OXFORD — Some parents may have something to say when their teenage daughter walks out of the house on a Friday night wearing black leather pants.

Not Skyler Blossom’s parents. They know exactly where their daughter is going.

“Both my kids were raised here on Friday nights,” Raymond Blossom said from under the lights of New Oxford Dragway in Oxford.

Skyler Blossom is like many 16-year-olds. She spends downtime on her phone, buys fries from the snack shack and has the energy to entertain the young children that are milling around. But unlike most teenage girls, Blossom drag races sleds.

Blossom’s leather pants are just like the rest of her family’s — they provide protection from possible road rash if things don’t go as planned.

“It’s pretty much a family thing,” Blossom said about Friday nights at the drags.

The junior at Edward Little High School has been drag racing on the 1/8-mile strip for the past three summers. She started when she was 14 — just like her brother — but she has been coming each Friday to the dragstrip for a lot longer than that.

“I have been coming here ever since I was a baby,” said Blossom.

Skyler Blossom points to her grandfather, Scott Ames, when asked who or what inspired her to hit speeds of 85 mph on an asphalt race track while driving a machine meant to be driven on snow.

Ames owned Ames Sport Shop in Auburn for years. He specialized in Arctic Cat snow machines before selling the shop a few years ago. Ames still spends a lot of time in his garage working on, of course, Arctic Cat snow machines.

“My wife asks when am I going to grow up,” said Ames. “I hope never. She has put up with it for a long time. We have been married for 50 years,” Ames said about his wife, Carolyn.

Ames’ passion now revolves around fast motors and his grandchildren.

“I probably would not be doing this anymore if it was not for them,” Ames said about his race team made up of family and friends.

“Besides, I am almost 71. It is not as easy as it used to be.”

Scott Ames is well known in Maine’s racing circles, whether it’s racing cars, motorcycles or sleds.

“Any type of racing in Maine and my grandfather has done it,” said Tristin Blossom. “And he’s good at it.”

In his grandson’s own words, “Scott Ames is a legend in Maine racing.”

Ames built his own machine from the ground up and can reach speeds in excess of 150 mph. Skyler Blossom’s sled was found on a junk pile in someone’s backyard. He bought it for $40 and went to work. The original motor was replaced with a more powerful motor just this year, but not a motor as powerful as Ames would have liked — it tops out at 85 mph. Blossom’s father had a say in the decision and kept the speed in check — for this year.

“I will have her on something bigger and faster next year,” Ames said quietly.

Skyler Blossom has not won a race like her brother, grandfather and cousin has. “But she has been close,” said Ames.

Skyler’s brother, Tristin, races a sled that has never touched snow — “only asphalt.” He won earlier this season after an “ugly spell of a million second place finishes” and her cousin, Caleb Morris, stood on top of the podium a few weeks ago as well.

Skyler’s time will come, said her grandfather.

“Oxford has a history of putting out tough racers. We stack up against anyone, anywhere else we go and race,” said Tristin Blossom about the regulars that call Oxford their second home.

“My sled is running pretty good this year,” said Skyler Blossom. “The season started off good, got a little rocky and it’s finally getting a bit better.”

“I’m starting to think about maybe racing cars as well as sleds. Eventually that is what I would like to do.”

“I enjoy it,” Blossom said about drag racing. “It gives me something to do on a Friday night.”

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