As lightning flashed over Oxford Plains Speedway, D.J. Shaw assumed he was on his way to another top-five finish in a major Pro All Stars Series race at the famed Maine speedplant.
And then, with twenty laps on the scoreboard, momentum swung Shaw’s way.
Shaw overtook protégé and rival Gabe Brown in traffic, leading only the final seven circuits en route to a $15,000 victory in Thursday evening’s PASS Celebration of America 300.
And after drying off from the rain that drenched the speedway as the checkered flag flew, Shaw admitted that his moves in the final laps came as a surprise.
“Tonight, I whined a lot on the radio about how bad we were on the outside,” the Center Conway, N.H. veteran said. “It’s ironic that we were able to take the lead on the outside. Actually, I went from fourth to third on the outside as well, and it kind of caught me off guard then, and it’s more or less why…might as well try it, one more time.
“We’ve got eight laps to go, let’s see if it’s got any grip left in it at all.”
PASS’ early-summer endurance spectacle returned to the touring calendar this year after anchoring last year’s Oxford Crown Jewel Triple Crown Series. The two-day midweek event is the longest individual race on the PASS itinerary, with the fall’s PASS 400 using a stage format for its advertised distance.
Brown and seven-time PASS North champion Johnny Clark won Wednesday’s 75-lap qualifying heats, each leading wire to wire. But with Brown winning the last PASS event at Oxford, the traditional winner’s handicap meant Clark would lead former Beech Ridge Motor Speedway standout Corey Bubar to the green flag.
Joey Doiron wasted little time testing the high groove, taking the field three-wide for the opening laps as he powered from fourth on the grid to the point. The inaugural Celebration of America 300 winner led briefly before Bubar got back to the front.
As Doiron slid back in conservation mode, Clark used lapped traffic as a pick to take the lead back from Bubar. Brown, who started just outside the top ten, climbed to second on lap 32. Alexendre Tardif, reigning race winner Garrett Hall, and Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. rounded out the top five fifty laps in.
The first yellow flag of the night flew on lap 66, allowing teams to take a first crack at differing pit strategies. Tardif, Hall and weekly regular Scott McDaniel were among those who remained on track as the rest of the leaders came in for tires and fuel. On the restart, Tardif cleared the lapped car of Kate Re to break away from the pack. Deeper in the field, three-wide racing got the better of Doiron, who slowed with a flat tire in a shower of sparks. The yellow flag that flew looked to be Doiron’s saving grace, but deeper problems emerged on the right front, leaving Doiron idle on pit road as the field went back to green.
Pit stops under yellow for Tardif and Ryan Kuhn handed the lead to Hall, who only clung to the top spot for a few laps before Bubar bested his former home-track rival. Brown charged back to second with Renfrew, Clark and Shaw in tow, while Doiron returned to the track several laps down.
While Bubar put his Alan Berry-prepared car in the spotlight, Brown closed the gap to the leader, eventually taking the lead and putting just a bit of distance between himself and Bubar. With 120 laps on the board, Brown and Bubar held an advantage in traffic over Clark, Renfrew and Shaw, with Tardif closing in on the top five.
Bubar eventually began to fade, with Clark moving to second on lap 152 while Brown held steady out front. As Clark worked past Michael Scorzelli on lap 175, he bobbled to avoid the slower car, opening the door for Tardif to steal second. Bubar had slid back to fourth with reigning Granite State Pro Stock Series champion Cole Robie running fifth.
A few laps later, Scorzelli spun on the frontstretch, the resulting yellow flag giving the teams a needed reprieve after a long green-flag stretch.
Brown led Clark, Renfrew and Sylas Ripley back to the green flag on lap 180. Only a few laps later, Derek Griffith spun from the top ten after contact diving into turn one. Brown pounced on the restart, clearing the field as Clark slid back out of the top five.
Ripley, who picked up his first career PASS North win as part of last year’s season-ending PASS 400, followed Brown and slipped around him to lead for the first time on lap 188. Only three laps later, McDaniel ran into trouble on the frontstretch. Reigning Milton CAT American-Canadian Tour champion Raphael Lessard had been running well in his first PASS start since his 2015 rookie season, but he limped to the pits under caution with damage to his left rear.
Brown ducked into the pits under yellow, lining up at the tail of the field with Ripley leading Bubar, Tardif and Shaw.
Ripley’s time out front was brief, as Bubar took the lead back while Tardif battled back to second. After taking the checkers two weeks ago only to lose the win at the tech shed, the young Quebecer was out for redemption in one of the year’s biggest races.
As the race entered its final third, Bubar and Tardif were in command.
But before long, lapped traffic was in the way. Bubar weaved past Pat Corbett on lap 209, with Corbett slowing in front of Tardif. Tardif sent Corbett around off turn two. As the field took the yellow flag for Corbett’s stationary ride, Bubar’s car slowed to a stop in turn three, handing the top spot to Tardif. A push truck assisted Bubar’s stalled car to the infield, a dead battery ending his shot at a first career PASS win.
Tardif brought the field back to the green flag, but the yellow unfurled only two laps later as Clark collided with Kate Re trying to make up ground mid-pack, scattering the back half of the field.
Brown and Robie joined the lead battle after the restart, swapping the top spot with Tardif while Shaw rode patiently in fourth. Their battle was paused, though, as Re spun in turn four on lap 218 and was drilled in the door. Re and Scorzelli were towed off the track, while Brandon Barker pulled behind the wall with a flat tire. Brandon Varney came pitside as well, feeling the effects of the hot summer night.
With just over eighty laps to go, attrition was taking its toll.
Polesitter Clark was the next to falter, losing pace on the restart and dropping to the tail of the field before nosing off the backstretch with a flat tire. Clark gathered it up, but brought out a caution flag on lap 224 as he limped to the pits for service.
Brown and Tardif distanced themselves from the third-place battle on the restart, pulling away as the skies overhead flickered with lightning. With the field thinned to just sixteen cars, few obstacles remained in Brown’s path as he clicked off lap after lap.
Tardif began reeling in Brown on the long green-flag run, catching him inside of 30 laps to go. But Tardif could not find a clean way around him. Robie began closing in on Tardif, then Shaw. With twenty to go, the top five was under a blanket with Brown at the head of the pack, bearing down on the tail end of the field.
Eventually, Tardif took a shot at Brown’s bumper, but not enough to unsettle the leader.
“I thought Tardif was just biding his time, and as the laps wound on, he was right there,” said Shaw. “And he just kept trying, and it was unsuccessful. And I was almost puzzled, like, it just looked like he was gonna take it when it was time, and it wasn’t happening. We inched in and we kind of stalled out, and we inched in some more, and I think just situationally, we got there and Robie was two or three back.
“It was eight to go, ten to go, something like that. It’s just like, hell with it, we didn’t come here to finish third. I have to try.”
Shaw had cleared Robie on the high side for third. He slipped by Tardif for second, then went high again, clearing Brown as rain started to fall.
Shaw’s number went to the top of the scoreboard for the first time all night with seven laps to go.
As the rain intensified, Shaw opened a gap on Brown, who had reverted to defense while Robie and Hall worked over Tardif for third.
The threat from Tardif subsided, but by then, Shaw had already checked out.
With the checkered flag flying and the skies opening up, Shaw skated under the checkered flag by 1.160 seconds over his friend, his rival, and his tenant.
“So I felt like I had maybe two corners to try where I could get back in in front of Robie and not lose anything,” Shaw said of the final battle for the lead. “And I set it out that first corner and just drove in and got position on Alex, and kept inching on him from there. It felt too good to be true, really.
“Like, it just had way more grip than I expected, and we were able to just hang it out there, and make the pass in a few laps.”
The raindrops were somewhat appropriate. Shaw’s father Dale entered the weekend with a heavy heart following the unexpected passing of Jason Harris, Dale’s son and D.J.’s half-brother, earlier in the week.
A dejected Brown settled for second. With Brown’s sole PASS win this year coming by way of disqualification, the young racer has finished second four times this year to offset two early exits.
Tardif, the driver whose technical infraction gifted Brown the trophy two weeks ago, finished third, matching his career best under the PASS banner.
Hall finished a quiet fourth, compared to last year’s come-from-behind victory, while Robie rounded out the top five after threatening for the win late in the running.
Griffith overcame his mid-race spin to place sixth. Ripley fell to seventh on the final run. Weekly competitor Tom Abele, Jr. persevered for a career-best eighth-place finish. Travis Stearns was the final car on the lead lap in ninth, while Trevor Sanborn rebounded from losing a lap early to finish tenth.
Doiron, who rejoined the race several laps down after his early troubles, soldiered on to place sixteenth, nine laps down.
In the big picture, Shaw’s win made Thursday a good points night as well, bolstering his advantage in the PASS North points standings. Shaw clinched his seventh PASS North crown last year; an eighth would break a tie he shares with Clark, and give him two streaks of three straight titles.
Twenty-nine cars turned out for Thursday’s race, compared to 32 last year and 38 in the first running. Even with a significant purse in store, the scheduling conflicts of Wednesday’s Granite State Pro Stock Series event at Seekonk Speedway and Friday not being a universal observance of Independence Day stacked up against the usual challenges of cost. Many weekly competitors sat out the race, likely saving their big-event budgets for August’s Oxford 250.
After all, after three years, the Celebration of America 300 is a big deal, but the Oxford 250 is another story.
“That race is my Achilles, man,” Shaw said. “I feel like Dale Earnhardt in the 500. Just third over and over and over, no matter what. We’re the dominant car and finish third, or we just kinda stumble into third. It’s a good problem to have, it’s just like, what do we need to do to get to that point?
“And can’t go without saying, if it was the 250 tonight, we were running third.” He laughed. “Seems to be our M.O. for a 250-lap count.”
Behind the scenes, the 2026 season has been a year of change for Dale Shaw Race Cars. For years, Brown has been a key employee at the race shop, fabricating customer cars by day while working on his own equipment after work. But in the offseason, Brown struck out on his own. Under the moniker Factory 47, Brown has taken on Shaw customers Kaiden Fisher and Brandon Gray, with all three drivers finding success in ACT-type Late Models.
“He’s out on his own and doing setups and stuff, and bodies,” Shaw said. “We’re navigating the new, being a one-man operation. We’ve got [Oxford racer] Evan Roy working there too. He’s a good young asset for us. Just navigating what is the new business, and just trying to focus on this.”
“This” is Shaw’s Super Late Model program, which covers a full-time PASS program with selected Granite State Pro Stock Series starts. Added to the program this year is a limited slate at Speedway Presented by Bar Harbor Bank & Trust, where Shaw’s sponsor signed a ten-year sponsorship deal with new track owner Ricky Craven.
The in-house ACT program Shaw introduced last year has been on the back burner, with Shaw finishing seventh in his only start this year.
“You know, Cris [Michaud] and Scott [Tapley, race director] and Cale [King, general manager], everybody on the ACT stuff, everything is so top-notch,” he said. “There’s a lot of FOMO not being there, because everything about it is just top-notch. We want to be there. It’s just so much to race twice in one day.
“We haven’t been winning every week obviously here, but I feel like we’re better prepared to do what we’re doing. We’re more focused. We’re more relaxed. It’s not such a rat race at the track every day. It feels like the right thing to do. It’s hard on the guys, some of the Speedway stuff and what we’re doing. We’re racing double weekends a lot but we’re racing once a day, and other than the physical time, it’s so much easier on every other aspect of it. And we’ll try to just keep building the momentum on that.”
Shaw may not be winning every week by his count, but he has two PASS wins this year at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and now in an Oxford major. He won the season opener at Speedway, and finished second in both his GSPSS appearances this year.
And even with plenty of racing to go in July and August, Shaw is already looking ahead, focused on the race where he has indeed finished third in three consecutive seasons.
“We’re gonna race [the Late Model] when we can, and focus on the Pro Late Model side of stuff for the year,” he says.
“And hopefully it pays off.”
Unofficial Results
PASS North | Celebration of America 300
Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, Me.
1. (60) D.J. Shaw
2. (47) Gabe Brown
3. (21QC) Alexendre Tardif
4. (94) Garrett Hall
5. (29) Cole Robie
6. (12G) Derek Griffith
7. (09) Sylas Ripley
8. (32CT) Tom Abele, Jr.
9. (153) Travis Stearns
10. (44) Trevor Sanborn
11. (5R) Ben Rowe
12. (00R) Jimmy Renfrew, Jr.
13. (5C) Dominic Curit
14. (54) Johnny Clark
15. (8KB) Derek Kneeland
16. (73D) Joey Doiron
17. (5VT) Pat Corbett
18. (32) Brandon Barker
19. (12V) Brandon Varney
20. (10) Kate Re
21. (18) Michael Scorzelli
22. (12X) Corey Bubar
23. (48) Raphaël Lessard
24. (14) Scott McDaniel
25. (12S) Dennis Spencer, Jr.
26. (63) Kyle Salemi
27. (72) Ryan Kuhn
28. (24J) J.P. Josiasse
29. (15) Mike Hopkins
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