Supermodified stars Battle, Timmons among Oxford 250 weekend’s open-wheel winners

Not all the stars of the Oxford 250 weekend had four fenders.

Jeffrey Battle, Bobby Timmons III, Ben Tinker and Brandon Varney scored five of the traditional Maine racing weekend’s feature wins in a trio of thrilling open-wheeled divisions.

Supermodified rivals Battle and Timmons split the weekend’s three winged features, while Tinker and Varney were each victorious in the Pro All Stars Series’ PASS Modified division.

While the PASS Modifieds have been the Oxford 250 weekend’s built-in support division for many years, the bespoke winged creations with outboard-mounted engines have become a novel attraction at Oxford Plains Speedway, especially since the New England Supermodified Series’ Oxford 250 weekend debut in 2022.

NESS, the big-block Supermodified series established by PASS’ Tom Mayberry, served as the undercard to Saturday night’s American-Canadian Tour Oxford 125 and Sunday evening’s Oxford 250 with 50-lap features. Saturday’s card also included the Oxford 250 weekend debut of the Little Webb’s 350 Super Series, giving fans a double dose of Supermodified action on the eve of the 250.

The Little Webb’s 350 Super Series, a touring extension of Star Speedway owner Bobby Webber’s weekly 350 Supermodified program, opened the open-wheel cavalcade Saturday evening. Battle, the open-wheel wunderkind from Dunstable, Mass., has dominated the series the same way he has dominated weekly competition at Star. Five wins and no finishes worse than fourth in ten starts had the young Supermodified standout firmly atop the touring points entering the weekend.

Only slightly encumbered by the past winner’s handicap, Battle blitzed the ten-car field, driving to the front and easily winning the 40-lap feature. Battle’s sixth Little Webb’s 350 Super Series win gave him a clean sweep of the series’ three races at Oxford in 2024, going with a pair of wins at Star and a Hudson Speedway victory in July.

Tinker, from nearby New Gloucester, Me., reeled off his second-straight runner-up finish and his third of the year, finishing 2.552 seconds behind Battle. Tinker sits third in Star Speedway’s weekly 350 Supermodified points, behind Jeffrey and younger brother Ryan Battle.

Finishing third in his first start of the year was Keith Morrill, taking the reins of Timmon’s 350 Supermodified for the afternoon. Morrill, who helps Timmons at the track but has been sidelined from the driver’s seat, was called on to wheel the green #13 and made the most of the opportunity.

Timmons, another regular at Star Speedway and on the 350 Super Series circuit, had parked the crate-engine car to throw his focus behind his big-block Supermodified after a particularly trying season. An opening-day, first-lap crash at Star was followed a week later by a viral incident in which a push truck turned sharply in front of him during warm-up laps, dealing race-ending damage to his car. After yet another needless crash, Timmons decided to regroup.

Not that the big-block car’s fates had been any kinder. A sure win at White Mountain Motorsports Park was negated when an accidentally-triggered caution erased an ample lead, and the frailties of what Timmons calls “flea-market racing” nipped the team at Star and Thompson Speedway.

Nevertheless, the tenacious Timmons remained in the thick of the NESS points race with Supermodified veterans Ben Seitz and Russ Wood. But the third-generation Supermodified racer knew that the weekend’s races were likely to be the Jonathan McKennedy Show once again. McKennedy, a former International Supermodified Association champion and open-wheel ace, had reacquired his unstoppable mount from car owner John Nicotra and laid waste to the field twice in July, winning NESS’ inaugural $10,000-to-win 100-lapper before the PASS-sanctioned Celebration of America 300.

Battle and Timmons led the field to green, with Timmons taking the field three-wide to power to the early race lead. McKennedy rolled off deeper in the field, and without a mirror or spotter, Timmons would have to watch the scoreboard to judge how quickly McKennedy was closing in. Only eight laps into the feature, though, McKennedy peeled off down the backstretch and exited the track with mechanical issues.

Timmons kept his pace out front, later saying he assumed McKennedy’s scoring transponder had failed. But the expected assault from the Bay Stater never materialized.

Last victorious in the big-block car a year ago, Timmons edged out 2022 NESS champion Rob Summers to take his second career NESS victory, reprising his Saturday success and lifting at least some of the frustration of the season. Battle, still coming to terms with his big-block car, finished third for his best career NESS finish. Wood and Matt Swanson rounded out the top five.

Timmons’ feature win, though, consigned him to a back-of-the-pack starting spot in Sunday’s 50-lap NESS feature. Battle faced no such hardships. After winning his heat race to earn a front-row starting position, Battle checked out on the field as McKennedy and Timmons picked their way through traffic.

The duo found their way to second and third, but with Battle already a half a track ahead, it would take a timely yellow to bunch the field back up. Instead, Battle cruised to his first-ever NESS win over 11 seconds ahead of McKennedy and Timmons, the only other cars to complete all fifty laps. Dave Duggan and Seitz rounded out the top five.

With five races remaining, Timmons holds a scant lead over Seitz and Wood in the race for the third-ever NESS championship.

While Supermodifieds have assumed the starring undercard role on Oxford 250 weekend, the three-day stretch still holds great significance for the PASS Modifieds, the street-stock-derived open-wheel division that has been PASS’ reliable touring accompaniment since the mid-2000s. Back-to-back Saturday and Sunday shows test the teams with only a few events remaining on their season calendar.

Reigning PASS Mods champ Brandon Varney made the full-time move to Super Late Models in 2024, placing seventh so far in Oxford’s weekly standings while running a portion of the PASS North touring schedule. The Canton, Me. racer has not forsaken his development grounds, though, with both Varney and father Kevin taking turns at the wheel of a PASS Mod this year.

Nineteen cars were ready to go for Saturday’s 50-lap romp around the historic oval, with a stacked field that included Super Late Model racer Jeremy Davis, Dwarf Car ace Tom Harwood, and 2019 series champ Spencer Morse. None could do a thing with Varney, though. In only his third start of the year, Varney marched to his 11th career PASS Mods win over Cody Macomber and Dan Brown.

Varney, a Kulwicki Driver Development Program finalist, was the first of two KDDP participants to win Saturday, with Derek Gluchacki winning the ACT Tour feature later in the evening.

For Sunday’s 50-lapper, though, Varney chose to focus on his Oxford 250 entry instead, handing the wheel to 350 Super Series runner-up Tinker. Tinker’s formative years in touring racing were spent with the PASS Mods, where he won a dozen races in 2017 and 2018 en route to a pair of championships. After a brief flirtation with Super Late Models, Tinker returned to open-wheel racing, following close friend Timmons’ path into Supermodifieds.

Tinker had run select events with the PASS Mods since, but his last win was back in 2020.

At the wheel of Varney’s ride, though, Tinker looked like the Tinker of old, holding off Morse and points leader Ryan Hewins to take his first PASS Mods win in four years. Chanler Harrison and Zach Bowie rounded out the top five.

Battle, Timmons, Tinker and Varney are an intriguing cross-section of young New England stars, succeeding in levels of pavement open-wheel racing that are not as well-known outside the region. To that end, Battle and Varney are expanding their horizons. Battle has been testing the Tour-type Modified waters the last two years, with Webber fielding cars for him in a number of divisions as he learns the ropes of the ground-pounders. Varney’s transition to Super Late Models has already earned him a couple checkered flags, though he has yet to break through on the touring front.

On the other hand, there are Timmons and Tinker, poised to follow in the footsteps of their local heroes. Timmons left Super Late Model racing behind in 2017; he has said that, as a legacy racer, Supermodified racing is where his heart lies. A natural storyteller, Timmons is steeped in the history and the people of Supermodified racing; through his podcasting, he is the face and the voice of the discipline. Tinker, who has also come and gone through big-dollar fendered racing, seems content to take the same path.

Their futures all diverge ahead. Depending what opportunities they arise, they may all come back together.

But in the shadow of the Northeast’s biggest fendered race, they all played a part in the story of this year’s Oxford 250.

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