Ralph Nason assumes he tried to qualify for the inaugural Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway in 1974, but he failed to do so.
However, a year later, he did qualify and started sixth before winding up 32nd over the three-eighths of a mile long track.
As the start of Sunday’s Oxford 250 gets closer, Nason reflected on the race and his remarkable five-year stretch in which he won three in a row (1998, 1999, 2000), finished third in 2001 and ninth in 2002 at the age of 62.
He is the only driver to ever win three straight.
“That was very special,” said the Bangor native and long-time Unity resident. “You talk to anyone who has won even one of them and they are tickled [pink].”
Newburgh’s Ricky Craven won the 1991 Oxford 250 en route to an impressive 278-race nNASCAR Cup Series career and he said the race was important to him because “I’m a Maine boy and it’s a Maine thing.”
Craven, who twice won in the Cup Series at Darlington (South Carolina) and Martinsville (Virginia), said he used to attend the race with his family when he was a child.
“It was my Daytona 500,” he said. “And when I won it, it was a ‘check-the-box’ moment.”
Nason and Winslow’s Stan Meserve were the two drivers who inspired him growing up and he said he wishes Meserve had been able to win the 250 “because he is one of the greatest drivers of all time.”
Nason said what put him in Victory Lane three times was the fact he learned the nuances of the track and how to generate the most speed and find the most grip by running the correct line.
There is also plenty of luck involved, he said.
Numbers are drawn for starting spots in the six 20-lap qualifying races, and only the top four finishers advance. Then there are three 20-lap consolation races for those who failed to qualify in the first set of heat races and the top three finishers in each qualify.
Finally, there is a last-chance race for the non-qualifiers, and only the winner moves on to the 250.
Following his ninth place finish in 2002, he parked his race car and never raced the 250 again.
“I just lost interest in it,” said Nason, who has owned Unity Raceway with wife, Nancy, since 1980. “I climbed the mountain and got to the top. It didn’t have that big a draw for me any more.
“My crew was getting older and raising families. There was too much stuff going on. And I didn’t want to spend the money either,” he added.
Between tires and gas, Nason estimated that you have to spend at least $5,000 to run the race.
But he made more $187,000 in his 18 starts at the 250 thanks to the three wins, six top-five finishes and nine top 10s.
The 83-year-old Nason said he knew the race would become a fixture from the outset.
“It is the single biggest race in New England,” Nason said. “It’s a big deal. It pays a lot of money, and it brings in oodles of money.”
Drivers can now take home as much as $50,000 in purse and lap money for winning the race.
The list of drivers who have run the race is a who’s who of the NASCAR Cup Series that includes six of the 11 winningest drivers of all-time.
Those six have combined for 439 race wins and 12 NASCAR Points championships.
Jeff Gordon is third all-time with 93 wins, and he has won four titles. Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison each notched 84 victories to tie for fourth; current drivers Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick are ninth and 10th with 63 and 60 victories, respectively; and Rusty Wallace took the checkered flag 55 times.
Waltrip won three points championships, Busch has won two and Allison, Harvick and Wallace have each won one.
Harvick won the Oxford 250 in 2008, and Busch captured it in 2011.
Gordon, Waltrip, Allison and Wallace are all in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Nason said in the early years, his cars didn’t have the equipment necessary to complete 250 laps so the more expensive cars would usually win.
So they invested more money into their race cars.
“You had to do it,” he said. “A lot of guys fell by the wayside because they didn’t have the money to spend on their cars.”
He remembers there being “so much confusion” in the early years of the race because there were so many cars entered to try to earn the 43-44 starting spots.
“You just had to put your head down and keep working,” Nason said. “I had as many bad years as I had good ones, maybe even a lot more.”
Nason said when the NASCAR Cup series racers came up to Oxford, they were at a disadvantage against the drivers who were involved in the lower Busch North and South series.
“The Busch drivers always raced short tracks [like Oxford] and the Cup drivers raced on some big tracks like Daytona, so they weren’t as sharp as the Busch guys,” he said.
But he also pointed out that the presence of Cup racers helped the attendance.
Former owner Bill Ryan, who owned the track from 2000 to 2012, had an eight-year stretch when he brought in Cup drivers to run the race because it was an off-weekend in the Cup series.
He sold the track to Pro All-Stars Series founder and promoter Tom Mayberry in 2012, and the race was eventually moved from July to August, which conflicted with the Cup Series schedule.
Dave Dion, who won three Oxford 250s and had 18 top-10 finishes in 26 starts, will be the grand marshall for Sunday’s race. He will be joined by Joey Kourafas, who won the first 250 in 1974, and longtime Vermont driver Jamie Aube. The three will be part of the Chat With the 250 Legends event that will be held right before the field is announced.
