By George Campbell

The 37^th annual TD Bank 250 is now in the books. The winner was Brad Leighton – at least that’s what the small handful of people that left early to get out of the parking lot ahead of the real fans thought.  Those that stayed around witnessed one of the more heartbreaking moments in the races history, which was followed by Eddie MacDonald winning his second consecutive 250.

Leighton’s car blew a tire on lap 204, after he had nearly dominated the event, lapping most of the field as he led 189 laps before the incident. MacDonald had been running a close second and assumed the lead quickly and never looked back. He and his team, led by crew chief Rollie LaChance, were all smiles as they celebrated their repeat win in victory lane after the race.

Track Owner Bill Ryan was also smiling after the race. He and his staff had pulled off yet another successful 250, keeping the strong tradition of this historic race alive and thriving for its 37^th year.

There were plenty of reasons for Ryan to be happy, starting with the large number of teams that had entered the race.

“I was extremely happy with the car count,” he said.   “Seventy nine cars in this environment is unbelievable.  You always want more cars but realistically in the world we are in right now, 79 cars is amazing.  And I loved the regional variety.  There was a lot of criticism in the early to mid 2000's about how the race was nothing but a Maine show.  Now it is back to truly being a regional race.”

The seventy-nine cars were slightly more than last years TD Bank 250, when seventy-one cars attempt to qualify. The number was slightly higher in 2008, when eighty-five cars attempted to qualify.

One of the biggest challenges of the race for the drivers is just making the field. There are just 36 starting positions up for grabs and a couple provisional’s available. These go to the driver highest in the OPS late model point standings, that failed to make it through the heats and consolation races and the most recent former 250 race winner that also failed to make it through the heats and consolation races. There is also a ‘promoter’s option that can be used for NASCAR Sprint Cup racers, such as Brad Keselowski, who was granted this provisional when he failed to make the race via the heat races.

Many drivers that fail to qualify for the race through the heat races have been considered for other various accomplishments, but the track has to stick to a strict rule on giving out provisional’s to keep the integrity of the race, from both the standpoint of fans, as well as other drivers and teams.

“Everyone wants a provisional,” Ryan explained.  “I get a million questions leading up to the race from guys about it.  Everything from whether a past Busch North Champ would get one to whether someone would get one because they traveled a great distance.  It is a delicate balancing act between what the fans want to see to what is fair to the drivers competing to get in the race deserve.  I think the drivers understand that adding Cup guys to the race puts fans in the stands and helps pay my bills.  They may not like it, but they understand it.  There is some talk after qualifying, but the decision is usually pretty straight forward.”

Adding to the difficulty of making the race, the heat races were shortened from 20 laps to 15 laps this year. The shorter races did not detract from the action, and did not create extra yellow flags either, as some had predicted.  In fact the entire race was exceptionally clean over all, and had fewer than normal caution laps.

“I thought the qualifying was entertaining, particularly Dale Verrill getting past Brad Keselowski in the last Last Chance Race,” Ryan said.  “The race itself was really unusual because it ran with so few cautions, particularly at the beginning.  When you do not have cautions on a short track, it is a struggle for the guys that started on the tail end of the field to stay on the lead lap.  It kind of reminded me of a Supermodified race a little bit that way.  Leighton was so fast at the beginning it looked like he was going to dominate everyone.”

“But, the magic of the TD Bank 250 is that inevitably something like a tire going away is going to happen,” he continued.  “I thought there was good racing throughout the field.  The other thing I liked was the mix of cars.  You had guys like Eddie and Leighton, who run a little bit of everything, Oxford regulars, and ACT regulars from both Canada and the US.  The field was a great cross section of the Late Model world from around the region.”

One of the drivers that had traveled from well out side of the region was Jeffrey Earnhardt. The North Carolina native had traveled from Gateway International Raceway in Illinois, where he had race in the NASCAR Truck Series the day before. Earnhardt had been touted in pre-race advertising as one of the NASCAR stars that had entered the event. But as with many stars in the past, he was unable to crack the field through the heat races, and had no provisional to fall back on. He flew home to North Carolina with out having made the race in his first attempt.

“Before his car owner entered Jeffrey, I told him that I would not grant him a provisional,” Ryan says.  “Jeffrey is a talented young racer, but I did not think that given his prior racing accomplishments a provisional was called for.  They knew going in that they were going to have to race their way in.   I assumed they would be able to do so given Jeffrey's talent level, particularly after he started towards the front of his heat.  I assume that they must have had a problem with their car.  Given how the day went for Jeffrey, I did not see anything that led me to reconsider my earlier statement to them that they would not receive a provisional.  Nothing against Jeffrey at all.  Like I said, I am sure he is a great guy, but we had 79 great guys out there fighting for spots.  I wish they could all get in the race but that is not the way that it works.”

A crewman from Jeffrey’s team said after the race that they had incurred motor problems. There were good during practice, but never got the issue solved during heats and consi.

While there may have been forty teams that were disappointed before the race, as they had to pack up with out earning a spot in the big show, there were thousands of happy fans by the end of the race.

“I was happy with the fan support; we have great fans that make the race what it is,” Ryan acknowledged.  “Attendance was typical of what we had in 1999-2003 and 2006-2009.  2004 and 2005 were really positive anomalies.  In 2004, for the first time in many years NASCAR had an off weekend that we ran on.  It had been years since a Cup guy had run the race and that year we were lucky that then defending champion Matt Kenseth entered followed quickly by champion to be Kurt Busch.  Television race fans came out in droves that year as NASCAR had not yet seen the decline that we are seeing now.  2005 was similar with Matt and Kyle Busch entering.  These days, I think it is obvious that NASCAR is in a decline in terms of fan attendance.  That hurts us with our NASCAR visitors too.   We all remember the days when you had to buy your NHMS tickets a year ahead of time or you lost them.  Now, NHMS has tens of thousands of tickets available just prior to the race.  It is a cyclical thing based somewhat on the economy, somewhat on fan interest.” 

“So I was happy with the attendance but still wish it was 2004,” he continued. “In 2004 we had the largest event OPS has ever seen.  We had over 13,000 people.   I checked with Bob Bahre and he told me he never had that many.  Could we do that again?  Sure.  Do you have Dale, Jr.'s number?  There are a select few guys that can sell those few thousand extra tickets and unfortunately most of them do not run short track events.”

There were several small changes to the format this year, including the shorter qualifying heats and a smaller tire allotment for the teams. This seemed to benefit many teams, and Ryan will continue to make the race one that is ‘budget friendly’ to as many teams in the region as possible.

“We are focused on affordability.  I think the new tweaks worked as we drew more cars and made it more affordable for guys to race.  We will obviously review things as we always do, but our focus remains affordability for the racer.  Affordability breeds great competition for our fans.”