Dale Shaw Race Cars Looking for Fourth-Straight Oxford 250 Win
DJ Shaw has spent the 2012 season running PASS Super Late Models in the Northeast and chasing the overall season championship. Last week he recorded his best finish of the season, a second-place run at Thompson International Speedway in Connecticut. Shaw hopes the team’s momentum after that finish can catapult him to success this weekend in the TD Bank 250 at Maine’s Oxford Plains Speedway.
“It was a good finish last week at Thompson and we needed a good run,” said Shaw. “I would like to have won the race, but every driver says that after a race. We got a chance to boost the team morale and we’ll use that heading into Oxford this weekend. Hopefully we can string together some success like we did at the end of 2011.”
Shaw will have two objectives over the Oxford weekend. First, he would like to become the seventh different driver to win a PASS North race this season on Saturday, July 21st at Oxford. Then on Sunday, he will hope to continue a family tradition of success in the TD Bank 250, one of the most prestigious short track events in the country.
The TD Bank 250 at OPS utilizes ACT-type Late Models, which runs on a smaller tire with less horsepower under the hood than the PASS Super Late Models Shaw competes with, which often leads to ultra-competitive three-wide action. Shaw’s family business, Dale Shaw Race Cars, has built several winning mounts in the 250, but now DJ himself wants to be the next driver to etch his name into the Oxford record books.
“The family race cars have won the last three Oxford 250’s,” said Shaw. “Last year Kyle Busch got a win in one of our rides and Eddie MacDonald won two-in-a-row before that. We’ll have up to 15 cars out there (in the Oxford field) that were built out of this shop and I want to be the one who brings it home for the family team.”
“It would be the biggest win of my career and with all the history there, plus my dad (Dale) having won at Oxford so much, it would great to run well, but we’re going for the win. We have the equipment to do it. I just have to get the job done.”
Shaw will drive for Dave Parker and Fast One Motorsports, a team that has seen success at the 250 with New Hampshire driver Brad Leighton in recent seasons. In 2010, Leighton led 189 laps before a tire set him back in the pack. The team still managed to take fifth and pocket more than $24,000 in purse and lap money.
TD Bank 250 action gets underway on Friday, July 20th with the PASS Modified race, where DJ’s father Dale Shaw will be racing his machine. The next day is practice and the full card for the PASS North Super Late Models with their 150 lap-feature event the final of the three-division feature line up.
It will be an early rise on Sunday, July 22nd as the track goes hot at 8am for TD Bank 250 practice. The all-important qualifying draw will be just after noon and racing starts at 2pm with heats. The feature event is slated for approximately 6:30pm.