Tag Archives: Dave Farrington

August 23, 2023 · 6:56 pm

2023 Media Day for the Oxford 250

(Oxford ME) If the weather will only be this nice on Sunday!

Sunny, with a breeze and temperatures in the low 70s.

This afternoon (Wednesday) was Media Day leading up to the 50^th running of the Oxford 250 on Sunday.

Track owner Tom Mayberry hosted the event.

Opportunity was given afterwards to interviews drivers.

I spent time with eight of them and appreciated their cooperation.

Instead of trying to summarize what they said, I have chosen to quote them verbatim as closely as I can off my digital recorder.

This approach does leave you, the reader, unaware of the exact question I asked to get the response I’ve posted. I’m guessing, however, that OPS fans will figure that part out without any help from me.

Johnny Clark – “Hindsight is 20-20. At the time the place was really a one-groove track. I committed going down the backstretch to where I was going, and it just didn’t work out. But, that was a year ago. We can’t play that anymore in our heads. We have just moved past it. There has been no interaction with the winner. We haven’t spoke, and probably won’t. Don’t need to. Trouble won’t happen. I can’t guarantee what could happen on the track. That’s not going to happen on our end.

We’ve done so bad over here lately. I think we’ve exhausted all the things we wanted to try and have gone back to the basics here for the weekend. We’ve been so good at White Mountain this year. Oxford alone hasn’t changed that much. The same people that typically have been running good, are running good. We’re going to flip back the notebook a few years. We’re going back to the 250 notebook continuously to find more speed and comfort. Boy, I’ve failed at that recently here in the four times I’ve raced here. Last year we were in contention, obviously won it in 2020. We’ve been competitive the last eight years. We’ve either led laps or been in the top five. We just want to give ourselves a legitimate shot.

I shouldn’t have lifted behind the lap car. I thought that the lap car was going in a different direction. He surprised me. We were fortunate to spin it out and keep moving. The caution flew and the field was frozen, and we were moving forward and that’s why we restarted where we did. We came home fourth and were lucky it was a DNF.

Hopefully, with the weather the owner can salvage Saturday and Sunday.”

DJ Shaw – “It’s been a lot of years of close and just off on the pit strategy or one wrong move in traffic. There’s been so many years that I’ve made mistakes behind the wheel. We’ve had cars to contend and no one ever knew it because of things I did.

We’re off a little bit in general. I would say that here (OPS) we’ve been above average for us. We’re not winning races but we’re in the top six or so every time out. We have good momentum but not winning momentum.

Last year we won the race leading up to this one. We jumped ship on our strategy too soon I think. We ran near (Cole) Butcher the whole race. I wasn’t getting the track position I wanted. We took four tires first to get the track position we wanted and then took two at the end when everyone was taking four and hung on for 8^th. We knew that it was a move that would cost us a chance at a win, but it gave us a chance for a good finish.”

Dave Farrington – “2020 was our closest chance. We were chasing Johnny (Clark) down with about 25 laps to go. We caught him in lap traffic and then the caution came out. We restarted on the outside and lost it pretty much on that restart. We finished 4^th there and 6^th in 2012.

The crew comes together on race day. Everyone has their assigned task to execute, and they do a heck of a job. We raced close to 200 at Wiscasset this year. We were the first ones off pit road. We beat Mike Hopkins and all those guys. It’s a group of guys who get together for one day and get the job done. My crew is experienced. They make it happen.”

Gabe Brown – “We were lucky to get where we did. We had a good car but went down two laps early. We want to stay on strategy this year and have a chance at the end. If we can stay on strategy we might have a chance at the end. It was definitely good for us that this was a long race. We struggled to qualify and had trouble in the first 20 laps of the race. We were two laps down. We had a good enough car to be up front. We just needed to get there. We hope to start up front and stay up front. To go from two laps down to finishing third was something. It sucked being that close to the win at the end of the race but before that we had never been that close.”

Kate Re – “I would love to have this weather on Sunday, not too hot, not too cold. The rain can really change the track. I’m just here to put my helmet on like everyone else. When it comes to the Oxford 250, I want to be known as just another driver. I don’t want to be singled out because I’m a female up there. We’ll start by trying to race our way in and go from there. This track is greasy with not a lot of grip. You’re constantly turning so it’s not like your normal Thompson with a long straightaway and tight corners. You’re constantly turning. Passing is hard with the lack of grip. I would not be tempted to ride up on the high side. I like the fourth groove out there.”

Mike Rowe – “I think I’ve missed two or three of them out of the fifty. We hope to draw a good number and start up front this Sunday. We won here two or three weeks ago. The cars are so close. It’s hard to move up. It’s no cakewalk. You have to have everything going good for you. You have to have a good pit crew and sponsors to make this thing happen. The memory that sticks out is winning here for the first time. To be the first Mainer to win this was awesome. Tom Mayberry and his crew have done a tremendous job on the track. They’ve done pit row over. The place looks awesome.

It’s great to have Ben in the race. You look out for each other. He won’t be getting by me if I can help it, however.”

Joe Pastore – “I was racing for a different team last year. We put 80 or so laps and yellow came out with 160 laps down. I said, ‘Why don’t we come in and pit for fuel,’ and they said ‘no, we’ve got to make it to 180 and then come in and put 4 tires on.’ We were the 180 yellow. We never made it. We had a great car too all day. I think we had a chance to win it if we’d pitted and got fuel. You never know. There were a bunch of yellows and all that running around on yellow led to our running out of fuel. That was a bad way to give up a chance to win. I wish there had been a dial to signal empty but there wasn’t. We won’t do that this year. Maybe we’ll have full tank at the end!

It should be a great race. I’m racing for a new team. This year we were second here in points for a while and have fallen back to fifth. We ended up winning the big 100-lap race here.”

Ben Rowe – “We’ve raced each other for years. He’s not going to let me by very easily. The other drivers here will tell you, he’s probably the hardest one to get around. I don’t expect him to give me a break. He’s got a separate car, crew, and sponsors. He’s got his own deal and I’ve got mine. We race each other clean. We never rough each other up. The first year I won, we both started on the pole. That’s something you don’t even dream of. I grew up in these stands him bringing me since I was a little kid. This is all we know. Other than work, this is what we do.

The car this year has been good. It’s a matter of starting up front. Last time up we started up front, paced ourselves, and were able to go at the end and stay ahead of Max (Cookson).

You can’t win this thing in the first fifty laps, but you can lose it. You don’t want to get tore up. You want to stay out of trouble. You want to have a boring race until halfway and then start positioning yourself and get yourself right for the end. They say there will be 62 drivers and I say that at least 35 of them have a chance to win.”

Well, there you have it. Interesting things in there.

I can’t resist trying to predict the outcome.

Last year I guessed that it would be one of the Clark’s and that looked like an awfully good choice until things unraveled with eight laps left.

This year I’m going with DJ Shaw. He’s been close and he seems, to me, to be extremely well prepared. He knows what to do, but can he manage the variables that are bound to come on a small track, with so many cars, for a long distance? I say he gets it done on Sunday.

See you at the race.

Media Day at the Oxford Plains Speedway

Interview with Johnny Clark today (photo Norm Marx)

(Oxford Maine) The empty house at the Oxford Plains Speedway on Tuesday was misleading because I know that’s going to change.

It was Media Day leading up to the 48^th Oxford 250 on Sunday.

Be certain that the noise will be coming and the excitement as well.

Today, however, was quiet. There were only two race cars, Kate Re’s #10 and Johnny Clark’s #54, plus several drivers on the track.

I had the opportunity to interview several of the drivers (Johnny Clark, Dave Farrington, Eddie MacDonald).

Johnny Clark was last year’s winner. It was unexpected. Johnny hadn’t won a race at OPS since 2006 and in his most recent race there he finished 26^th.

But there he was on Victory Lane last August.

“I remember hearing the track announcer say that ‘Johnny Clark has been rubbing the lucky lamp all night,” recalled Johnny.

“It wasn’t like our win was a fluke,” he added. “We led 101 laps which was more than anyone else. We turned in the fastest lap of the race.”

“We had the car to do it and we were able to get the luck we needed to go to Victory Lane,” said Johnny.

Dave Farrington is in his twenties and very intent on winning the 250 for the first time. Dave took fourth last year and wasn’t very happy about it.

He felt that the numerous cautions and lapped cars made it difficult to make a good run.

“I saw the scoreboard with twenty-five laps left and we were second,” recalled Dave. “For several laps we were side-by-side with Johnny.”

“We were in good position but call it what you will, luck or circumstances, but they took over,” said Dave. “It always seems that there’s that one lingering caution before the end of the race.”

Eddie MacDonald has won the OPS 250 twice. The wins were back-to-back in 2009 and 2010.

In both of those victories, Eddie drove up on the track and no one could keep up with him.

“Our car was really good in those wins,” explained Eddie. “There is so much that goes into winning this race. Pit strategy is important.”

It looked like the beginning of a long string of top finishes for Eddie but that’s not how it’s been.

“I don’t know if the track has changed but we aren’t able to get to the outside,” said Eddie.

“In the last five years, I haven’t been able to come off the bottom of the track here,” Eddie added.

Eddie was optimistic about Sunday’s race: “We came here a couple of weeks ago with a totally different setup and it seems a little bit better.”

“For the most part you can make your own luck if the car is good,” said Eddie. “You try to put yourself in a good position and not burn it up.”

Dave Farrington was expecting a big race from Johnny Clark on Sunday. “We know that Johnny is going to come back with just as good a piece as last year.”

Dave added, “We’ve been maintaining all year. We have a very good piece. Whether we have the fastest car or not, we still need a perfect day for things to fall our way.”

One advantage that Dave Farrington has over other drivers is his familiarity with Oxford Plains Speedway. He has led in points for two straight years.

“We’ve been racing here week after week,” said Dave. “We’ve dealt with any weather/track condition that could come up. We have a notebook with the information we’ve gathered and hopefully it will help us to be there at the end.”

Dave realizes that the weekly OPS races and the 250 are different. “We’ve certainly got just as many laps on this track as anyone else this season. However, we haven’t seen an OPS 250 winner from the weekly Oxford competitors in a while. We’re hoping to break that.”

Dave expected to be busy on Sunday morning. “A lot of teams are practicing this week in their shops,” he explained, “like almost a live, hot pit stop. We’ve got a crew that is scattered throughout the state of Maine. We really don’t get together that often. Our first practice could be on Sunday morning.”

One thing I like about Media Days is that you can ask questions you would never think of doing after an event. So I came prepared.

I asked the drivers to explain how they chose the number they have on their cars.

“My whole racing I’ve been #17,” said Eddie MacDonald. “It was my hockey number in high school (Triton Regional – Byfield MA). It’s one of the only numbers I could have in hockey and racing.”

Johnny Clark (#54) and Dave Farrington (#23) traced their number back to the one their dads used when they raced.

“My dad was born in ‘54,” said Johnny. “He was my hero behind the wheel.”

Kate Re also told me that her #10 came from her dad’s racing number.

How about the car’s colors?

One of the cars you can’t visually miss is Dave Farrington’s. It is bright orange.

“That color helps our spotters find us quicker than all the black cars,” said Dave. “I am also a 2009 graduate of Jay High School where our colors were orange and black.”

Eddie MacDonald has used a variety of colors. “We’ve used orange, red, and black,” said Eddie. “We leave it up to the car owner and the sponsors to decide.”

Johnny Clark’s car for Sunday’s race is not the same one as last year.

“We debuted this car at Loudon in April, and we were actually thrashing to finish it,” said Johnny. “The lettering is what we got at the track. We kept things as they were after we won that race.”

“Back in the early 2000’s I had a white car,” Johnny said. “It had red accents and a red roof and hood. Everyone had a white car so then I decided to go black in 2007. I’m not saying I started a trend, but you look now and there are a lot of black cars out there.”

I asked the drivers about their recollections of the first time they raced at OPS.

Eddie MacDonald: “It was in the late ‘90’s. We had just bought a car and wanted to try it out. I had been running at Lee and the setup at OPS was very different. I got out there and I thought I was going fast but all the locals went flying by.”

Dave Farrington: “It was in 2010-11. I was just getting my feet wet in racing. We’ve come a long way since.”

Johnny Clark: “It was 1997 and the race was the Oxford 250. I was seventeen at the time. We drew #2 out of the bucket for the heat race. Steve Knowlton, Jeff Taylor, Timmy Bracket, and Kenny Wright were all in the heat. They all tangled up about halfway through and we held on to get second and qualified seventh.”

As for the race itself?

All three drivers have provisional qualifications but each of them hopes that they will improve their positioning in the 250 with good runs in the heats on Sunday.

“The provisional qualification would start us about 38^th,” said Dave.

“Oxford is definitely not my best racetrack,” said Johnny. “I have, however, made some progress over the last several years figuring out what I need to do here. We’ve won before and we know we can do it again.”

Thanks to the drivers for their cooperation.

I also interviewed teenager Kate Re but unfortunately my digital recorder wasn’t functioning. Maybe I’ll get a chance to talk to her on Victory Lane after the race on Sunday.