The main race held at Oxford Plains Speedway is the Bar Harbor Bank & Trust Oxford 250. This race has run under various sanctions, including the NASCAR Busch Series and NASCAR Busch North Series in the early 1990s. It later became an American Canadian Tour Late Model race and is now a Pro All Star Series Super Late Model race. The 250 green flag lap race has often featured stars from NASCAR's three national series, even when it was not an Xfinity championship race. Among the NASCAR stars who have raced the annual Oxford 250 are 17 drivers who have won NASCAR Cup Series majors, with eleven of them Sprint Cup Series champions, and five of those are now NASCAR Hall of Fame members.
The track also hosted 3 NASCAR Cup Series races between 1966 and 1968, with Bobby Allison winning two and Richard Petty winning one. The speedway is known for yearly hosting several Pro All Star Series races during the season and for its motor mayhem events. These events include smokey doughnut shows, spectator drags, jack and jill races, and enduros. The ramp jump was formerly held but has been discontinued for safety reasons. The track offers racing twice weekly during the season. The Wednesday night Oxford Acceleration Series offers five divisions: Outlaws, Rebels, Sport Trucks, Cruisers, and Ladies divisions. Saturday night Oxford Championship Series divisions include the headlining Super Late Models with Street Stocks, Bandits, Figure 8s, as well as regional divisions like Legends, North East Classic Lites, the Wicked Good Vintage Racing Association, and the Pro All Star Series Modifieds.
Construction of a new $35,000 racetrack in Oxford began on April 10, 1950, with bulldozers starting demolition of foliage on the side of State Route 26 with Damon Brothers Lumber. George Damon, the operator of the lumber company, also served as President of the Pine State Stock Car Racing Association (PSSCRA). The sawmill in Norway, Maine created the lumber for the 600-foot (180 m) long grandstand, which would have capacity for 5,000 attendees, becoming the second-largest in the state. The track was designed as an oval of clay and gravel with heavy banking for race car drivers and lights for night racing. Damon was confident the new track would be ready to open on May 30.
By May 26, the track, grandstand, and parking lot for 1,000 cars were in place. Crews worked to finish the track for the opening race on May 27, 1950. Local time trials on May 21 found the surface dusty, so an oil company was called to treat it. Officials from the PSSCRA invited racers from several local groups to participate. The opening weekend included four qualifying heats, a consolation race, two semi-final races, and the main event.
The stadium held The Monsters of Rock Festival on June 25, 1988, featuring Van Halen, Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica, and Kingdom Come. A show scheduled for the previous day was cancelled. This event brought an estimated 40,000 people to the racetrack, causing traffic jams along Maine Route 26 to the Maine Turnpike.
The following week, the Grateful Dead performed on two consecutive nights, July 2–3, 1988, with Little Feat as their opening act, bringing in an estimated 140,000 people. Following traffic and crowd issues from these concerts, the town of Oxford voted to create a town ordinance restricting crowd sizes at events to a maximum of 25,000 people.
In late 2012, owner Bill Ryan sold the speedway to current owner Tom Mayberry. Since then, the speedway's direction has changed; it no longer sanctions ACT-type Late Models as a weekly division. Instead, Tom Mayberry's PASS (Pro All Star Series) Super Late Models now serve as the weekly headliner. The Pro All Stars Series Super Late Model and Modified tours also make several stops at Oxford Plains during the racing season. The Oxford 250 is now a PASS Super Late Model race, allowing drivers from various Super Late Model series, including PASS, NASCAR, Champion Racing Association, and Spears Southwest Tour, to use their home series cars due to a single set of rules for car specification.
In 2018, the American Canadian Tour returned to Oxford Plains after an absence in 2017, with Eddie MacDonald sweeping both events. ACT returned in 2019 with the Pro All Star Series and Oxford Plains season opener in May, along with the Saturday night race before Oxford 250 Sunday in August. The Oxford 250 night before event will also feature Modified stock car racing from the Tri Track Modified Series.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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