OXFORD – Fort Fairfield’s Kirk Thibeau, Morrill’s Travis Benjamin and Mount Desert’s Tim Allen failed to qualify for Sunday night’s Oxford 250.

“This was only our fourth time racing,” said Thibeau, who has made the field three previous times. “I’ve been busy at work. I have a business, Growers Exchange. We usually don’t start racing until this time of year. We’ve got to get the potato crop out of storage and then we go have some fun for the summer.”

Despite the fact he didn’t qualify, he always enjoys it.

“It’s a good race. It’s competitive. It’s real competitive,” said Thibeau. “We’ve had some good runs here. I love the new surface.”

Thibeau got caught up in some fender-benders in the heat and consolation races which proved costly and he finished fourth in the hooligan race.

He intends to start racing on the PASS tour. He said the Oxford Plains Pro Stock racers have a distinct advantage in the 250.

“They know the setup and this place takes such a different setup because it’s so flat. Add the new pavement to the scenario and that throws another wrench into it. We love it . We have fun,” said the 39-year-old Thibeau.

The track was entirely re-paved in October.

Tracy Gordon agreed.

“When I first started out, the Saturday night cars didn’t have a big advantage. Now I think the Saturday night cars have quite an advantage because you’ve got to run their rules. They run here every week so they should be better. We only come in here once in a while,” said Gordon. “In the old days, you could run big gear, big motors and all that stuff. It kind of evened you out with the Saturday night cars. Now they have an advantage. Saturday night cars should win it.”

Gordon saved himself $520 by finishing fifth in his heat race and starting on the pole for the consolation race.

“I was going to put on four new tires but I didn’t have a set. All I had was my feature tires for the consolation and I said ‘The hell with that, I’m not going to do that.’ I didn’t want to wear them out. The track being new is hard on tires right now,” explained Gordon.

Tires cost $130 apiece.

“Starting on the pole [for the consolation], it looked like we had a pretty good chance,” added Gordon.

Benjamin and his crew put in a new engine on Friday night.

“We were good this morning in practice. We just couldn’t work the outside very well,” said Benjamin. “You’ve got to buy so many tires here and we only bought six. That really hurt us. But what can you do?”

Benjamin, who is running Pro Stocks on the PASS tour this year after several years on the Busch North tour, will run in the Busch North race at Loudon, N.H., next Saturday.

“I’m waiting for an engine for that. We’ve got to bust our butts to get that car ready. I’m real excited. It’s a lot of [Roger] Penske stuff. Last year, my best set of heads were nine years old. These are one year old. My best crank was 57 pounds last year and this one is 39. But we’ve got to hustle to get it together,” said the 24-year-old former Belfast High School basketball star. “Hopefully, we can run well. Which I think we will.”

Allen is racing Pro Stocks for the first year and is a regular at Hermon’s Speedway 95.

“I raced street stocks down at Wiscasset [Raceway] for five or six years. We were two points away from winning the championship. Then I got to super streets. We took three years off, jumped into one of these things and we’re having some fun.”

He said he learned a lot.

“I kind of screwed myself up. The car was pushing. I should have held her down instead of letting her drift up. Hey, I’m a rookie and I learned something,” said the 38-year-old Allen. “I had a great time. I’m not disappointed.”

Laperle wins ACT race

Patrick Laperle of St. Denis, Quebec won the American-Canadian Tour race at Oxford on Saturday and qualified in the consolation on Sunday.

“I used to come here to watch the race when I was young,” said Laperle.

He was driving a Pro Stock car for just the third time including practice this weekend.

“I practiced two weeks ago at White Mountain [N.H.],” said the 27-year-old Laperle. “The cars are so different. The Pro Stock cars are tight. My ACT car was loose. I love the Pro Stock cars. There’s more power. There’s 200 horsepower more.”

He qualified 32nd.