Taylor regains credibility after snapping pro stock drought

It had been 23 months since Mercer’s Jeff Taylor had won a race at Oxford Plains Speedway, where he has claimed eight points championships in 20 years of racing.

Taylor ended that drought last weekend by winning the pro stock feature.

He was obviously pleased with the trip to Victory Lane but for a different reason than you might think: credibility among his clients.

Taylor owns Distance Racing Products in Fairfield and, on a given weekend, he estimated that there are “100-110 cars” he built that will be racing on tracks from Connecticut to Nova Scotia.

Taylor and his employees don’t supply the motors and transmissions.

“If you don’t win for a while, everyone doubts you a little bit. I understand that,” said the 38-year-old Taylor. “It helps to do well. It’s a performance business. But I’m fortunate enough that even if I don’t do well, enough of my cars are doing well [to provide credibility]. Winning last weekend helped because I hadn’t won there in a while.”

However, Taylor noted he did win a couple of races at Wiscasset Raceway early last season before Wiscasset did away with the pro stock class.

“But there wasn’t a big car count at Wiscasset. I’d rather win with more cars,” said Taylor whose 61 career feature wins at OPS ranks him seventh all time.

“I didn’t win a race my first seven years at Oxford,” said Taylor. “I wondered if I was ever going to win.”

One of the reasons for the 23-month drought is the fact Taylor tests his car while he’s racing it. He runs the same car and engine but will have different setups for each race in order to test the chassis, shocks and frame.

“The cars aren’t going to get any better on their own,” explained Taylor. “I’m in the business of building and selling cars. Someone has to try them out first and that’s my job. I choose to do it through my own racing instead of handing the car over [to his client] and saying ‘You try it.”

And race day is the only window of opportunity.

“That’s the only time I can get away and get on the track,” said Taylor who is busy building cars and working on damaged ones during the week.

“I have to test it when everybody’s there instead of on my own,” added Taylor.

When Stan Meserve used to own DRP and Taylor worked for him, the two of them used to test cars during races.

“The learning curve was quite a bit quicker when there were two of us,” said Taylor.

The business is doing very well and it has changed significantly, according to Taylor.

“Everybody has gotten smarter about race cars. Everyone has friends who work in Nextel Cup land so there’s more information available. People ask more questions now. And when you give them an answer, they want to know why that is,” said Taylor.

He said when he broke into racing, drivers went to the track and learned the racing ropes through trial and error.

“You didn’t have people to call up [and ask]. Now there is,” said Taylor.

He also said people aren’t as patient these days, they “want to win right now.” And he said parents are buying race cars for their children, which never used to be the case.

He isn’t sure how many races he’ll run this season. He will run the Banknorth 250 at OPS on July 31 and the Pullen Heavy Industries 300 PASS race at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway on Sept. 25.

He will also run in the weekly series at OPS when he can and he might run a couple of races in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick because he has clients up there. He said he knows whether he’ll be able to get away to race on the previous Monday or Tuesday morning.

“It depends on how the yard looks,” quipped Taylor referring to the number of cars he’ll have to repair from the previous weekend’s races.