The countdown has begun to the Banknorth 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway and owner Bill Ryan said the response has been “incredible.”

With defending NASCAR Nextel Cup points champion Matt Kenseth and contender Kurt Busch spicing up the list of entrants, most of the 6,000 reserved seats have already been sold for the July 18 race.

Kenseth is fifth in the points standings and Busch is seventh.

“Ticket sales are going much better than usual. We have only 400-500 reserved seats left. That’s very unusual,” said Ryan, who is charging $40 or $50 for each reserved seat. “The level of interest has been tremendous. People really want to see how the local guys are going to fare against some of the best racers in the world. We have around 100 campers here already.”

Plenty of the 4,000 general admission seats and 4,000 pit seats are still available.

NHL Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque, who spent 21 seasons with the Boston Bruins before being traded to Colorado and winning the Stanley Cup with the Avalanche in 2000-2001, will be the race’s grand marshal.

Ryan said they have more than 50 entries so far, and he expects 70-80, which is what they had a year ago.

“The hard thing is there are fewer Pro Stock cars out there. Wiscasset just got rid of its Pro Stock class and I heard some of the other tracks don’t have many Pro Stock cars, either. It’s harder to get big numbers when the Pro Stock class is a dying breed right now. But everything goes in cycles. We’ll see how long the Pro Stock cycle lasts,” Ryan said.

He said another aspect of the race that will limit the list of entrants is the car specifications. It is highly unlikely that the race will draw cars from the southern tracks.

“Unfortunately, by tradition, our cars are exotic and the only places they come from are New England, mostly northern New England, and eastern Canada,” said Ryan. “The cars they run down south are totally different.”

Kenseth will drive a car belonging to Billy Whorff Jr. of Topsham and Busch will be in a Tim Brackett car. Brackett is from Buckfield.

Whorff and Brackett both race in the Pro Stock division at OPS.

Busch has already tested at OPS and he left a positive impression on Ryan. Kenseth hasn’t tested yet.

“Kurt’s a real nice guy. He’s amazing,” said Ryan. “Part of being a good driver is being able to communicate with the crew. He would run a few laps, come in and tell the crew what they needed to do to make the car better, they would do it, and the car would be a couple of tenths quicker. By the end of the day, he was as good as anybody.”

Ryan has added the Super Modified cars to the race weekend schedule for the first time instead of having them run separately in August.

“They were our second biggest show of the year. They can run lap speeds of 111-112 miles an hour,” said Ryan. “They’re the fastest short-track cars in the country.”

The ISMA Supermodified Maine Classic 75 will be held Friday night, July 16, and the ACT Dodge Tour 100 will be held Saturday night.

As usual, all of the qualifying heat races and consolation races for the Banknorth 250 will precede the feature on Sunday.

There will be OPS Saturday night division races interspersed all three nights.

Ryan said the ACT Dodge Tour features the rivalry between drivers from Maine and Vermont.

“They match up with our Late Model division,” said Ryan.

Busch North, PASS run Saturday

Busch North and Pro All-Stars Series racing resumes Saturday night after a week off.

Andy Santerre of Cherryfield will gun for his second straight trip to victory lane and third in the last four races when the Busch North tour visits Lake Erie Speedway for the Local Dodge Dealers 150.

Two-time points champ and current points leader Santerre won the inaugural Local Dodge Dealers 150 at Lake Erie last season.

Santerre has 1,008 points and leads Mike Olsen of North Haverhill, N.H., by 39 points. Rounding out the top five are the son-father team of Ryan Moore (865) and Kelly Moore (853) of Scarborough and Dave Dion of Hudson, N.H., who has 845 points.

The PASS tour visits Thompson International Speedway (Conn.) for a 100-lap feature.

Defending two-time points champ Ben Rowe of Turner has shaved leader Johnny Clark’s lead to only 18 points. Clark is from Farmingdale.

Tracy Gordon of Strong is third and trails Clark by 46 points, Gary Smith of Bangor trails by 60, and Mike Rowe, Ben’s father, is 72 points behind Clark in fifth place.

Busch North racing will begin at 6:15 with the PASS feature slated for an 8:30 green flag.