"Some weeks you're going to be good, some weeks you're going to be junk." That's the philosophy, wisdom and experience of Auburn race car driver Mike Short.

The first part of that saying certainly held true at Oxford Plains Speedway over the weekend as Short topped off the leader board for Saturday night's Strictly Stock division. It's all part and parcel for the compact and pugnacious Short, with his almost 30 years of racing experience, which started when he was a teenager in New Sharon.

After watching his brothers race locally, Short moved to the Lewiston-Auburn area and began working as a machinist. Combining his on-road and off-road skills, Short started to build his own cars to race.

These days the fabrication is almost as important as the competition, with many racers running his cars in the Strictly Stock division, one of the more affordable yet competitive sections of racing with street legal tires only and limits on engine specifications. These limits are pushed however, sometimes over the edge. Short himself has been disqualified in tech inspections twice this season.

It's all part of the game though, as Short says, everyone has their own little trick to eke out more speed from the cars and, as he puts it, "if you don't cheat you don't beat."

One aspect of racing that isn't pushed is safety, however, and while the cars are equipped with extensive roll cages and other safety features, tragedy can strike. In 2003, Short's good friend struck the pit wall at the Speedway with full force during a summer race and died.

Short and other drivers know what they are getting into, and were racing the day after their friend was killed. After all, it was what Dennis Dee "would have wanted us to do," Short said.