OXFORD — D.J. Shaw was biding his time, waiting for the time to make his move.

On lap 293, he found his moment.

Shaw passed Gabe Brown and Alexandre Tardif on the outside to take the lead and, eventually, win the Celebration of America 300 on Thursday night at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Shaw, of Center Conway, New Hampshire, was in third place in the final laps and was able to position himself on the outside for the final push while Brown and Tardif had to deal with traffic as they lapped other cars.

“I just started closing the gap there,” said Shaw. “Gabe was starting to lose some grip and as we were going into traffic, he was slowing down, and you weren’t going to be able to get under him.”

Shaw won the $20,000 winner’s prize and remains atop the PASS North standings. He entered the race with a 33-point lead over Berwick driver Joey Doiron, who finished 16th.

“It was kind of unexpected (to win), but man, I’ll take it,” Shaw said. “These wins don’t come easy.”

It’s the second time this season Shaw passed Brown to win a PASS North race. In a race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in April, Shaw took a late lead after Brown experienced electrical failure, and held off Eddie MacDonald to win the Northeast Classic.

It was also an emotional win for Shaw, whose half brother Jason died on Tuesday.

Brown, also of Center Conway, led the race at multiple points. He passed Corey Bubar on the inside of turn four on lap 80, and led for 105 laps, before losing the lead to Johnny Clark out of a caution.

After a pit stop on lap 191, Brown was able to gain ground and regained the lead on lap 212, pulling away from Tardif and Cole Robie after a caution. He maintained the lead for 81 more laps.

Brown had damage to his car near the right front tire after making some contact near the end of the race.

“My right front just got ripped off and ruined our race,” Brown said. “Nothing you can really do there. I held on for all I could there and D.J. just rolled around on the top there and, that’s the end.”

Tardif, from Saint-Côme-Linière, Quebec, remained tight with Brown through those 81 laps, going high to make a pass on lap 265, but was never able to pull ahead.

“We had a good car today,” Tardif said. “Gabe did a good job of holding myself behind him and I wasn’t good enough up top on that last run, like D.J. did. D.J. was very good, I feel like he saved more (for the end) than we did. But I’m happy about the race.”

Bubar, who held the lead at times early in the race, ran into car trouble on lap 209 and was unable to finish.

The race had 10 cautions, all between lap 66 and 224. The worst accident of the race was on lap 218. Driver Kate Re spun out on turn four, and as her car veered lower on the track, the No. 18 car of Mike Scorzelli T-boned the driver’s side door of Re. Both managed to leave their vehicles.

A pre-race ceremony paid tribute to NASCAR driver Kyle Busch, who won the Oxford 250 in 2011. Busch died of pneumonia, which turned into sepsis, on May 21. He was 41.