Darkness had swallowed up Oxford Plains Speedway hours earlier, leaving it almost deafening in its silence.

The next day was going to be a day of dreams and goals, a day when the True Value Oxford 250 was to be run in front of more than 10,000 fans. It was the day the $200,000 race was finally returned to the little guy, the local drivers who made the event so big during the late 1970s and early ’80s.

On the Saturday night before this year’s race, Gary Smith and his crew from the Bud Spencer Racing Team out of Bangor had put their dreams and their goals on hold. All they had left was hope.

In the middle of the darkness that surrounded the three-eighth-mile track, a lone light shone onto the Buick Regal sponsored by Uncle Henry’s Swap and Sell/Papa Gambino’s. Earlier, the car had blown its engine after only 11 laps of Saturday’s practice session.

Smith, the driver, and his three-man crew of Frank Pulver of Hermon, Raymond Pelkey of Bradford, and Shawn Hamel of Bangor worked furiously into the wee hours of the morning, removing the engine from another driver’s backup car and rigging it up so they could run it in their own car during Sunday’s qualifying.

Once they hit the start button and that engine roared to life, breaking the silence, only then could they think of anything else. At 4:30 a.m., they were finished. Their wake-up call was only hours away.

“When we blew the motor we just said, `What are we going to do? Pack up and go home?,’ ” said Smith, adding that it was his team’s third blown motor of the season. “I said, `No way.’ ”

Smith went in search of somebody, anybody, who might have an extra engine to rent out for the weekend.

He found that somebody in Dave “Boss Hogg” St. Clair.

St. Clair offered up the services of his entire backup car, but Smith opted just to borrow the engine.

“He told me, `Take the motor. Just go for it,’ ” Smith said. “I said, `If we blow it up, how much do we owe you’ and he said `If it blows up for you, it’s going to blow up for me. Just go make the 250.’ ”

After driving to St. Clair’s hometown of Montville to pick up the car, Smith and Spencer returned to the track between 10 and 11 that night. They worked until the motor was race ready.

“I can’t believe they did it,” Smith said. “They worked all night long. The guys are just totally dedicated. We got about two hours sleep, right there in the infield.”

“Back when I was his age, I probably would have done that, too,” St. Clair quipped.

St. Clair’s generosity, coupled with the team’s hard work, helped Smith out when it came to realizing his own dreams and goals.

“It took a low situation and turned it into one of the high points of our careers,” Smith said. “The one thing I told Bud when I started racing was that I wanted to someday qualify for the Oxford 250.”

In the darkness of night, Smith was allowed to have that chance.

Smith made the feature, finishing 31st out of 42 cars when a power steering hose let go. He parked the car after 176 laps and collected $2,275.

A final note on this year’s Oxford 250….

Cumberland driver Ron Moon, who was extricated from his car and taken by ambulance to a Norway hospital following a bad crash in the Oxfofeature, was treated and released for a lower back strain, according to American Canadian Tour officials.

The NASCAR Busch Grand National North tour will make its lone Maine appearance Sunday at St. Clair’s Wiscasset Raceway.

The Irving Oil 150, a $42,025 event, is scheduled for Sunday at 2 p.m.

“They’re pretty excited, I’m pretty excited,” said St. Clair, who owns the track. “We’ve got 32 of them that have filed entries, including Maine drivers like Andy Santerre, Kelly Moore, and Dick McCabe.”

Darin Bucknam, a Wiscasset Raceway regular, also found a ride for this race.