OXFORD — Whether it’s a red truck transporting him or a green race car stalking him, Kyle Busch has shared valuable time and precious real estate with two living legends of Oxford Plains Speedway.

Busch was a 20-year-old with unfulfilled promise, best known for being series champion Kurt’s little brother, when he showed up wearing an unpretentious, baggy, white t-shirt in July 2005.

He was that year’s ringer at the TD Bank 250, a race whose rich history now includes a permanent chapter about him. That day, though, Busch was a wet-behind-the-ears, almost-rookie who might as well have been Mike Rowe’s grandson as his peer on this 3/8-mile loop.

You aren’t anybody at Oxford until Rowe, winner of seven championships and 150 feature races, says you’re out to lunch. To your face.

“Mike and I spent about 50 laps riding around in his old pickup,” Busch said. “He ran my ear off for about two hours. Then I got out there and I was driving and he goes, ‘You aren’t doing it right!’ ”

Awkward minutes passed.

Busch eventually swapped seats with Rowe and explained what he was seeing and sensing on the storied, little track with the reverse-cambered front stretch and never-ending turns.

“I drove him around and talked to him about what I was doing and what I was feeling, and he said, ‘Oh, that’s not bad, alright, alright.’ Since then we just hit it off,” Busch said.

Fast forward six years and three visits to the 250.

This time it was nine-time OPS champion Jeff Taylor chauffeuring Busch around the sandbox. The local chassis wizard and the now-NASCAR giant ran fender-to-fender and panel-to-panel for 50, then 100 laps.

Conventional wisdom and cynicism say he was sandbagging, but Busch sounded serious when he insisted there were hours Saturday and frenzied minutes Sunday when he expected Taylor or someone with Yankee credentials to pose with the tallest trophy.

“We didn’t know that we had a shot. We thought we could have an eighth, fifth, second place car, something like that,” Busch said. “We rode for a little while. But we ran every single practice session today. There were times that we had 140, 160 laps on our tires, just trying to use them up as much as we could. We only bolted on two or three sets of tires all weekend. Whether it was beneficial or not, we needed track time to get used to a brand new car. And we worked our butts off.”

That hard work and a weekend at play on a rare break from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series yielded Busch $31,900, or whatever was his negotiated appearance fee.

But the bigger deal to Busch — and New England race historians — is a TD Bank 250 title.

Rowe has three. Taylor’s still chasing one after 16 tries.

NASCAR giants Busch and Harvick have conquered two of the last four. If neither one looked easy, it’s because they weren’t.

“These cars here, they’re so close it almost reminds me of a Cup race. There are so many cars running around at the same speed all the time,” Busch said. “It’s not that they don’t have motor or anything like that to make them slow or sluggish. It’s that you’re locked in a box. There’s only so much you can do, so you’ve really got to think outside the box to come up with something that’s unique to win here.”

Busch had a Dale Shaw race car commissioned exclusively for the race.

“I think the price just went up,” Busch said. “If somebody wants it, they can have it. Otherwise I’m taking it with me.”

To put in cold storage, perhaps?

Busch wouldn’t rule out a return. His appreciation of history and insatiable appetite for competition have steered him to annual short track hootenannies in Michigan, Wisconsin, and now Maine.

He can relate to Taylor’s lifetime of 250 heartbreak on some level. Tire and engine problems sidetracked his two previous attempts in 2005 and ’06.

“It means a lot. I love this. You come back to the local short tracks and the big races across the country and you’re racing against the best of the best that day,” Busch said. “These guys, they’re no slouch. Junior Hanley in his day, Mike Rowe, those guys are really, really good. That’s why I always like to stack up against guys in familiar territory into their arena and size up. It keeps me sharp.”

Do another burnout and take another bow, Kyle.

You passed.

He wasn’t racing Sunday night, but I guarantee even Mike Rowe approves.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected].