{"id":15158,"date":"2015-07-23T21:12:53","date_gmt":"2015-07-24T01:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maineracing.com\/wp\/?p=15158"},"modified":"2015-07-23T21:12:53","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T01:12:53","slug":"act-tour-resumes-championship-chase-at-oxford-plains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/2015\/07\/act-tour-resumes-championship-chase-at-oxford-plains\/","title":{"rendered":"ACT Tour Resumes Championship Chase at Oxford Plains"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_15159\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15159\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15159\" src=\"http:\/\/www.maineracing.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/VLF_7148-e1437700308262.jpg\" alt=\"Eric LaFleche\/Victory Lane Radio photo\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-15159\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric LaFleche\/Victory Lane Radio photo<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Waterbury, VT<\/em> \u2013 The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) resumes its 2015 championship chase this <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874535\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Saturday, July 25<\/span><\/span> at Oxford, ME\u2019s Oxford Plains Speedway. The Oxford Plains 150 is the eighth on the ACT Tour\u2019s 13-race schedule and their second visit of the season to the 3\/8-mile oval. The event was previously scheduled for June 27 before being postponed.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The second half of the year will see the continued championship battle between New Hampshire veterans Wayne Helliwell Jr. and Joey Polewarczyk Jr. Two-time ACT Tour Champion Wayne Helliwell Jr. holds a 17-point lead over defending Champion \u201cJoey Pole\u201d with each driver recording three wins to date.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>While Helliwell earned a third-place finish in this past <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874536\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Sunday\u2019s<\/span><\/span> ACT International at Airborne Park Speedway, Pole spun twice en route to a 13<sup>th<\/sup>-place result. Pole led every lap of the Tour\u2019s season opener at Oxford in April and is eager to get the title chase started again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt seems like it\u2019s been a long time since White Mountain,\u201d Pole said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done some racing in between, and just haven\u2019t had the best of luck; it\u2019s been kind of a rough month so far. Hopefully we can get back to Oxford and get things going back in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Despite rough days in both the ACT and PASS events at Airborne, Pole is confident that his team still has what it takes to chase a second consecutive title.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way we\u2019re looking at the International is that everything that happened in both races was out of our control,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got a flat tire with the PASS car, and then another flat tire with the ACT car, and then ran into some trouble with a lapped car. Hopefully that\u2019s all the bad luck we\u2019re going to have and we got it out of the way then. In racing you really can\u2019t control everything that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>An enticing battle is shaping up behind the two ACT Tour leaders as well, as just 56 points separate third-place Jeff White from ninth-place Kyle Welch. Winthrop, ME\u2019s White returns to the track where he won the 2011 Late Model Championship and recorded his first ACT Tour win with a chance to widen the gap over the rest of the field.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Fourth-place point driver Travis Stearns also considers Oxford his home track and believes his Richard Green Racing team is better than their seventh-place result in April, while Brad Babb is looking for his second win of the season after being felled by a flat tire in the first Oxford event. Barre, VT\u2019s Nick Sweet is riding the wave of his nearly $11,000 triumph in the ACT International and aims for his first point-counting Tour win of 2015.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Fellow Vermonter Emily Packard finished a season-best fourth in the Oxford opener after starting 20<sup>th<\/sup> and hopes to do even better the second time around. Brandon Atkins earned a season-best fifth-place result in the International and is looking for redemption after getting spun out of the lead in the Tour\u2019s most recent event at White Mountain Motorsports Park. A win would also be an early birthday present for Atkins, who turns 19 on <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874537\"><span class=\"aQJ\">July 30<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Oxford Plains 150 for the ACT Tour is this <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874538\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Saturday, July 25<\/span><\/span> at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford, ME. Post time is <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874539\"><span class=\"aQJ\">7:00pm<\/span><\/span>. The pits open at <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874540\"><span class=\"aQJ\">2:00pm<\/span><\/span> with practice beginning at <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_197874541\"><span class=\"aQJ\">3:30pm<\/span><\/span>. The event will also feature the Northeast Mini Stock Tour along with Oxford\u2019s Super Late Models, Modifieds, Street Stocks, Bandits, and Figure 8s. Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors\/military, $10 for kids ages 6-12, and $45 for a family four-pack (2 adults, 2 kids).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For more information contact the ACT offices at <a href=\"tel:802.244.6963\" target=\"_blank\">802.244.6963<\/a>, <a href=\"mailto:media@actttour.com\" target=\"_blank\">media@actttour.com<\/a>, or visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acttour.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.acttour.com<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxfordplains.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.oxfordplains.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Waterbury, VT \u2013 The American-Canadian Tour (ACT) resumes its 2015 championship chase this Saturday, July 25 at Oxford, ME\u2019s Oxford Plains Speedway. The Oxford Plains 150 is the eighth on the ACT Tour\u2019s 13-race schedule and their second visit of the season to the 3\/8-mile oval. The event was previously scheduled for June 27 before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[878,6,13,3,1268,4],"tags":[61,1331],"class_list":["post-15158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maine-race-tracks","category-new-england-racing-news","category-oxford-plains-speedway","category-pass","category-slm","category-latest-touring-news","tag-ops","tag-pass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15160,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15158\/revisions\/15160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}