Cole Butcher finally claimed his first Super Late Model win at Oxford Plains Speedway Saturday in the Spencer Group Paving 150. It was a long time coming, in more ways than one.
On its own, Saturday was a long, hard-fought day for the Nova Scotia native. After finding water underneath his No. 53 early in the day, he opted to swap engines as a precautionary measure. The new engine expired during practice, forcing a second switch back to the original engine.
Fortunately, that engine had no issues. In fact, it was strong enough to carry Butcher to his first victory at Oxford Plains Speedway.
“When I was over there collecting dirt off my suit, I was wondering if I’m going home tonight or not,” said Butcher in victory lane. “Everybody worked their butts off today and I can’t thank them enough.”
The win at Oxford Plains has also been one on Butcher’s checklist for quite some time. Since 2015, he’s made a dozen PASS Super Late Model appearances at the Maine bullring, with just two top-five finishes to show for his efforts according to TheThirdTurn.com.
Now, he can add his name to the list of PASS winners at Oxford, which he hopes bodes well in preparation for this year’s Oxford 250.
“I’ve been looking for this one a while. It’s my first win at Oxford. We look forward to coming back and hope we can add a couple more.”
2020 Oxford 250 winner Johnny Clark finished second. He felt he had a strong car, but had to overcome a braking issue to claim the runner-up finish.
“It’s so competitive nowadays. Everyone’s sequencing in and out. We were really good, probably too good, at the beginning of the race. I thought we were going to be able to maintain that. At times, we were.
“It’s not a braking track, but there’s something wrong with my brakes. It almost caused us a big problem with that wreck in one. I put on the brakes just to slow down and I almost backed into that one.”
D.J. Shaw completed the podium, holding off Curtis Gerry in the closing laps.
“It was a lot of come-and-go in the race today,” said Shaw. “I needed super-long runs. At the end there, Curtis got better than I was, so it was tough to catch Johnny. We’d string together and fall apart. It was a good, clean race with a couple of good guys to race with. I’m glad to bring it home on the podium at Oxford.
“I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. This is better than we thought we’d be here. We were just experimenting trying to hit on something. This is our weak point here. We’re just trying to get things rolling at the regular bullrings.”
Unofficial Results - Spencer Group Paving 150 at Oxford Plains
1. Cole Butcher
2. Johnny Clark
3. D.J. Shaw
4. Curtis Gerry
5. Brandon Barker
6. Trevor Sanborn
7. Gabe Brown
8. Kyle DeSouza
9. Eddie MacDonald
10. Dave Farrington
11. Max Cookson
12. Dillon Moltz
13. Joey Pastore
14. Jeff White
15. Nick Sweet
16. Garrett Hall
17. Ryan Kuhn
18. Joey Polewarczyk
19. Anthony Constantino
20. Dennis Spencer
21. Ryan Robbins
22. Rusty Poland
23. David Oliver
24. Evan Beaulieu
25. Scott McDaniel
26. Dan Winter
27. Ben Rowe
28. Corey Bubar
29. Kevin Casper
30. Tim Brackett
31. Travis Benjamin
32. Gary Smith
33. Donny Colprit
34. Evan Hallstrom
35. Michael Scorzelli
36. Randy Goulet
37. Ivan Kaffel
38. Gary Drew
39. Kyle Salemi
40. Travis Buzzell
41. TJ Brackett