Probably the funniest thing I read and hear at my safe distance one-third of a continent away from the Oxford 250 is that familiar refrain, “Are there any big-name drivers coming this year?”

Of course, this question is asked by the keyboard trolls who live to complain about everything. They’re the same people who insist they no longer watch NASCAR and complain every weekend that they don’t make personalities at that level of the sport the way they did 10, 20 or 50 years ago.

Raise your hand if you appreciate the irony of those folks saying the 250 isn’t quite the same event without one of said drivers participating in it.

Having worked for then-Oxford Plains owner Bill Ryan during most of the summers he revived that throwback trend of luring ringers to the dance, I foresaw and dreaded that end result.

While having Matt Kenseth, Kurt and Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski try their hand at the historic showcase was a box office bonanza (albeit with diminishing returns), it also was not a sustainable business model.

Generally speaking, to attract one of those dudes on an off weekend, you have to ante up with appearance money that is at least equal to the winner’s share. And without mentioning any names to protect the guilty, you never quite knew what kind of effort and cooperation you were going to get from the marquee guest.

Inevitably the race would have to stand on its own four tires and revert to what it’s always been: The ultimate, one-day challenge for some of the best short track drivers in America. That a vast majority of those drivers are from Maine and New Hampshire is something in which race fans up in those hills should view with pure pride, not while armed with every “yeah, but” imaginable.

Have you actually analyzed the starting grid, or better yet the running order from about 20th on back, in any Cup or Xfinity race lately? I humbly submit that in Oxford, Maine, you should perceive Eddie MacDonald, Joey Polewarczyk, Mike and Ben Rowe, Johnny and Cassius Clark, Travis Benjamin and Curtis Gerry as bigger stars than most of those drivers.

You can become a big name in this sport without being on television. Living at the gateway to both the South and Midwest has opened my eyes to the reality that there are guys making a living in this sport by simply chasing asphalt and dirt bullrings all over God’s creation.

One such short-track lifer lives in Georgia and answers to the name Bubba Pollard. In case you forgot, he won the Oxford 250 a year ago. Picked his spots, kept his cool and grabbed it by the throat over the final 50-or-so laps.

There was what even I, a public relations guy at heart in a journalist’s clothing, thought was an absurd amount of hype surrounding Pollard’s initial visit to OPS in 2018.

Ol’ Bubba stormed into town wearing the label “Redneck Jesus.” Having watched all but seven of the previous 250s in person and being deliciously acquainted with watching touted rebels struggle to catch up with Oxford and all its nuances, I imagined him not finding too many disciples in that pack of fellow favorites.

Lo and behold, however, Pollard tamed the track and the race the same way future NASCAR Hall of Famers Harvick and Kyle Busch did a decade earlier.

He wisely started the bloodless takeover by finding somebody named Rowe with multiple 250 trophies on his mantle to give him some pointers and pep talks. In Bubba’s case, it was Ben, a de facto teammate running the same type of car.

After a weekend of chasing his tail, Pollard adapted, the way the shrewdest of big-name drivers do when they roll up Route 26.

By Sunday morning, Pollard was bad-fast. Neither his draw for heat race starting position nor his experience in that preliminary were anything to write home about. Somewhere in Virginia, “Terrible” Tommy Ellis was eating a Goo Goo Cluster and mumbling something about that those dadgummed local junk cars.

Bubba had it humming in the second round of qualifying, however, and used strategy and smarts to find his groove and run away with the big prize as the sun set over the greatest spectacle in New England racing.

All of which leads to my always-anticipated, much-maligned, usually close-but-no-cigar official prediction.

If you’re picking anybody but Bubba Pollard to win this race, you’ve been enjoying too much of the pageantry in the camping area all week long.

Last year was everyone’s chance to beat this guy, and you blew it. You were hospitable to a fault. You gave him advice. You kindly asked for his autograph. You probably fed him lobster rolls.

That was it. Now he’s going to go all Ralph Nason and/or Geoff Bodine on your butts, and probably will hear the song of the native boo-birds for the first time.

With all due respect to the way Gerry has dominated Oxford and to the hundreds of races the other guys listed above have won in their sandbox, everything Pollard does is on another level. He’s a throwback to the early years of this race and to the halcyon days of this sport, when a driver could take the “have hauler, will travel” approach and be content with not owning Richard Petty’s household notoriety.

Bubba Pollard is Butch Lindley. He’s Bob Pressley. He’s Richie Evans with full fenders.

He’s a huge name. He’s also about to become a two-time Oxford 250 winner, and there isn’t a thing you or any of the NASCAR drivers on your wildest wish list can do about it.

Kalle Oakes spent 27 years with the Sun Journal sports department. He is now sports editor of the Georgetown (Kentucky) News-Graphic. Stay in touch with him by email atkaloakes1972@sunjournal or on Twitter @oaksie72.

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