Oxford Plains Veteran Scores First Pro Late Model Win
SOUTH PARIS, Maine – There was no better time for a rebound than last weekend.
Gary Chiasson of Peru, Maine, rebounded from a pair of wrecks earlier in the month to win the Oxford Championship Series 40-lap Pro Late Model feature at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, Maine, on Friday, June 21. The victory was Chiasson’s first in the track’s new top division.
“It felt really good,” Chiasson said. “We knew if we could stay out of trouble, we’d have a shot at it. We’d had those two wrecks, so we started on the outside pole. If we could get the lead and stay out front on decent rubber, we thought we had a shot at it.
“Once we could get away from them, we were hoping nobody would chase us down. It worked out.”
The race was slowed by just one caution flag shy of the midway point of the race, which allowed Chiasson to drive away after taking the lead on Lap 10.
The victory was especially sweet coming on the heels of another victory for the family. Gary’s son, Cody Chiasson, won his first Runnin’ Rebels feature event during the Oxford Acceleration Series two nights earlier.
“That was a pretty big deal for us, too,” Chiasson said.
Chiasson finished second in a Pro Late Model feature in mid-May, but accidents in back-to-back weeks slowed his forward progress with the No. 71 Chevrolet. He took the car to Mitch Green at Crazy Horse Racing to be repaired after the first wreck, but then the team chose to make the necessary fixes themselves after the second one – with close guidance from Green.
Early in practice last Friday, Chiasson knew the car would be up to speed.
“Everything went back to where we wanted it to. There was nothing too serious,” Chiasson said. “We’ve been learning a lot on our own with this car (after converting it from a Late Model over the winter), and we’re taking some lumps in doing that. But it’s worked out well for us in the long run.”
Long runs will start to take top priority for Chiasson. The 40th annual TD Bank Oxford 250 is just over three weeks away.
Though he is confident that his No. 71 has speed for the 40-lap weekly races at Oxford Plains, he has begun thinking about how it will perform over the long, grueling Oxford 250 weekend.
“We’re hoping it will be just as good, but we’re just not sure how we’d be on a long, long run,” Chiasson said. “We went to watch the PASS 150 race (last weekend) to see what we could learn about the tires. I really wanted to see what the guys from Oxford would do, to see what setups like ours would do in the longer runs. We’ll have to figure that out there. We’ve learned enough now that we’ll be able to adjust for it, but we’ll just have to plan on the long haul part of it.
“With the way our tires are now, we’ve got close to 200 laps with heat races and feature races on them. We’re experienced now in tire wear with these wider tires, but that’s spread out over four weeks and not all in one spot where we’d like to have the information.”
One thing Chiasson does feel good about is that the win last weekend has him pointed in the right direction. The weekly field at Oxford includes several championship-caliber drivers.
“You always wish there were more cars there, but the caliber of people racing – a lot of them have run those tires before. We really started figuring out the Late Model late last year, and a lot of what we learned has rolled over and worked on this car.
“We started out the year good, and we’re hoping to keep doing that.”