Opportunity Knocks, Doiron Likes His Chances for First Oxford 250 Win

When race teams emerged from the 2020 COVID-19 Lockdown, Joey Doiron was sporting some new wheels whenever he competed at Oxford Plains Speedway. The Berwick, Maine driver was in the midst of a new deal for car owner Greg Curtis, running all Pro All Stars Series Super Late Model races at the Maine track, with select Oxford Championship Series races on the side.

Having tacked some winning performances together, Doiron has now become one of the favorites to win when that No. 21 pops out of the trailer at Oxford. It has many seeing him as the most likely to win his first career Oxford 250 this Sunday, August 28.

READ MORE: Five Drivers Who Are Due at the Oxford 250

“The last couple of years I’ve had a good chance to have a shot at it and it just hasn’t quite worked out at the end," Doiron told Racing America. "I feel like we’ve run better this year than the last two leading up to the 250. Didn’t get the finish to show for it at the last race, but I feel like we’re one of the few that have been able to be consistent at Oxford.

"Other guys run good one week, than really struggle, than are good a month later. We’re on it every time we go there.”

Greg Curtis has given Doiron total trust in preparation for races, as well as spending for resources when Doiron deems it necessary.

“Greg gives whatever I feel like we need to get, he doesn’t say no to anything. I keep the car at my house and do all the work on it. It’s similar to my own car and my own deal, I just do my own thing. But, anything I feel that we need to have Greg doesn’t hesitate to get, and whenever I want to try something different he says to go for it.”

That trust appears to have only just begun to pay off.

“The last couple of years we’ve tried to keep building on what we have for our baseline. It took a little while there, five or six races the first year before I started to get the feel in the car. Now the last 24 months at Oxford, I feel like there’s been nobody more consistent than we’ve been. Just got to have things go our way now on Sunday.”

Back on August 13 during the PASS 150-lap tune-up race for the Oxford 250, nearly everything seemed to be in Doiron’s favor for a second PASS win at Oxford on the season. Having taken advantage of early leader Trevor Sanborn’s car falling out win an electrical fault, he then had to take on his friend DJ Shaw in the late laps for the win.

With Doiron on the top line and Shaw on the bottom about halfway up Doiron’s left side, the two racers were side by side going into Turn 3, then contact was made with Doiron spinning around and out of contention. A dejected Shaw went on to win the race.

As far as Doiron is concerned, the incident is behind them.

“Yes. That was just two guys going for the win with 10 laps to go, stuff happens, wish it would’ve worked out differently, but it is what it is. I don’t think there was any malicious intent from DJ and I felt like we just going for the same spot at what has traditionally been a pretty wide race track, but its narrowed up this year. Two guys met in the middle going into three and I got the bad end of it, you’ll have that every now and then in racing.”

Doiron believes that incident may be an omen of what’s to come this weekend in the Oxford 250.

"The way the track has been racing this year, you’re going to want to be around the bottom. It might be one of the rougher 250’s, I think. Some of the races up there have gotten rough. It’s going to be really important this year to make sure you got a car that’s in one piece when you make your pitstop with 60 to 80 laps to go and then race it out there,” Doiron explained.

“Keeping your nose clean is going to be a big factor. You got to be able to make sure you have the ability to go to the outside, I don’t think it’s going to be the preferred groove this year, but you can’t just line up behind someone and try to root them off the bottom for 30 laps, you got to at least try to get ‘em on the outside.”

Despite the many circumstances that await, Doiron is convinced that this the best chance he has at taking his first Oxford 250 win in his career.

“I feel like this is one of my best chances to do it. A lot of stuff has to work your way, back in 2015 when Glen Luce won it, I drove from 36th up to 3rd for the pitstop and then blew up after the stop. It’s one of those races where you can have a fast car but a lot of times the fastest car doesn’t win. It comes down to making sure that everything lines up for you and you get in the fast lanes on restarts. There’s a lot of things out of your control, so you got to do everything you can for the things that are. We’ll do what we can do and what we’ve done all year in the PASS races, that’s all you can ask for.”