Staff Editor

Ron Michaud’s personal commitments often take a back seat to Maine’s premier auto racing event.

The Lewiston resident is a passionate family man who adores his grandson, but the dedicated grandfather has chosen to celebrate the child’s birthday a day early so he can spend Sunday with more than 10,000 screaming fans.

Michaud has been rearranging his tight schedule around one summer weekend to watch drivers spin their wheels at Oxford Plains Speedway for the past 32 years.

After attending every 250 since the event began in 1974, it is safe to say the 54-year-old Michaud hasn’t missed a thing.

“I am afraid it’s a big part of my hobby,” said Michaud, an area vice president for a merchandising company based in Long Island, N.Y. “It’s my only hobby except for my family. I don’t golf. I don’t go fishing. I don’t have any other passions but that.

“I look forward to it (Oxford 250) every year. Oh yeah, it’s quite a highlight. It’s just part of my life. I keep wondering how long I will keep going.”

But don’t look for him to stay home this year, either

Life in the fast lane

Michaud’s passion for fast cars and daring drivers who have the uncanny talent for taking a rolling, run-down gas can and converting it into an eye-opening racing machine started at the age of nine. His uncle invited him and his brother to spend a day at OPS in 1958 to watch drivers put their pedal to the metal. It’s been 47 years since he witnessed these monsters of metal roar down a dirt track, but he is still fascinated with the sport.

“We loved automobiles,” recalled Michaud. “We remembered that crazy little adventure.

“They (drivers) would come up with the darndest things, and those things would just fly. The competition was who could do the best with what they had.”

When Bob Bahre purchased the track in 1964, he brought in talent from all over the nation.

“We had heard about Bob Bahre,” Michaud explained. “He knew how to promote. I said, Hey, we should go see what this is all about.’

“When Bahre took over, it was a launching pad. I saw Bobby Allison win the 300 in 1966. Bob Bahre brought the flavor of racing from down south up here to us hicks, if you will.”

Thanks to Bahre’s vision and eye for top-notch drivers, fans like Michaud kept on coming to OPS. In 1968, Michaud watched Richard Petty win the Grand National race.

Memory lane

For the past 32 years, Michaud has seen the cars, drivers, rules and the event itself change, but he has never ever stopped rooting for the locals – especially when the boys from down south brought their own brand of racing in the early 60s.

“Our people were going to show these southerners a thing or two,” recalled Michaud. “These southerners had a different driving style. They were more aggressive; they were more organized in the pits.”

Of course, Michaud was elated when Turner’s Mike Rowe put an end to the outsiders’ dominance in the event, winning the 250 in 1984.

When he became a sales representative for Anheuser-Busch, he accepted the job of representing the company at the event, which included presenting winners with a trophy and watching all the action from the press box.

“I was there when Ricky Craven won (in 1991),” said Michaud.

When he left Anheuser-Busch for another job, he was reluctant to leave the press box. But another opportunity allowed Michaud to keep his seat with the rest of the scribes when he began writing for “The Racing Paper,” which gives regional coverage of auto racing.

“I have been writing a racing column,” he added. “I have been doing that for the last 13 years.”

Nearly a half century later, Michaud still makes the short trek up Route 26 to watch some of the best national and local drivers test their mettle on the Oxford Plains oval.

It never gets old for him.

“I have seen so much. It’s a family within itself,” said Michaud. “This event has a life of its own in that it changes every time.”