OXFORD – Oxford Plains Speedway owner Bill Ryan was more concerned with the weekend weather forecast than how many Pro Stock cars local prognosticators expect to see in the garage area Sunday for the True Value 250.

“It will be interesting to see. If you do the math, there aren’t that many Pro Stocks racing at a lot of the other tracks in Maine,” Ryan said.

No, but 36 different drivers have taken the green flag in a weekly event at OPS.

The number of touring and independent drivers arriving at the pit gate already doubled that total early Saturday. Seventy-two drivers were signed in at 2 p.m., a full 24 hours before the start of qualifying today.

That didn’t include Tracy Gordon of NASCAR Busch North Series and Ted Christopher of the NASCAR Featherlite Modified Series, both of whom were competing elsewhere Saturday night.

Add the dozen-or-so drivers competing at their home tracks throughout northern New England on Saturday night who won’t be showing up until race day, and traffic in the technical inspection line was running precisely at last year’s pace, when 84 drivers officially attempted to qualify for the race.

The record high is 106, set in the early 1980s, while a low of 47 drivers attempted to qualify in 1992, the last year the 250 was a Busch North event.

“You always want the number to be high because of perception,” said Ryan, “but we’ll definitely have enough cars.”

Among drivers already registered, five are from New Hampshire, three from New Brunswick, two from Massachusetts and one each from Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario.

Rain, rain go away

Even though the season just passed its midway point, Friday night’s rainout at OPS was the seventh of the season, including weekly series, summer series and go-kart competition. The speedway also postponed a night of racing after driver Dennis Dee was killed in a crash on June 14.

Most rainouts are not rescheduled, as the track typically plans on two or three when it puts together a provisional schedule over the winter. Ryan hasn’t yet announced any additions to the second-half slate.

“We could have used Friday night,” said Ryan. “It’s been a pretty lousy year for racing up until the last three weeks.”

Saturday morning’s practice began under overcast skies, but the fog burned off and gave way to bright sunshine by 11 a.m. Sunday’s forecast is for partly sunny skies with temperatures near 80.

Speed merchants

Scott Fraser of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, who led 88 of the first 89 laps in last year’s True Value 250 before he crashed while trying to avoid a spinning car, unofficially clocked the fastest time in Saturday’s morning practice session. Fraser turned a lap in 15.12 seconds, averaging just over 89 mph around the 3/8-mile oval in his No. 08 King Freight Lines Chevrolet.

Turner’s Mike Rowe and Johnny Clark of Farmingdale were next in line, with Joe Bessey, Scott Chubbuck, Scott Mulkern and Jeff Taylor all under 15.3 seconds.

Speeds slowed across the board by about one-tenth of a second during the first afternoon practice after the temperatures warmed, with Clark and Steve Knowlton of Ipswich, Mass., topping the chart.

Those times are almost a full second (about five mph) quicker than last summer, prior to the re-paving of the speedway.

Busy man

If technical inspector Randy Varney was stressed out Saturday morning, he didn’t show it, even as the line of Pro Stock cars ready for his team’s perusal snaked around a fence and more than a quarter-mile into the pit area. Varney, now in his fourth season at the helm, calmly rode around the property on a red all-terrain vehicle.

“I think we’re going to have a good weekend,” he said.

koakes@sunjournal.com

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