OXFORD 250 NOTES: Carey Martin, Shawn Martin and Kevin Harvick's goodwill

I'm not sure, but I think I've finally dried out after sloshing through puddles for the last 5 days. All that rain sure does give you plenty of time to think about everything that happened last weekend at Oxford Plains Speedway.

* CONGRATULATIONS TO CAREY MARTIN for setting the reputation of the local racer back about two decades.

It's not that Martin chose not to back down to a Sprint Cup Series driver in the TD Banknorth 250, and it's not that the Denmark, Maine, driver was willing to trade paint with a guy who's won the Daytona 500.

It's that Martin wasn't racing the race cars on the track -- he was racing the name of the guy in his rearview mirror, and it was about as bush league as it gets.

On lap 48, after eventual race winner Kevin Harvick had nudged Martin's back bumper repeatedly while racing for 5th-place in traffic, Harvick finally went to the outside of Martin's car in turn 2. Martin went high to block the move, and then as soon as Harvick dived to the bottom to take the inside line on the backstretch, Martin went low again.

Harvick's car was clearly up to Martin's door, but Martin turned left and drove Harvick nearly to the infield grass. Martin had gone so low that he ended up on the pit road entrance when Harvick checked up, and Harvick had to slow considerably just to let Martin get back into the racing groove.

Not only did it almost take Harvick out of the event, but it very nearly caused a catastrophic chain-reaction wreck.

"When you come to a race like this, the guys that can’t race usually take care of themselves," Harvick said, a thinly-veiled reference to Martin’s antics. "I raced all night with a lot of good race car drivers, and I think we only had one little problem. We tore the right front fender off there, and I think that guy kind of took care of himself."

Martin finished 25^th in the 41-car field after starting 5^th.

Here’s what the local racer needs to learn: It’s not about the fact that it’s Kevin Harvick. It’s really not. It’s about the fact that you’re not even one-quarter of the way through a 250-lap race – let the faster car go.

There’s little doubt that Martin’s race hopes ended as soon as he chose to race Harvick’s car so hard so early in the race. He soon lost track position by the bucket load, presumably with tires too spent to compete.

By being around at the end, a guy like Glen Luce made a greater statement about the talent level of the local racers than Carey Martin did by "not backing down" to a Cup invader.

* IT SURE WAS a bummer that pit strategy was taken out of the equation on Monday night at Oxford.

But let’s be perfectly honest about the whole mess – no one, not track owner Bill Ryan and not race director Randy Varney, wanted to see a halftime break so cars could pit. Walking across the infield 45 minutes before the race got underway, though, I can honestly say that there was no other decision that could have been made.

The mud and standing water was so deep in places that it’s a wonder they were able to fix it up enough to race in the first place.

Having a few cars on pit road here and there still isn’t ideal, as teams chose to pit on the soggy pit road throughout the event. But having 25-30 cars all pit when a caution came out on, say, lap 135, would have been a recipe for disaster. Not only would they have been sliding across wet pavement trying to "race" each other for track position – and we all know that, racers being racers, they would have done just that – but some invariably would have ended up bogged down in the mud up to their wheel wells at the pit exit.

It was plain ugly down there.

Sometimes, you’ve just got to do the best you can under the worst of circumstances. That’s what OPS officials did.

After all, now we can just say that Harvick won the ‘250' in "that year" when the race was "just different."

* I WAS AS wrong as anybody about Harvick’s intent for the race.

Everything he did was class act, from stopping to talk to any fan who wanted to talk to him in the pit area on Saturday morning, to sticking around until Monday in the rain to generally enjoying the entire experience.

Here’s my favorite Harvick story from the weekend:

As he walked into the press box for the post-race interviews, he immediately stopped to talk to 2 young boys who were there. Harvick said hi to both of them, and they stood there almost dumbfounded – in a "I can’t believe Kevin Harvick is really talking to me right now" kind of way.

Informed that they were the sons of the man who had just finished 2^nd to him, Harvick’s eyes grew wide and his smile went clear from ear-to-ear.

"Man, I thought your dad was going to beat me!"

He signed things for the kids and found out where they were from and the whole enchilada. It was truly priceless, a moment that those boys won’t soon forget.

That’s the kind of goodwill you don’t earn for a race track or a Sprint Cup Series simply by signing autographs for the first 400 fans with wristbands or rolling in 3 hours before the race on race morning and leaving on the first helicopter out of town.

Matt Kenseth – are you listening?

* BEST OXFORD 250 story of the weekend: If it’s not American-Canadian Tour rookie Nick Sweet finishing 6^th or Scott Luce simply making the race by winning a last-chance qualifier, then it’s Shawn Martin’s top-5 run.

Martin had all of Sunday night and then most of Monday morning to kick himself for not having qualified through his first-round heat race, when, with 2 laps to go, he opted to move into the high groove to try and block the closing car of Travis Adams.

Adams moved low in turn 1, took the transfer spot, and sent Martin to the consolation rounds.

But Martin won his consi and was as steady as they come, working to a 4^th-place finish. Given that pit strategy was essentially nixed by the wet grounds, that’s saying something for that kind of a march to the front.

And I thought he was going to swing at me when I asked him if he regretted the move that let Adams get by... I think he probably wanted to.

* RANDOM STATS: Only 2 cars with top-10 starting positions ended up finishing in the top-15.

The two most dominant Late Model drivers at Oxford in the last 2 seasons, Ricky Rolfe and Travis Adams, finished 27^th and 40^th, respectively – suggesting that maybe this race has turned back to the days of the "touring" guys having an edge.

Martin was the highest-finishing Oxford weekly driver in 4^th. Dennis Spencer Jr. was 9^th, and then you had to go clear back to Carey Martin in 25^th to find the next one – part-timers Jeff White and Scott Luce notwithstanding.

Comments

[Andy B]

...make that two things we agree on.

[OPSMedia]

I picked Harvick to finish in the top five based solely on his persona. Couldn't picture him going to any race simply just to be there. But your conclusions were well-founded, based on the history of every previous Cup ringer except Kyle Busch.

The moment I knew that I knew that I knew Harvick would win the race was when he flipped off Carey Martin.

That is the snapshot from the weekend that I will never, ever forget. Well, that and the two-minute, wide-eyed, mostly one-way conversation Friday morning that gave my son the same experience Glen Luce's kids received Monday night.

"Dad, I can't believe I was talking to The Real Kevin Harvick!"

Priceless.

K.O.

[kvarn]

I have to disagree with your assesment of Cary Martin. He is one of the hardest racers at OPS. Rerely does he give up a position in a heat race with out a fight, let alone the oxford 250. While lap 47 may not be the best time to pick to battle the guys behind you for every inch of race track, it certainly was a lot of fun to watch.

From TB:

Fun to watch, maybe. But unprofessional and, clearly, his decision to scrap with Harvick cost him a good finish. So, what's worth more? A good finish (i.e., a good payday) in the biggest race of the summer -- or battling hard whenever?

[kvarn]

i didn't mean to imply that it was the smartest racing move as far as stratagy....what i did mean is that i admire a driver who is all out all the time racing for every last inch. Carey Martin is has laways been one of those drivers, and always will be. Don't be fooled, he really did not care who was behind him, it just happened to be the Cup star. I am pretty sure he'd run anyone the same way. Professional? Not at OPS or any other short track. If i wanted Professional, i'd spend more time in front of the TV on Sunday watching a parade of cars move over for one another until 50 laps to go. Thats Professional? Not IMO.

Obviously we see things different, which is OK, but i would rather see scrappers for 250 laps then letting some one go. JMO

kvarn

From TB:

Yep, we disagree.