OXFORD – A race car driver died after his car struck the pit wall with full force during a race at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston confirmed Sunday morning that Dennis Dee, of Poland, Maine, had died, but wouldn’t release any other information.

A message left on the speedway’s answering machine Sunday was not immediately returned.

The 28-year-old Dee was extricated from the wreckage of his late-model stock car and rushed in an ambulance to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway after the accident. He was later transferred to CMMC.

Trooper Andre Paradis said Dee’s car and a second vehicle were unable to negotiate turn two after they got bunched up with other cars on the first turn.

One vehicle locked its brakes and slowed down, but Dee’s vehicle continued going straight and “hit the wall with full force at whatever speed he was traveling,” the trooper said.

Dee’s car appeared to be traveling about 75 mph seconds before the crash, the Sunday Sun-Journal of Lewiston reported.

Dee was on the sixth lap of a 10-lap qualifying sprint when the crash on the backstretch of the 3/8-mile oval happened at about 7:45 p.m.

The other vehicle also hit the concrete retaining wall, but the driver was uninjured.

The track halted the night’s racing program after the crash. Oxford and state police were reconstructing the accident Saturday night.

Dee had placed fifth in his division in Oxford Plains racing last weekend for his second fifth-place finish of the season. He was 13th in the division point standings.

Dee began racing weekly at western Maine’s Oxford Plains in the mid-1990s and had competed in three different divisions. He was a three-time feature winner in the strictly stock class, which is two notches below late model stock.