The season didn’t start on time, and the schedule wasn’t what it was supposed to be, but the final weekend in August is only a few days away and drivers and fans are gearing up for Sunday’s Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway.

Despite all that’s different this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, much of what the drivers and their teams have done and will do this week is relatively unchanged from past years.

“Preparation has been about the same this year, as far as getting the car ready for the race. Really have to pay attention, make sure everything is where it needs to be,” Turner native Calvin Rose Jr. said. “It does feel a little different going into 250 weekend, knowing the stands will be at a very low capacity compared to past years, but it’s still the biggest race of the year for us. We’re super excited to see what we can do.”

Shawn Martin, another Turner native, echoed Rose’s sentiments about the similarities to pre-pandemic race preparations.

“We’re just making sure we bring the best piece possible to the track,” Martin said. “So we’ve spent the last two weeks pretty much going over everything in the car with a fine-tooth comb. And also getting all of our pit equipment ready, seeing as we only really go over the wall one time a year, so making sure all that stuff is ready to go.

“Hopefully we get a good draw and have some good speed in our car.”

2017 Oxford 250 winner Curtis Gerry did make a small non-COVID-related change, sending his shocks out for maintenance after not doing so last year. Other than that, he said, preparations have been “pretty much the same.”

One aspect that has changed for some drivers is how many races they’ve run leading up to the biggest event of the year. Martin said he’s raced a lot less than previous years due to less funding than previous years because it’s been harder to bring on sponsors. He has limited his schedule to mostly Oxford Plains’ weekly Saturday action and hasn’t ventured out for other Pro All Stars Series races at different tracks.

Jeff White of Winthrop, a former track champion at Oxford Plains who has shrunk his schedule to mostly PASS action for a handful of years, has run even less this year, and had to miss out on last Saturday’s 100-lap qualifying race for the 250.

Colby Martin, 9, tightens the lug nuts on his father’s race car in Turner on Wednesday. Martin was helping his father, Shawn Martin, get Shawn’s car ready to race in the Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway this weekend. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

“There’s been a few races. And of course we missed that last 100-lapper for the automatic qualifying because we were trying to save money,” White said. “Lenny (Thompson) owns the car, he’s the one that usually buys. Everybody’s slow, everybody’s work is slow, so we didn’t want to spend money on tires to go there last week. We’re trying to save money to go racing this week. So it did affect that. It does it affect it a little bit. Because everybody’s really hurting. A lot of the companies, even the (business) owners and car owners are hurting.”

White said he expects that Oxford Plains owner Tom Mayberry has seen an impact in the track’s business after having to push back the season opener from early May to late June. Fans weren’t allowed in the grandstands until Aug. 1, and even then the track was limited to selling 200 tickets for a grandstand that can hold most of the track’s 14,000-seat capacity.

The delayed start meant a longer offseason, though Gerry said his team was race-ready for when the season was supposed to start, “so we kind of just did nothing (extra) really, except wait.”

That wait is almost over for the Gerry and the other 59 drivers who were entered into the race as of last Thursday (though Gerry was waiting for his shocks to return back to his race shop Wednesday afternoon). Martin said his team was finishing up preparations at their race shop Wednesday evening so they could load the car up for the trek to the Oxford track.