The
North Strikes Back. The Far North that
is.
While the Southern late model stars ruled
early, it was steady Canadian Don Biederman that won the 1977 Oxford 250
Pictures Below Recap
Recounted by Mark Truman using Stock
Car Racing Magazine Recap, November 1977 by Mike Rowell
NOTE: Exact quotes from the magazine will be in italics!!
When Butch Lindley stormed off at the end of the 1976
Oxford 250, $6,375 richer mind you, there were many questions as to whether the
Oxford 250 could continue to attract national (southern really…as most
nationally known stock car racers at that time were all from the south) late
model stars to its remote facility.
Track owner Bob Bahre managed to maintain his NASCAR sanction, however,
and those drivers chasing the national late model points just couldn’t pass it
up. The posted purse of $31,000
probably helped too!
The 1977 race was the 4th annual event of what
was becoming known as one of the most unpredictable and lucrative short track
races in the country. Butch Lindley
dominated the final 90 laps in 1976 amid controversy and returned to defend his
win. The top NASCAR North drivers were
on-hand again to take on the southern stars, the Oxford regulars, and of
course, those drivers from Canada. Don
Biederman was one of the Canadian contingent and he wasn’t really on anyone’s
radar screen for victory lane. Compared
to the glistening paint jobs of Bob Pressley and Harry Gant, Biederman just
looked out of place. The car was a
beat up blue Nova with a green nose and a white number 43 crudely splashed on
its flank. The southern cars were
slickly painted and superbly finished with braided steel fuel and water lines,
tucked and rolled drivers’ seats. Most
featured dry sump lubrication, too. By
comparison many of the northern cars were crude in appearance and a little
rough in engineering. One fairly
successful driver, Stan Meserve of Unity, Maine, gave his answer to the
expensive dry sumps this way, “I just use a Chevy truck pan and fill it up to
the GM on the dip stick.” Truly,
this was a race of rich vs. poor, hot vs. cold, North vs. South.
With the likes of Pressley and Bill Dennis adding to a deep
southern field of Lindley, Gant, and Morgan Shephard, it was hard to believe
that any northern car had a real shot at the win. Most of the top talent up north had been struggling up to that
point in 1977. The three quickest of
the New England crowd last year, Ralph Nason, George Summers, and Dave Dion
have all been plagued with problems.
Dion, usually very optimistic, was thoroughly discouraged a week before
the race. “We’ve blown five engines in
the last few weeks. We are putting
another together from scrap parts. It
will be a toilet and fit right in with the rest of the car.”
The biggest story for the actual competition on the track would again be tire selection. The Firestones were the quickest tires, but they wouldn’t last much more than 100 hard laps. The Good Years were slower, but steady and would probably make the entire 250 laps. The McCreary’s were similarly enduring and similarly slower than the Firestones. Biederman made the decision to stick with the Firestone tires and take it easy. It was a strategy that would pay off.
Morgan Shephard took the first heat race, distancing himself
from Dion and putting his red Nova on the pole. Gant and Pressley also won heat races while Dion’s runner-up
finish in the first heat started his Cougar in fourth place. At the start there was a ferocious duel
between the top four cars as they flew around in tight formation. On the eleventh lap the incredibly fast Nova
of Bob Pressley took the lead and rapidly opened up distance, as Shepard, Dion,
and Gant diced fender to fender. Around
the 20th lap Shepard pulled into the pits with a problem with his
right front tire. The surprised crew
jumped out and changed the right rear tire despite Shepard’s frantic
gesturing. He blasted out of the pits
and made a lap to prevent his being lapped and returned to the pits. This time the baffled pit crew seemed to
lose all its cool and all its skill, and the pit stop dragged on for several
laps. Finally Shepard, resigned to the
hopelessloss of distance, pushed the Ventura behind the pit wall.
After the early round of cautions the race settled in. Dion went into tire saving mode immediately
and fell behind Pressley, Butch Lindley, and Gant. The battle for second between Lindley and Gant allowed Pressley
to run uncontested at the front of the field in Leo Jackson’s “Big Red
Machine”. While he was all alone at the
front of the field, Don Biederman was essentially alone working his way toward
the front and picked off positions at a slower rate. Biederman was running a cautious race sometimes using two or
three laps to pass a lapped car that the leaders would swoop by with a single
burst of speed. Nearing the halfway
point it was apparent that Biederman’s Howe chassis was handling very well as
he got by Dion and Gant which forced the southern driver to pit for tires at
his next chance. Lindley followed Gant
into the pits for the same reason as their Firestone tires were not yielding
the long consistent runs that Biederman’s were. At this point Dion and Biederman had both made quick pit stops
for fuel under an early yellow flag but the rapid rebel Pressley had made no
stops at all. Nearing the 200 lap
mark it was Pressley all alone out front followed by Biederman, Dion, Lindley
and Gant.
Pressley’s breaking point came on lap 213 when he was forced
to pit for gas under green that handed the lead to Biederman. All his hard won lead disappeared in
seconds. The yellow then came out on
the 225th lap and Pressley pitted for tires, falling further
back. Now Biederman and only Dion and
Lindley were on the same lap. Dion’s
Cougar then began a series of disasterous pit stops for tires. Before the race Dion said that his Cleveland
engined Cougar was heavier in the nose and harder on tires than the Chevies,
but it was more likely that the fierce infighting with the leaders during the
early laps of the race cost Dion the rubber that he needed. With Dion out of the picture and Lindley a
half lap behind him, Biederman was able to take it even easier on the tires and
coasted home to what would was essentially an easy victory. How did the barnstormer from Missasauga,
Ontario outwit NASCAR’s top sportsman drivers?
During the long northern winters, Biederman works in Ed Howe’s
Michigan chassis shop and knows a thing or two about handling tire wear. But principally he saved his tires by
careful easy driving and avoiding tire eating battles with other cars. As Biederman put it himself, “Well,
sorry. I was just motoring around out
there.”
CLOSING: Lindley
came home with an easy second place finish as Pressley was only able to charge
back to third place by overtaking Gant late in the race. Another Canadian racer, Hector LeClair
rounded out the top five. Pressley
filed a protest after the race as he felt that Biederman could not have been
ahead of him. When informed that
Biederman had only needed one pit stop for gas and no tires, Pressley was still
unwilling to believe he had lost.
Lindley now had a second place and first place finish in his first two
attempts at the Oxford 250 and he would be a fixture at the race for the next
several years. $4,000 for second place
gave him over $10,000 in winnings in his two visits to Oxford Plains! Pressley’s finest moment in the event was
still a year away, but by leading for over 200 laps, the southern standout
served notice that he was a force to be reckoned with at the track. The story of the night though, was Don
Biederman. In defeating the national
late model sportsman stars and the NASCAR North top dogs he had a chance to
really revel in his success. He
didn’t seem much impressed by defeating the southern stars, but the English
speaking Canadian from Ontario was delighted to beat Quebec’s Jean-Paul Cabana.
4th Annual Oxford 250 Pictures
Don Biederman slides under Harry
Gant Morgan Shepard points to
the right front! Bob Pressley
Feature lineup: Shepherd (7), Gant (77) Pressley (4) Dion
(outside)