’s 52nd running of the All That’s Metal Oxford 250 caps off the biggest weekend of circle track racing in the state of Maine.

And in an interesting twist, two of the weekend’s featured divisions will get to serve up their own opening act.

The Pro All Stars Series Super Late Models and the Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour are set to headline Friday night’s preamble to the legendary race, with a double feature set to thrill fans heading into the weekend at Oxford Plains Speedway.

PASS’ Sunoco 150, a non-points event announced earlier this summer, will serve as a qualifier for Sunday’s main event, while the ACT Yvon Bedard 109 replaces a rain-plagued race from July.

PASS has sanctioned the Oxford 250 since 2013, while ACT has been the 250 weekend’s Saturday headliner since 2018. Friday’s racing program has generally been reserved for the track’s weekly divisions, while including a touring headliner to bolster the lineup.

Last year, though, PASS experimented with a special 200-lap “open-competition” feature to headline the Friday itinerary. Teams were invited to play loose and fast with the rulebook, many experimenting with aerodynamic augmentations. Austin Teras took full advantage of the flexibility, leading every lap and lapping the field en route to the $10,000 victory.

However, only nineteen teams took the green in the open-comp feature, many not having a backup car to modify.

This year’s Sunoco 150 may not offer the same winner’s purse, but a guaranteed berth in the Oxford 250 field is a valuable piece of insurance for a race that, as of press time, boasts 53 cars on the entry list. Moreover, the qualifying procedure for the 250 follows the typical New England approach of heat races, consis, and a last-chance race, with a limited number of provisionals doled out to the top PASS and Oxford Championship Series drivers.

Past champions and long-haul visitors alike have been left out in the cold in recent years, and Friday gives them an opportunity to secure a place in the 42-car starting field.

ACT’s addition to the schedule, meanwhile, was announced a week and a half ago, the culmination of a kerfuffle that kicked off back in July.

Circuit Riverside Speedway Ste-Croix in Quebec was originally slated to host the Yvon Bedard 149, its first Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour points race in a decade, on July 5. Unexpected rains soaked the recently-repaved oval through the day. With no real options for a rain date, officials pulled out all the stops to complete the cross-border event, eventually packing it in after an aborted start approaching midnight.

The following day, speedway staff suggested via social media that a rain date was in the works, an announcement that caught ACT officials off guard. The sanctioning body scrambled to organize a rain date of August 17, ultimately deciding to reboot the entire event and disregard the thirty yellow-flag laps completed on July 5.

But on August 7, ACT officials revealed that the speedway had in fact been unable to receive the necessary town permits to host the makeup race. ACT opted to go a new direction entirely, scheduling the third leg of the $5,000 Quebec Challenge Series at Oxford. Retaining the homages to Canadian racer Yvon Bedard from the canceled Riverside race, Friday’s race will bear Bedard’s name and car number once again.

Quebecer Jeff Côté, who won July’s CAN-AM 200 at Autodrome Montmagny, will race a car prepared by defending Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour champion and 2017 Oxford Super Late Model champ Gabe Brown as he tries to capture the three-race miniseries against current Tour points leader Raphaël Lessard and Claude Leclerc 150 winner Alexendre Tardif.

Friday’s races make sense from the stance that many teams and fans will already be in Oxford in anticipation of the 250, with Super Late Model practice sessions already slated for Friday and Saturday. There is, of course, the risk of trouble on Friday making the rest of the weekend that much more challenging.

But those risks are endemic to any doubleheader weekend.

With these two key additions, the first night of action in Oxford is now a compelling opening to the weekend. And how many of Friday’s stories become Sunday’s challenges will be every bit as riveting.

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