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ON PIT ROAD: Sanborn, Sprint Cup and soggy shoes

It's Thursday again. That means it's time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup with a spin around the dirt track at the end of the street. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks...

* EVERY TIME A non-Sprint Cup-affiliated team wins a NASCAR Camping World East Series race, it should be celebrated, particularly by fans who lament the significant changes the series has undergone in the last few years.

When the CWES was still a northeastern-based series, Matt Kobyluck’s Mohegan Sun team was one of the better funded teams there was. These days, with Cup teams putting East cars on the dyno every day – every day! – it’s impossible for "regular" guys to keep up.

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 SITE: A dozen cars have headed home

And now we’ve got some official news.

There are 74 Late Models at Oxford Plains Speedway this fine Monday morning, leaving a total of 12 that have had to pack up and head home. All but 3 of the cars still here were out at some point to either practice or scuff tires in the 1-hour TD Banknorth 250 practice session.

Only one qualified driver – T.J. Watson of Cundy’s Harbor – has not returned to Oxford today. Watson was to have started 13^th in the ‘250' this evening – though he does live locally and it is expected that he will return this evening in time for the main.

ON SITE: Scott Payea feels he's finally hit on a setup

Scott Payea enters the TD Banknorth 250 as the American-Canadian Tour points leader, the poster child for the ACT hopes at winning the prestigious race.

But Payea can only laugh when he's asked about it's like to be on everyone's list of contenders after finishing 3rd in the event last summer.

"My whole career has kind of been under the radar and we've always seemed to just be there at the end of the race," Payea said after wrapping up practice on Saturday. "Leading the points -- there's nothing we can be sad about with that. You take everything that comes with it, because it just means you're having a good year. Hopefully, we can live up to these expectations that have maybe been put on us now."

ON PIT ROAD: Cups, combinations and curious decisions

It's Thursday again. That means it's time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup with a spin around the dirt track at the end of the street. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks...

* I"M HEARING THAT there will be "fewer" big races on the Wiscasset Raceway schedule in 2009.

The track is expected to do away with many of the automatic qualifiers for the Street Stock and Sportsman Nationals events in October, races held as part of the season-ending championship weekend for PASS at Wiscasset.

Ricky Rolfe, Eddie MacDonald suprise no one as Oxford 250 favorites

You have to love the way Ricky Rolfe is embracing his role as favorite to win this year's Oxford 250.

Where most drivers have cringed when their peers have named them to win the prestigious race, well aware of the history of carrying the label of 'favorite' for guys like Jeff Taylor or Tracy Gordon or any dozen other guys, Rolfe just grins that wide grin -- practically opening his arms as if to suggest "Bring it On."

When Oxford Plains Speedway owner Bill Ryan skirted offering a definitive choice for who he believed would win Sunday's 35th version of the event, he said he simply hoped to see a local weekly Oxford competitor have the chance to host the trophy.

Joey Pole runs uneventful 16th in East Series debut

Joey Polewarczyk essentially got just what he wanted out of his only scheduled Camping World East Series race this season.

Polewarczyk completed every lap of the Pepsi Full Fendered Frenzy 100 at Thompson International Speedway, rolling to an uneventful 16th-place finish. The 19-year-old driver from Hudson, N.H., and a 2-time winner on the American-Canadian Tour this year, was driving for longtime series East Series owner Barney McRae.

"I just want to have a clean race and earn some respect out there," Polewarczyk said before qualifying. "I'm just hoping that if I have a good race, then some team or someone will say, 'This kid has some talent' and maybe want to have me do some more races."

Derek Ramstrom will run Oxford 250

Derek Ramstrom will attempt to run the Oxford 250 next weekend.

Ramstrom's father, Rick Ramstrom, confirmed Saturday afternoon that Ramstrom will drive a Late Model owned by Denny Stampfl. The car is the same one that David Avery drove in last year's 250. The open Late Model competition is scheduled for July 20th.

Ramstrom, 16, of West Boylston, Mass., had talked about running a PASS National Championship event at Orange County the night before, but with his weekly efforts at Thompson International Speedway taking place on Thursday nights, the team felt they couldn't do it.

ON PIT ROAD: Fireworks, firing up and first-come-first-serve

It's Thursday again. That means it's time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup with a spin around the dirt track at the end of the street. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks...

* SAGGING ATTENDANCE

? Check.

Low car counts? Check.

Purses out of control? Check.

So, you're a promoter at a short track in Maine, and you've got some problems, huh? Well, read on, Bingo, because I'm about to make all your problems disappear.

ON SITE: On vacation at The Speedbowl

Waterford Speedbowl always felt like my little Maine away from Maine.

I spent most of my working life in southern New England covering racing at Thompson International Speedway on a weekly basis, but I sprinkled in a few specials at both Stafford Motor Speedway and Waterford Speedbowl. Thompson is obviously big, so big that it never felt like weekly short-track racing to me, and Stafford is big-city glitz at its finest in this sport.

But Waterford is the small, rough-and-tumble kind of race facility I grew up with.

Adam Bates a PASS winner; Hewins puts end to Rolfe's streak

Can I pick the sand out of my toes long enough to produce any meaningful work? Probably not.

But in case you, too, are living 13 hours behind the rest of the world this week and figured this was the only stop you'd make in your search for results from Saturday night -- here's some of what went down.

Adam Bates, who has been taking steps toward success in the PASS North Series, won the Firecracker 150 at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway on Saturday night.

ON SITE: Little Al says "Just say no to rain"

Who says you can't race in the rain?

Besides, with a passing sprinkle at Oxford Plains Speedway, this is a fine time to pass along a public service announcement from old friend Al Unser Jr. There's Little Al, his mug joining nearly a dozen other racing personalities from the early 1990s, on a poster in the Oxford press box.

The message? Well, of course, silly -- it's "Just Say No."

No-go for ACT at White Mountain

Forty-five cars showed up at White Mountain Motorsports Park for the American-Canadian Tour event there on Saturday night.

Forty-five cars drove home without racing.

Heavy rains hit the area around the speedway in the early evening, necessitating the cancellation.

ON SITE: Keeping track of the off-site goings on

Another glamorous day in the life of a local auto racing writer...

We've spent most of the day here paying attention to what's going on elsewhere -- namely, where the rains are headed for later today and which events are going to be impacted. Not far from halfway in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, it looks like this will be the only day of the weekend thus far without some sort of weather delay.

The American-Canadian Tour 60 miles up the road in North Woodstock might not be so lucky.

Cris Michaud wins Governor's Cup 100 at Thunder Road

Cris Michaud and Eric Williams swapped the lead a handful of times on Thursday night at Thunder Road International Speedbowl, but it was Michaud who led the final 34 laps and walked off to win the Governor's Cup 100.

Williams beat Michaud in the 2 previous Governor's Cups, and Michaud said prior to the event that he saw no reason he couldn't turn the tables. He beat Williams in a 50-lap feature last week, too.

The two traded the point 3 times in the second half of the race before Michaud pulled away.

COLUMN: Touring invaders are now Oxford 250 favorites

Ricky Rolfe had the best seat in the house.

After starting 17th in the ACT Dunkin' Donuts 150 last Saturday night and working all the way up to 3rd at the checkered flag, Rolfe could see everything going on both in front of him and behind him. And what he saw was no suprise to him.

Less than a month from the TD Banknorth 250, the ACT teams had literally become "outside" invaders.

ON SITE: Joey Polewarczyk rebounds with ACT win at Oxford

The track changed in an instant, and so, too, did Joey Polewarczyk Jr.'s American-Canadian Tour fortunes.

Rebounding from a disastrous 5-race stretch in which he never finished in the top half of the field and failed to qualify for one of the events, the 18-year-old Polewarczyk dominated the second half of the Dunkin' Donuts 150 at Oxford Plains Speedway on Saturday night. The kid they call "Joey Pole" led the final 98 laps en route to his 2nd win of the season.

"We've had fast cars, really fast cars and competitive, but whatever went wrong usually went wrong," Polewarczyk said. "We came to this race, pretty much just as a tune-up for the (TD Banknorth 250). We had some new stuff, but nobody lost faith. That was the biggest thing."

ON SITE: Shocks taken from top Late Model teams

We've had some shocking developments here at Oxford Plains Speedway already. Quite literally.

Prior to the final practice session of the day for the ACT Dunkin' Donuts 150, 6 drivers and their cars were called to Oxford's technical inspection area. They were informed upon arriving at the scales that they would be forking over their respective left front shocks and replacing them with new ones issued from ACT.

"We're just making sure they know that we're aware of things," said ACT president Tom Curley.

ON PIT ROAD: Big races, big news and big fans

It's Thursday again. That means it's time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup with a spin around the dirt track at the end of the street. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks...

* ONE OF THE great things about my other life as an outdoors writer is fishing. It puts me in touch with an entirely different type of auto racing fan, the casual fan who doesn't live and breathe every moment of the sport.

For those of us afflicted with the disease that is short-track racing, we're still going to go to races no matter the price of gas or the economic hardships facing teams. But not everybody makes racing the front-and-center part of their entertainment lives.

Ricky Rolfe wins again at OPS

The public address system may have cut out for part of Saturday night at Oxford Plains Speedway, but nobody needs anyone to tell them how good Ricky Rolfe is right now.

Rolfe, who won the American-Canadian Tour's New England Dodge Dealers 150 in April to start his season, won his 2nd straight 40-lap Late Model feature at Oxford. Teammates Kurt Hewins and Dennis Spencer Jr. finished 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

It was Hewins who saw firsthand just how dominant Rolfe has become, as Rolfe passed him for the lead midway through the race after starting in the back of the pack.