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It took exactly two turns behind the wheel of a race car for Dottie Patria to become addicted to the sport of stock car racing.<\/p>\n
Patria, of Turner, has turned that addiction into an assault on the Oxford Plains Speedway record books over the past seven years. With her 20-lap Ladies feature win at the track on Opening Day two weeks ago, Patria sits just two victories away from second on the all-time win list in the division.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the first race, I was like, ‘Eh. It’s OK,’\u201d Patria recalled this week. \u201cI was glad I tried it, but it if I’d never raced again I would have been OK with that. But I was committed to running two races, and after the second race, I was hooked. It was like, ‘I LOVE THIS.’\u201d
\n<\/p>\n
Patria, who also competes in the Outlaw division alongside her husband, John, as part of the Oxford Acceleration Series on the flat, .375-mile oval, only knew one thing after she won her first feature event \u2013 that she wanted to win a whole lot more.<\/p>\n
She’s done just fine for herself in that department. With 20 career Ladies division victories, including one by barely the length of her fender on May 20, Patria needs only two more wins to tie Debbie Martin for second on the win list. And with plenty of gas left in the proverbial tank, Patria is within reach of Vanna Brackett’s 34 career victories \u2013 the all-time Ladies mark at Oxford.
\n\u201cThe biggest thing is just keeping my head in the game, really,\u201d Patria said, pointing out the door-to-door battle for victory two weeks ago with Tasha Dyer. \u201cWe battled that whole race side-by-side. It was really about not making a mistake. I mean, Tasha was fast, and if I had slipped up just a little, she’d have had that race won. You can’t let the other drivers psyche you out. You have to keep your head in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patria enjoys both the camaraderie within the Ladies division, as well as the opportunity to race stock cars that the division has given her. But she’s also found that the more recent challenge of competing in the bigger Outlaw division against mostly men has been nearly as rewarding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe usually have three Outlaw races on Wednesday nights (at Oxford), one for the high-point guys, one for the mid-point guys and one for the low-point guys,\u201d said Patria, who finished sixth in her 2012 Outlaw debut on May 26. \u201cIt’s just so different (in that division), that if I finish in the Top-10 in the middle race, I’m really happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of great guys in that Outlaw division. If anything, they race you a little bit harder because you’re a woman. They’re going to show you how it’s done. Even though it’s the same car, I drive my race car a little differently in the Outlaws than I do in the Ladies. You have to. You have to be more aggressive… You need to let them know that you can take it and you’ll dish it out, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ladies and Outlaw division cars are identical, but Oxford Plains Speedway rules don’t allow a driver to compete in two different classes on the same night in the same car. Patria is putting the finishing touches on a new Outlaw car for herself this week \u2013 with some heavy reliance on Crazy Horse Racing to get her prepared in time for the first standalone Oxford Acceleration Series Wednesday night program on July 11.
\nShe plans on taking the green flag in both divisions that night.
\n\u201cA racer is a racer is a racer with (Crazy Horse),\u201d Patria said. \u201cI don’t care if it’s a go-kart or a Late Model or an ACT driver. If you race, you’re an equal with them. It’s unbelievable.
\n\u201cOur car’s going over there this week to have a (roll) cage put it. This is the middle of racing season \u2013 and (Mitch Green) is taking the time to put a cage in an Outlaw car. I think if you called a lot of other car builders this time of year and asked them to do that, they’d be like, ‘Are you kidding?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Crazy Horse Racing built the engine in John Patria’s Outlaw car, and they will do the same for Dottie’s Outlaw.<\/p>\n
It’s a personal touch that keeps Patria excited about heading to the race track week after week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t feel like a customer of theirs, I feel like a friend,\u201d she said. \u201cThey do so much for all the racers. They have everything, even for us little guys. It’s not just Late Models. If we need it, they usually have it. That’s big for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know who you are, and they know you by name and know how you ran almost as soon as you get off the track. It’s really the personal touch that they have. I don’t know how they do it. They do so much for the sport. They really promote the racing everywhere, and they try to do so much for the sport.
\n\u201cWe need more people like that out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LADIES FIRST: Dottie Patria Among Oxford’s Best Crazy Horse Racing Powers Patria To Top Of Ladies Division It took exactly two turns behind the wheel of a race car for Dottie Patria to become addicted to the sport of stock car racing. Patria, of Turner, has turned that addiction into an assault on the Oxford […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[878,18,13],"tags":[937],"class_list":["post-7683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maine-race-tracks","category-maine-racing-news","category-oxford-plains-speedway","tag-dottie-patria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}