Stan Meserve can’t remember exactly how many Oxford 250s he has run.

He does know he has never won it and he’s hoping to rectify that when the 32nd annual Oxford Banknorth 250 is held Sunday evening at Oxford Plains Speedway.

It has been a challenging year for the former Unity resident, who is in his fourth year at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated.

There have been numerous changes at DEI and Michael Waltrip has announced his intentions to leave the team after this season.

Meserve does the race setups for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the Nextel Cup star is in danger of missing the chase for the championship. He is currently 14th in points, 537 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and, more importantly, 110 points behind Dale Jarrett in the 10th and final points slot that qualifies for the chase.

After 26 races, only the top 10 drivers and any others within 400 points of the leader qualify for the 10-race chase for the championship. There are just six races left until the 10-race chase begins.

“We’ve had better years. It has been a struggle. We’ve been just missing a little bit,” Meserve said. “We’ve just got to keep digging. You go through spells. Things will go well for you [in one stretch] and then they won’t go so well. We can’t give up. It’s like baseball. You’ve got to keep stepping up to the plate and try to hit a home run.”

Meserve said they have their work cut out for them.

“To be honest and realistic, we’ve got an uphill battle,” said Meserve.

Meserve doesn’t put any blame on Earnhardt Jr.

“I’ll tell you, point blank, that Junior is not the problem. If we had the car dialed in right, Junior would win every race. He’s not the weakness in our team,” said Meserve.

Meserve also doesn’t feel Saco’s Pete Rondeau should have been released as Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief after 11 races.

“Pete could have done the job. All he needed was more time,” said Meserve.

Earnhardt Jr. was 11th in points at the time Rondeau was released. He was replaced by Steve Hmiel.

Meserve said Hmiel and Rondeau are both good crew chiefs.

Meserve said “you’ve got to have stability” on your race team and he pointed out that the current group has only been together for “six or seven races” since Rondeau’s departure.

Meserve said Nextel Cup racing is so competitive, if everything doesn’t click or a driver encounters bad luck, then he can be out of contention for the points championship.

“Jeff Gordon is as good as they get and even he’s struggling,” added Meserve.

Four-time Nextel Cup points champ Gordon is 15th in points.

But Nextel Cup racing won’t be on Meserve’s mind this weekend.

“I’ve never won the Oxford 250. It’s a challenge [and I like challenges]. I want to win it,” said Meserve, who has qualified for 12 Oxford 250s and had a career-best fifth place finish in 1996.

Roush competititon outlined

So what is in store for Hallowell’s Johnny Clark when he competes with 24 other drivers, including two women, for the right to drive in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Roush Racing next season?

Joyce Caron-Mercier, the director of sponsor operations for Roush Racing, explained that they will be broken up into five groups of five when they participate in the first series of tests at Martinsville Speedway (Va.) next Tuesday through Thursday.

“They will drive five laps on old tires, five laps on new tires, make changes, check it out again [for five laps] and then they’ll be timed over 15 laps,” said Caron-Mercier.

Team owner Jack Roush “will be like Donald Trump [on The Apprentice]” and will bring 12 back for a “battery of other tests: physical tests, mental tests, dealing with fans, reporters and all that.”

The survivors will then report to Darlington Raceway (S.C.) the third week of August “when we’ll cut down from 12 to 6 to 2.”

They will be also be judged on how they interact with crew chiefs.

They will get to drive a Busch car during pit practice and then they will have to handle the role of rear tire carrier.

“When we tell them about that, you’ll see some personalities come out. They may say ‘I’m not prepared for this. What am I going to do? I don’t know how to do this.

“The whole goal is so they can have a better appreciation of what a crew does on behalf of the driver,” said Caron-Mercier.

The six finalists will get to move from a hotel into their own individual mobile homes.

Caron-Mercier said it will be interesting so see how they react to having their own mobile homes.

“Some might go out drinking and carousing and having a great time but they’ll have to be up at 5 the next morning,” said Caron-Mercier. “We’ll see how they handle that.”

Finally, on Aug. 17 at Darlington, there will be a 20-lap head-to-head night race between the two finalists.

Roush will have the final say so the winner of the race isn’t necessarily guaranteed to earn the truck ride.

A 13-part series chronicling the event will air on the Discovery Channel beginning in the fall.

The final show will air the first week of February.

“Obviously, the winner will have to test the trucks in January but we’re going to try to keep everything under wraps,” said Caron-Mercier.

The participants will be able to go home on weekends so they can drive in their own particular series.