BACK-TO-BACK FOR BEN ROWE!!

The Regional Ace Joins Bodine and Nason as the Only Back-to-back winners of the Banknorth Oxford 250.

Pictures Below Recap

Ben Rowe pulls into Victory Lane and cools off with a cold beverage….after winning his second Banknorth Oxford 250 in a row! (Lee Truman Photo)

Oxford, Me – Ben Rowe made it back-to-back wins in the Banknorth Oxford 250 by inheriting the lead with eleven laps remaining to take home $29,700 in the 31^st annual running of one of the countries’ most prestigious short track races. Race leader Alan Wilson was on cruise control when a rear tire began to fail and cost him a chance at his biggest payday. Local campaigner Ricky Rolfe finished in second place and Nextel Cup Champion Matt Kenseth claimed third from the forty-first starting position.

Officially, ninety-four drivers filled out entry blanks and eighty-seven cars took practice laps at the famed 3/8^th mile oval. The luck-of-the-draw heat race format would eventually have eighty cars actually attempt to qualify for the guaranteed $25,000 winner’s share. The race also pays out $100 for each lap led in the feature. A sellout crowd of close to 13,000 witnessed a truly classic event.

Current PASS point leader Johnny Clark continued his hot streak in regional Pro Stock events by claiming the win in the first heat race to sit on the pole for the Banknorth 250. Clark set a torrid pace in the early laps and was putting cars a lap down by lap 16 due to a one-groove racing surface. Clark would relinquish the lead to Scott Mulkern briefly before Mulkern would tangle with Clark and a lapped car giving Clark the lead again just before halfway. A caution at lap 131 would change the complexion of the race as Clark opted to pit and lost track position.

Ben Rowe took over the top spot and pulled away from Ricky Rolfe and Dale Shaw until the seventh, and final, caution flew on lap 167. Rowe and his race team decided to make their final pit stop at that time, handing the lead to Dale Shaw. The caution was critical in other ways as Clark was the innocent victim of a car spinning in front of him and it took him out of contention.

“We decided to stop and put four tires on and do it twice,” explained Rowe. “I questioned that decision to be honest with you, but the guys said, ‘Come back in’. I’ve got to take my hat off to that crew because we did four tires on both stops and did it from the back pit. We beat some of those guys from the front pit and we don’t do this every week. We have some old guys running around and a guy to jack the car up.”

Those old guys did well enough to get Rowe out of the pits in eighth place and the defending race champion showed some savvy by taking advantage of the one groove surface to improve his spot on the restart. With nobody willing to move to the outside to take the green, Rowe drove along the outside and got himself back into track position.

Said Rowe, “None of those guys down low wanted to start up high so that gave us a break. I think I got in front of my old man (Mike Rowe) that way and luckily he let me down in front of him.”

That maneuver just prior to the green flag setup the charge to the front by the two-time PASS champion.

“We came back through the pack using a two-stop strategy from the beginning. When I got into the lead I didn’t want to come back because I knew how hard it was to pass. It was a riot…when I came back through I got behind Matt Kenseth and forgot he was in that 17 car and I got racing him hard and thought ‘man, that was awesome’.

The victory was not yet in the bag for Rowe, however, as Dale Shaw and Scott Chubbuck would actually battle for the lead on the lap 168 restart. Contact between the two cars sent Shaw off the track and Chubbuck to the pits for a stop and go penalty. No caution flag came out, however, and the field became spread out. The new leader of the race, Oxford driver Alan Wilson, pulled out to a 4 second lead over Kenseth, Rolfe, and Rowe.

Rowe was able to pin Rolfe to the low side and eventually worked his way past Kenseth at the 200-lap mark. Many drivers were hoping for one last caution period to take on tires and make necessary final adjustments. That caution period never came.

“My spotter said ‘keep diggin’ keep diggin’’, said Rowe. “We figured there’d be another caution with 70 to go or so but we never got another yellow. Finally we realized there was thirty laps left and we said we’ve gotta get going. Lapped traffic was tough to get by because nobody wanted to go to the outside groove so that is where I had to make all of my passes. Everyone was hooting and hollering about the outside groove and we just kept inching up and inching up and got it to work for us.”

Rolfe was also looking for a yellow flag to take on new tires.

“I wish I could have put on two more right side tires,” said a worn out Rolfe. “I needed a caution BAD! We didn’t have any pit strategy and just figured it out on the fly. We took right side tires on our first stop because the right front was blistering. On the second stop we took left side only and went up the outside like those guys were standing still until we reached the top five and then we stayed there the rest of the race.”

With no caution period to bring the field back together, Wilson continued to click off the $100 laps as Rowe slowly closed in. However, with just eleven laps remaining it didn’t appear that he had enough time.

“I was reeling Alan in at the end. I knew I could get to him but I didn’t know if I could get by him. I could see Alan backing up a bit and I thought he might be burning up his tires or something. I figured that if I could just get to him I might be able to find a way to get by him. But I didn’t have to.”

Wilson, who has finished in the top four in this event in the past, ran out of racing luck. After battling the lapped car of Scott Chubbuck for several laps, the local campaigner got bitten by the ever-present Oxford 250 demons on lap 239.

“I radioed the guys about four, five laps before that and told them I had a problem with the right rear,” said and exhausted Wilson after the race. “I just came out of the corner and it just took off. We were fortunate. We led some laps. We showed them we could do it."

Wilson’s misfortune was to Rowe’s benefit.

“I hate it for Alan,” said a sincere Rowe in Victory Lane. “I’d rather pass him clean on the race track.”

Rolfe also was in position to know what had taken place.

“I didn’t see Alan go off the track. I saw a bunch of dust and then I saw him coming back on to the track and I thought, “man, that’s Alan and he was leading”. I realized I must have been in third. I looked up at the scoreboard the next time around and saw that I was in second. The laps don’t seem to click off very fast when you’re up front.”

From that point on, Rowe just had to pilot his Mechanical Services Chevrolet around a few lapped cars and stay out of trouble. The race was in the bag, right?

“I didn’t think I had it won until the white flag flew,” laughed the second-generation driver. “I’ve learned my lesson here that you can’t count on anything in this race.” (Rowe ran out of gas while leading with two laps to go in 1996…with a $50,000 first place prize!).

Rowe was ecstatic in Victory Lane and joined Geoff Bodine and Ralph Nason as the only drivers to win the event two years in a row.

“Man, it’s unbelievable. I didn’t think we could top last year. This is awesome. I was more relaxed this year after winning it last year. All week long everyone was talking about Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth and that took the pressure off me because the media kept talking about them. I have to hand it to the guys on the crew. They were out there working on the car today and it’s like 150 degrees. I like this race because it gets the crew involved and they get pumped up which gets me pumped up.”

Rowe joins his father Mike, Bodine, Nason, Dave Dion, Chuck Bown, and Jamie Aube as drivers to have won the race twice. It wasn’t lost on the younger Rowe that he’d accomplished something his father had not.

“Well, we won two in a row. I guess I’ve finally done something that old man hasn’t done here!”

Rolfe, the defending Pro Stock champion in weekly competition at Oxford Plains Speedway needed a boost to his year.

“We didn’t even expect to qualify,” he said. “Here I am, the defending champion of the track from last year. I couldn’t do anything wrong last year and I haven’t done anything right this year until today. We were three-tenths off all the faster cars but we stayed consistent all weekend. Making the race was good enough for us and finishing second is just a bonus. The other night I watched the Miracle on Ice about the U.S. Hockey team (from 1980)…well, this right here is ‘miracle on asphalt’.”

Kenseth’s pre-race comments made it clear that he knew he’d been in for a hard-fought battle in the Banknorth 250.

“This is one of the biggest short track races I’ve been to, if not the biggest. When I was racing the short tracks in Wisconsin I’d always heard of the All American 400 and the Oxford 250 as the two biggest short track races in the country.”

“I’ve raced in all the big ones and I’ve always wanted to come up here and race this one. I’ve heard great things about the competitors here and great things about the fans and it’s good to see so many people show up.”

With regards to the race, Kenseth proved to the local crowd just how great of a driver he is. Forced to take a provisional starting spot, Kenseth had to battle from forty-first starting spot. Proof of his skills was evident by the fact that he had cracked the top three by lap 100!

“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Kenseth. “We had a great car in practice and the Whorff’s (local driver Billy Whorff Jr.) prepared a great car for me. The car drove good all day. I drew last in my heat race and I wasn’t used to the track and couldn’t find any room to race. I got spun out in the consolation race and got a flat tire but I knew the car was good. I didn’t think I’d be able to get that far to the front though.”

"I was able to get around the track pretty good. We pitted at the right time in the race. We maybe could have pitted one more time and might have had a shot at winning, but we pitted at the right time to have the proper track position.”

Kurt Busch never found his way to the front, but he found he found himself in the middle of a lot of action.

Busch made it into the race by finishing fourth in the second consolation race. He would start 35^th on the field. Busch’s car was a Taurus prepared by local racer Tim Bracket and had sponsorship from Crown Royal. Busch was actually following Kenseth through the field but decided to pit on lap 95. He lost one lap in the pits. After that he found himself in a few skirmishes that relegated him to a 13^th place finish.

"It's very congested to say the least," said a tired Busch after the event. "We had a guy changing a few lanes on us in our heat race, and that made us drop back to sixth. We were able to finish good enough in that to make the main event. That was the first objective.”

Notes:

- Rowe drives a Distance Chassis and is sponsored by Mechanical Services.

- Rolfe drives a Race Basics chassis on his Monte Carlo and is sponsored by TurnKey Homes and D.A. Wilson Contracting.

- Kenseth was racing a Whorff Racing car sponsored by AAA Insurance.

- NHL Hall of Famer and former Boston Bruin standout Ray Bourque was the Grand Marshall (he’s a spokesperson for Banknorth if you’re looking for a reference…)

- NASCAR Modified standout Ted Christopher failed to qualify…again. He did not qualify last year either.

- Second place paid $12,000, third place paid $7,500. Wilson earned $11,300 for fifth place with all of the lap leader bonus money.

- Johnny Clark was the dominant car of the first half of the event. With lap leader bonuses he pocketed $14,250 for finishing 24^th!

- Scott Mulkern was charging to the front but got involved in an incident with Steve Knowlton and Kurt Busch on lap 138.

- 2002 Oxford 250 Champion Scott Robbins was on the lead lap when his car lost power under caution at lap 60. He could not recover and finished 11^th.

- 2001 Oxford 250 Champion Gary Drew had car trouble in the early going of the feature and pulled off early. He finished 40^th.

- Sam Sessions charged to the front early, but after pitting was in the middle of the pack and got caught up in a “big one” that ended his night. Cassius Clark, Travis Khiel and Kirk Thibeau were all involved in the wreck.

- Dale Shaw cost Scott Chubbuck a possible victory in last years Big Dawg race. Chubbuck returned the favor this year by punting Shaw out of the lead. These two have cost each other $130,000 or more in the last 9 months. Ouch!

Cautions: 7

Lead Changes: 7

Leaders: (J. Clark grid-119, Mulkern 120-122, J. Clark 123-131, B. Rowe 132-167, Shaw 168-173, Chubbuck 174-176, Wilson 177-239, B. Rowe 240-250)

Heat Race Winners

Heat 1: Johnny Clark

Heat 2: Mike Rowe

Heat 3: Dale Shaw

Heat 4: Stan Meserve

Heat 5: Kevin Kimball

Heat 6: Sam Sessions

Consolation Round

Consi 1: Ben Rowe

Consi 2: Larry Gelinas

Consi 3: Jay Sands

Last Chance Qualifier (Hooligan Race)

Bill Whorff Jr. – Whorff opted not to take the $2,000 and instead took a starting spot in feature lineup. This was actually a bad move because he already had a provisional spot for his win in the season opening Maine Dodge Dealers 100 at Oxford Plains. He could have taken the $2,000, turned down the Last Chance Qualifier and got into the race with his first provisional!!

Provisional Spots:

Scott Robbins – Most recent Oxford 250 Winner

Tim Brackett – Highest in Oxford track point standings

Ricky Morse – Running first in the ACT Dodge Tour race the night before

Matt Kenseth – NASCAR Cup Champion

31^st TD Banknorth 250 Pictures