OXFORD – Dixfield’s Scott Robbins, who won the TD Banknorth Oxford 250 in 2002, will start on the pole for the 35th annual race on Monday night.

Robbins won the first heat race, leading from start to finish, to claim the pole as weather wreaked havoc on the race.

Just five of the six first-round heat races were held with the sixth heat race, three consolation races and three last-chance races pushed back until today.

Racing will resume at 2 p.m.

Robbins won the Pro Stock class at Oxford Plains Speedway in 2004 before cutting back to a part-time schedule in 2005.He has also won a Late Model points title at OPS.

Rain delayed the start of heat races by 31/2 hours and more showers interrupted the heat races before eventually forcing the third postponement in the race’s history.

Several vehicles, including ambulances, fire trucks, pick-up trucks, wreckers and National Guard hummers, were used to do laps on the track to dry it out. Race cars were also used.

Poland’s Tommy Ricker, a regular in the Late Model class at OPS, won the second heat race after starting on the pole and he will join Robbins in the front row.

Robbins finished 15th in last year’s Oxford 250 after starting 40th and Ricker wound up 32nd after starting 15th.

The opening heat race featured two wrecks involving five cars in the first two laps.

Patrick Laperle from St. Denis, Quebec, started 13th in the first of six 20-lap heat races but capitalized on the wrecks and smartly maneuvered his car into second place and the seventh starting spot for the 250.

He gained consistently on Robbins but fell three-quarters of a car-length short of earning the pole.

The winners in the first six heat races occupy the first six starting spots. The next six spots go to the second-place finishers; the next six spots go to the third-place finishers and spots 19-24 will be occupied by the fourth-place finishers.

There are three consolation races for those who fail to qualify in the first six races with the top four finishers in each occupying spots 25-36. Then there are three last-chances races with the winners taking spots 37, 38 and 39.

There could also be some provisional spots awarded to drivers based on a variety of criteria including past winners.

In the first heat race, T.J. Watson of Harpswell finished third and earned the 13th starting spot and Nick Sweet of Barre, Vt., was fourth to claim the 19th spot.

In the second heat race, Chris Michaud of Montpelier, Vt., followed Ricker across the finish line to claim his berth in the 250 where he will roll off the grid eighth. Sixteen-year-old Derek Ramstrom of West Boylston, Mass., was third and will start 14th and three-time OPS Late Models points champion Travis Adams was fourth as he caught and nudged out Frenchville native Shawn Martin on the last lap for the position.

Adams will begin 20th.

The third heat race had an extended weather delay after completing four laps. When it resumed, pole-sitter Eddie MacDonald of Rowley, Mass., a four-time winner in the Camping World East Series including last month’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, continued to lead the way and took the checkered flag.

MacDonald ran in a Camping World East series race Saturday night in Nashville.

Nineteen-year-old Joey Polewarczyk Jr. of Hudson, N.H., wound up second with the other 250 qualifiers being third-place Roger Brown of Lancaster, N.H. and fourth-place Dennis Spencer Jr. of Oxford.

Brown is the defending 250 champ.

Brad Leighton of Center Harbor, N.H., a defending Camping World East points champion whose 24 wins in the series is second behind Scarborough’s Kelly Moore (26), led from start to finish in the fourth heat race. Rick Thompson Jr. of Derry, Vt. was second with Paris’ Dale Verrill and Scott Payea of Milton, Vt. rounding out the top four.

A last-lap spin allowed Payea, who started 13th in the 14-car heat, to slip past Glen Luce and Bobby Dragon into the fourth and final spot.

The 60-year-old Verrill was second in last year’s 250 and Payea, currently leading the American-Canadian Tour standings, was third a year ago.

Carey Martin of Denmark became the fifth of the five heat race pole-sitters to take the checkered flag as he beat Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick of Bakersfield, Calif., currently ninth in points in the Cup standings, across the finish line. Following Martin and Harvick were Turner’s Ben Rowe and West Bath’s Bill Whorff Jr.

Rowe, who won back-to-back Oxford 250s in 2003 and 2004, had run in the Southern Sizzler 200 PASS South race late Saturday night in North Carolina and didn’t get to the track until late Sunday morning. He got involved in a wreck and finished 15th in the Southern Sizzler 200.

There are 87 entrants.

lmahoney@bangordailynews.net

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