Score One for the South

Ralph Nason thought he took the lead and was letting a lapped car by. Scoring said he let Butch Lindley win without a fight.

Pictures Below Recap

Recounted by Mark Truman using Stock Car Racing Magazine Recap, December 1976 by Mike Rowell

Thanks to Bobby Walker and Ken Maurice for sharing their memories of the race with me over the years

NOTE: Exact quotes from the magazine will be in italics!!

It was a night for a melting pot of talent at Oxford Plains Speedway as no less than four types of race cars converged on the track for the 3^rd Annual Oxford 250. With a purse of $30,000 being posted by Bob Bahre and a NASCAR sanction it was bound to attract cars from all around the United States. It did not disappoint.

The biggest NASCAR names to make the trip were from the south as national Late Model stars L.D. Ottinger, Harry Gant, Morgan Shephard and Butch Lindley were trying to win the national championship and probably catch the eye of the bigger NASCAR Grand National teams. Not to be outdone by the southern teams, the NASCAR North contingent of Bobby Dragon, Dave Dion, and Beaver Dragon wanted to hold serve in their biggest regional race. Dion, the 1975 winner of the race, was the scourge of the NASCAR North in 1975 and was showing the way again through the first half of 1976.

Not to be overshadowed by the NASCAR teams were the local racers who were running under Oxford Open Competition rules with their Saturday night cars. Mike Rowe, Leland Kangas, and Stan Meserve, just to name a few, weren’t going to let a bunch of outsiders come to their home track and steal the show. At least, they were going to make them work for it! The fourth group, and certainly not the last group, was the rabid Canadian fans who came south to see their heroes, Don Biederman, Claude Aubin, and the immortal Jean-Paul Cabana. With four distinct groups of cars and racing styles, the Oxford 250 was becoming the showcase event for late model racing in the northeast.

“Dynamite” Dave Dion’s bright orange #27 Ford Torino won the first heat race to claim the pole position. When the green flag came down, Dion flashed into the lead, hotly pursued by Canadian Claude Aubin and Bobby Dragon. Meanwhile, Butch Lindley’s trim Nova began slicing up towards the front of the field. Top competitors George Summers and Langis Caron were eliminated early. Summers due to a poor choice of tires and Caron got caught up in a melee on the backstretch on lap 11. Lindley continued to move up through the shifting traffic until he was right behind Dion. For the next forty laps, they dueled back and forth until Lindley squeaked by on the 65^th lap.

While that battle took place, top drivers were beginning to make their way to the front. Ralph Nason and his Crysler kit car brought Harry Gant along with him into the top four by lap 93. Nason worked his way past Dion as the defending Oxford 250 champ was trying to play a game of patience and save his tires for the long run. His strategy was foiled when contact with Ottinger on lap 93 caused his left front tire to go flat and as cars past him left and right, he did not get a caution and was forced to pit under green, essentially ending his chances at a repeat win. The race was now between Lindley and Nason.

Lindley gradually opened up space on the yellow kit car, but Nason, intending to run the race on one set of rubber, was confident of taking the lead when Lindley stopped for tires. Under a yellow flag on the 134^th lap, both cars stopped for gas. Nason’s crew removed his hood, and he blasted out of the pits without it. Circling the track he returned to the pits without crossing the start\finish line and picked up his hood. Was this lap counted? Bob Walker, the announcer, declared to the crowd that Nason’s pit stops had not cost him a lap. The scorekeepers, though, now counted Nason as down one lap to Lindley.

Bob Bahre was adamant that the race be 250 green flag laps so that the fans could get their money’s worth. He did not like the idea of caution laps counting towards the 250 laps. However, caution laps ARE scored at the Oxford 250 so it is possible to lose laps in the pits.

On the 144^th lap, Lindley pitted for tires under yellow. His crew was fast and very proficient, and changed both outside tires and had him back on the track with a loss of only one lap. At this point Nason thought he was in the lead by over a lap, while the scorers placed him ahead by only a few yards. Nason put himself on cruise control, confident that he had Lindley covered. When Lindley did catch him at lap 156, Nason did not attempt to hold him off as he was still managing his tires. Why bother to battle somebody who is a full track behind you? Lindley pulled away from Nason over the next 40 laps and was actually the leader of the race and Nason didn’t know it! Track owner Bob Bahre had offered a $1000 bonus to the leader on the 200^th lap, and the starter would signify it by waving a bicentennial flag at the leader. When Nason saw that flag brandished at Lindley he knew something was wrong and poured on the coal. Nason closed the gap to less than half a lap, but even fifty laps was not enough to catch the flying Lindley. Meanwhile, 1974 Oxford 200 winner Joey Kourafas’s kit car Dodge, Bobby Dragon’s Chevelle, and Morgan Shephard’s Ventura clashed for the last 100 laps in a wild melee for third. The lead shifted back and forth, but in the end it was Lindley, Nason, Kourafas, Shephard, and Dragon.

CLOSING: This was a race that sparked a lot of emotion between the north and the south at the Oxford 250 and the “civil war” would continue right into the 80’s. Ralph Nason did file a protest after the race and the situation was so volatile that Lindley grabbed his $6,375 winner’s share of the purse and left the track without attending the post race press conference. Back then, the press conference was a big deal and the sight of Lindley storming off left a negative impression on many of the Oxford fans. Many fans, writers, and even drivers all feel that Nason was the rightful winner of the race. I know that Bobby Walker has explained to me that his comments during the race, that were picked up on by the author of the article, were wrong and that Nason DID go a lap down. I know of several people who completely disagree and think that Nason should have four Oxford 250 wins under his belt. Here was author Mike Rowell’s closing comments: The Oxford 250 was an exciting and dramatic race the brought together drivers from several diverse home grounds. The days when drivers from one part of the country have an overwhelming superiority over the rest is gone forever. From a fan’s perspective, AMEN!

3^rd Annual Oxford 250 Pictures

Dave Dion can’t hold back Butch Lindley Butch Lindley’s winning pit stop Ralph Nason’s Chrysler kit car