OXFORD — The voice of experience has become the voice of ambivalence, or at least the dissenting opinion.

Jeff Taylor owns a record nine Oxford Plains Speedway championships. Whether he was cheered raucously or booed lustily, he was recognized by the local racing masses as the face of the historic 3/8-mile oval for a decade-and-a-half.

He’s also the person who arguably absorbed the biggest one-two punch in the gut, personally and professionally, when OPS disbanded the Pro Stock division as its weekly headline class and the mode of transportation in the TD Bank 250 after the 2006 season.

If Taylor, 43, wasn’t winning on a given Saturday night at OPS, he typically was chasing a car he’d built across the finish line. The Farmington native owns Distance Racing Products in Fairfield.

But since his victory in the final Pro Stock race at OPS four Septembers ago, you can count the number of races Taylor has run at his former home track on one hand.

Five, exactly.

He didn’t pack up and join a tour or move to another of the few remaining tracks that campaign the so-called super late models. He essentially hung up his helmet.

“It’s at the point now where some of these kids don’t know we raced,” Taylor said. “Back when we were kids, we knew everybody. I mentioned Mike Rowe to one of them the other day, and the kid said, ‘Who’s he?’ I told that to Mike and he said, ‘That’s OK. I don’t want them to know who I am.’ ”

Taylor may or may not introduce himself to new or casual fans when today’s 37th annual 250 gets the green flag at 2 p.m.

Although he practiced all of Saturday afternoon, clocking speeds that put him in the upper third of 70-plus cars to take time, Taylor hadn’t officially decided to enter the 250 for the first time since 2007.

“We haven’t even gone through tech (inspection) or bought any tires,” said Taylor. “The first practice we were better, so we probably will. I’m sure it’s not the right attitude to have. I should be out there saying, ‘I’m going to win the 250.’ But I’ve come over here too many years with one of the fastest cars and a real chance to win it to go out there and not feel that way. It’s like buying a lottery ticket and counting on winning the lottery. Why would you?”

“I’ve got a lot of analogies,” he continued, “but you probably don’t want to put most of them in the paper.”

Other dyed-in-the-wool Pro Stock competitors have kept their promise never to return to OPS after the transition.

Taylor’s personal convictions are balanced by his business sense. His closest local competitors in the fabrication business, Ricky Rolfe and Race Basics of Andover, have dominated the late model winner’s circle at Oxford. Jeff White is the only frequent competitor to run a Distance chassis.

“I’ve got to keep up with things. People don’t know us for these cars. That’s fine. We’ve won plenty in late models. Joey Pole is in one of our cars, and I think he’s generally done pretty good,” Taylor said. “I think this year we have wins at every track where we have cars except this one. I guess I’ve alienated a few people over here.”

Competing in the last two Saturday night races as a tune-up to Sunday’s big stage, Taylor turned in two top-10 finishes.

“For us it’s like starting over again. We haven’t been racing, so it’s the simple things we’re forgetting. Stuff that we used to take for granted,” Taylor said.

He remains less concerned with the results than his own learning process.

Taylor wore two hats when he roamed the pit area as pro stock king — driver and businessman, picking up information by the seat of his pants.

“I have to do some racing because I can’t do it through anybody. That’s just not what I do,” Taylor said. “I know guys who can do it that way, but they must be a lot smarter than I am. That’s how I did it with pro stocks, based on what it felt like. I needed to do something, so here we are.

“If it were just me I was worried about, I wouldn’t be here racing. Am I saying, ‘I just can’t wait to get to the track and race?’ No. It’s sad, but it’s the truth.”

Despite his dominance of the pro stock era at Oxford, Taylor hasn’t won a 250.

He was runner-up to Dave Whitlock in 1995, taking home more than $24,000, nearly doubling the second-place share thanks to lap-leader bonus money.

Sunday wouldn’t be his first qualifying attempt under the new umbrella. Taylor led a consolation race in a 2007 bid for Richard Moody Racing until he was black-flagged for failing to stay even with the outside car on a restart.

That relegated him to the rear of the field. He later received another black flag and was done for the evening after contact with a car in front of him.

“Just stuff that you do trying to get into the 250,” Taylor said of the incident. “I lost a customer over it.”

He returned to OPS on two Saturday nights last summer in an effort to help customer Barry Gray.

This year it’s his own car, the familiar green No. 88. Other than some missing paint on the rear fender, it’s barely scratched.

He’ll wheel it around the oval at speeds seven or eight-tenths slower than in his Pro Stock days. Not much to the naked eye, but Taylor said he feels the difference.

Taylor also disputes the claim that late models are a significantly less expensive alternative.

“People want to say it’s so much cheaper. It’s the same costs. That body right there is the same body. You need the same seat, same steering wheel, same cage, same everything,” he said. “The only thing that’s different are the motor and the shocks. And now you need 16 Koni (shocks) when you used to need four Penske, so that evens out.”

The winner’s share of $25,000 plus bonus money remains the same as it was in 2006, though. And Taylor’s name wouldn’t read any differently on the list of winners that includes Geoff Bodine, Ricky Craven and Kevin Harvick.

So he’ll race. Probably. Reluctantly.

“It’s just different. The Late Models have never been our main focus, I guess. Everybody knows us for Pro Stocks. Honestly that’s still where my heart is, and I guess I waited around hoping it would come back,” Taylor said. “It’s not what I grew up with. I grew up watching Mike Rowe and Albert Hammond and Leland Kangas, and that’s what I always wanted to race. And this isn’t that.”

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