7:53 p.m. – Guess what? More rain… This could spell the end of racing tonight…Keep it here for updates…

7:51 p.m. – Heat 6 is on the track for their warmup laps.

7:49 p.m. – Carey Martin, Kevin Harvick, Ben Rowe and Bill Whorff Jr. advance out of Heat 5. Rowe shows off his car, which ran better and faster than Harvick’s in that race.

7:46 p.m. – Rowe, Whorff and Harvick make for some great racing through the middle of the heat. Harvick is solid in second now, with Rowe passing Whorff

7:42 p.m. – Harvick and Martin run away from the field after a small fracas behind them on Lap 1.

7:41 p.m. – Heat 5 cars are on the track and circling. This is loaded, and includes Harvick, Bill Whorff, Carey Martin, Joey Laquerre, Ben Rowe and Jean-Paul Cyr.

7:38 p.m. – Brad Leighton leads from start to finish and qualifies for the big event, as does Scott Payea, Dale Verrill and Rick Thompson Jr.

7:34 p.m. – Dale Verrill moves into a qualifying spot early in Heat 4

7:33 p.m. – Green flag drops on Heat 4

7:30 p.m. – Eddie MacDonald is on to the feature and in the No. 3 spot on the big grid. Defending champ Roger Brown finished third, with Joey Polewarczyk taking second and Dennis Spencer Jr. taking fourth.

7:26 p.m. – Green flag waves, back to racing…

7:24 p.m. – Yellow on Lap 9 of Heat 3 as Steve Fisher gets loose in Turn 4 and he takes out Brackett’s right front fender in the process…MacDonald, Roger Brown, Joey Pole and Dennis Spencer occupy spots 1-4 at this point…

7:22 p.m. – Green, green, green…back to racing action at the TD Banknorth 250…

7:19 p.m. – After a rain delay of exactly one hour, the Hat 3 cars are back on the track. The pace cars leads them around a few times…

7:08 p.m. – Cars from Heat 4 and Heat 5 are out en masse to dry out the last pieces of the track, and that includes Harvick and Bill Whorff Jr. and Ricky Rolfe. The Heat 3 cars are lined up and waiting in the pit area…

6:52 p.m. – The track is showing signs of drying out a bit, but we are still waiting things out. This is the first time there could possibly be full day delay since 1986…

6:34 p.m. – The rescue crews are out in force again in their vehicles, trying to speed up the drying of the track…

6:19 p.m. – The cars have been sent to the pits to keep dry. The radar looks favorable, but it will take a bit of time to dry the track this time.

6:16 p.m. – Rain break with 4 laps down and 16 to go on the third of 6 qualifying heats…Yellow is out.

6:15 p.m. – Green flag and we are under way in Heat 3…MacDonald and Brown running 1-2

6:13 p.m. – Heat 3 is on the track warming up. Key names here incluse Eddie MacDonald and Roger Brown on the front row, Tim Brackett of Buckfield and Joey Polewarczyk Jr.

6:11 p.m. – Travis Adams pulls a great outside-inside move on Shawn Martin and steals the fourth and final spot from him to make the big show. Martin will start on the pole in a Consi. The top four in Heat 2 to move on: Tommy Ricker, Cris Michaud, Derek Ramstrom and Travis Adams.

6:09 p.m. – Back to green, and Shawn Martin is back to fourth…

6:06 p.m. – Caution with 5 to go in Heat 2…Shawn Knight into the wall, but drives off into the pits…

6:05 p.m. – Shawn Martin and Travis Adams are on the doorstep, but both just outside of qualifying.

6:01 p.m. – Green flag on Heat 2, Ricky Wolf gets loose a bit but we are still at full speed

5:59 p.m. – The pace car quickens and we anticipate green flag racing in about two laps…

5:56 p.m. – More rain…The cars stay on the track, but they comtinue to circle behind the pace car as ripples continue to form in the puddles on the infield. We’ve got the pole-sitter in Dixfield’s Scott Robbins, and we know Patrick Laperle is in, as are Nick Sweet and Pete Potvin III. This heat will determine who starts in position No. 2, on the outside of the front row. In this heat is Shawn Martin, who won last year’s pole position.

5:50 p.m. – Heat 2 cars are on the track and testing things out. The No. 8 (Tom Metcalf) has already spun, but did not crash, and will start in his place on the grid.

5:49 p.m. – Robbins holds off Laperle at the end by less than one car length to earn the pole for the feature race. Both drivers are in, though, as are Nick Sweet and Pete Potvin III.

5:46 p.m. – Patrick Laperle has made his way all the way to second from 13th and he is running after Robbins…what a run from Laperle.

5:43 p.m. – Green green green…

5:38 p.m. – Not even another lap under green yields a second caution as Scott Luce and Russ Clark get into it on the back stretch and send both cars crashing into the wall. We have rescue personnel and two wreckers attending to the crash, though word from the turn says both drivers are fine. Still caution, though…through Lap 1 of Heat 1.

5:35 p.m. – And our first caution, as Trampas Demers, Donald Theetge and Matt Sanborn get into it in Turn 1 and tumble into the grass. We have run one lap.

5:34 p.m. – Heat Race #1 is going green…

5:31 p.m. – The anthem sung, the first wave of cars is on the track and we are finally — finally — under way here in Oxford.

5:26 p.m. – The three cars have gone back to the pits and the track is silent again. The grandstands have filled in nicely, despite the running delay that is now at 3 hours, 26 minutes. Cars appear to be lining up at the entrance to the track, ready to parade around for Heat No. 1.

5:23 p.m. – The track is dry and a few cars from later heat races on on the track, running a few hot laps to test the race-ability of the asphalt.

5:09 p.m. – We are back and running with the strictly stock, who are basically out there to dry the track further. The latest word from track officials is that they will run the 250 qualifying, consolation and last chance races back to back to back. The feature race will follow the final last chance qualifier as soon as possible afterward.

4:06 p.m. – Back to drying the track as the rain subsides once again…It may be just another futile attempt, as the weather map continues to show advancing rain…

3:58 p.m. – Just as quickly as the track appeared to be close to ready, another wave of rain has hit the track and set officials back to square 1. The cutoff is supposedly in the neighborhood of 6 p.m., with about 5.5 to 6 hours required to run a full complement of qualifying races plus the feature.

3:40 p.m. – The parade of vehicles continues as the rain continues to ease. A quick look at the radar suggests much more optimism than previous chck have, and there is some breaking up of the weather system as it crosses the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The track of the storm is still promising…

3 p.m. – A cheer and a lot of honking cars greet the sun’s first appearance of the day. Though the clouds continue to pass overhead, and rain spits down, the sun made a quick but welcome appearance. A parade of cars, trucks and haulers are circling the track now at about 40 miles per hour, trying to get the track dry as the rain starts to let up.

1:48 p.m. – Kevin Harvick has drawn No. 65 in early reports from the pit area by Kevin Mills. If the race is postponed until tomorrow, Harvick says he’ll still be here, but he and his crew chief have commitments on Tuesday

1:27 p.m. – The draw is taking place in a dry location that we cannot see from the press box atop the grandtsand. As soon as we have reports in from Kevin Mills and Randy Whitehouse, who are at the draw, we will post some of the highlights here…

12:55 p.m. – Track officials have announced the draw will still happen at 1:15 p.m., as the rain continues to fall. Officials say they are still hopeful for a late afternoon start to qualifying.

12:41 p.m. – Nothing doing in the way of drying out. The rain continues to fall, and talk in the media box turns to contingency plans for the rest of the week. The National Weather Service has issued flash flood warnings from Oxford County, calling for heavy rains over the next 24 hours.

11:54 a.m. – The crowd has swelled to about 20-25 people in the grandstands as the rain subsides a bit. The forecast isn’t all that good, but the track is hopeful that everything will be over by about 4 p.m., so as to create a dry track in time for a 6 p.m. start.

11:35 a.m. – The rain is still falling here, and the projection is that the track will hold off on qualifying until about 6 p.m. if it has to, and will eliminate the support features if necessary.

10:45 a.m. – The rain continues to pound the track. Teams of racers are huddled with their crews in their trailers and underneath their tents, most of them with their cars wrapped up tight in some form or tarp or plastic covering.

Some teams are tinkering with elements of the car, while others are sitting back, confident that they have the setup they want, if only the rain would stop.

10:20 a.m. – The rain is already causing concern among track officials. According to a track spokesman, officials plan to wait out the weather as long as they possibly can, with a goal of finishing tonight’s feature race before Midnight. If, due to weather, the race does not go off today, the track will hold the race on the earliest possible raceable day during which they feel they can get a 6-hour block of dry weather.

The rain here at the track has started to fall steadily now, and some of the mini-stocks that were out for practice have scattered back to the pit area, and fans in the stands are scattering off the grandstands and back to their vehicles or campers.

10:10 a.m. – A few scattered drops of rain have started folks wondering what might happen this afternoon. The radar still doesn’t look good, and the number of cars on the track for practice has thinned to one.

We’ll keep you posted with more weather updates and any changes in the schedule that may arise, right here at www.sunjournal.com.

9:55 a.m. – Practice is well under way at Oxford Plains Speedway this morning as crews try to find their perfect setup for the qualifying heats this afternoon. Most of the big names in the race have been out on the track so far, including Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick and all three Whorffs, in addition to defending champion Roger Brown.

The outlook weather-wise isn’t so nice, though. The radar shows a building mass of rain to the immediate West, and the air flow appears to be pushing the rain, which extends all the way back to Buffalo, N.Y., directly at the western hills and Oxford.

Keep it right here for the latest news on the 250 all day.