OXFORD, Maine -- It's a fantastic comparison, putting the race director on par with the home plate umpire in a baseball game.

Where as the best umpires on baseball's biggest stages are at their best when their work goes unnoticed, the same is true for race directors. Where poor umpiring can influence the outcome of a game, so, too could a bad night in the skybox for the Oxford Plains Speedway race director shatter the dreams of Late Model teams hoping to stamp there career with a win the prestigious TD Banknorth 250 on Sunday night.

Randy Varney is well aware that, while he'd like to treat this Sunday as any other race day, it's next to impossible to do that.

"It's the biggest race of the year. You can't treat it like a Saturday night race," Varney said on Wednesday night at Oxford Plains, where the Acceleration Series was in action to unofficially launch Speedweek at the track. "You can't look at the qualifying like it's a Saturday night show. People spend their whole budgets for the entire year on it, and you can't ruin it for them because of one stupid call."

Varney is a no-nonsense kind of guy. Ask a direct question, and you'll get a direct answer. He's deliberate with his words, a thoughtful man who will have the best seat in the house for Sunday's 35th running of Maine's summer classic -- the fourth '250' he's legislated since taking over as the track's Director of Competition late in 2004. From the tower atop the grandstands, he'll rule on virtually everything that happens over the eight-hour race day.

Black flags. Bad restarts. Rough driving. Intentional spins. All of it takes place through the grueling course of six heat races, three consolation races and three last-chance qualifiers.

It's all part of his jurisdiction, and Oxford Plains owner Bill Ryan gladly hands the reins to the 52-year-old Oxford native.

"You've always got to do it the right way, and I know Randy approaches things that way," Ryan said, who has seen three different race directors in his tenure. "You've got to make sure you're doing the best job for the competitors to make things fair -- and I have tons of confidence when he's there that it's going to be a fair competiton and he's going to keep guys safe doing it."

Like all race directors everywhere, Varney isn't always the most popular person on the grounds. In 2006, he made the final call to disqualify Johnny Clark's heat race finish after Clark was found leaning on his car in post-race technical inspection. Last year, he sent nine-time Oxford track champion Jeff Taylor to the rear of the field in a qualifying race after Taylor jumped a restart, despite repeated warnings not to do so.

But Varney doesn't play favorites, plain and simple.

"I don't let too much upset me very often," said Varney, who moved to the officiating side after his car owner disbanded his Limited Sportsman team in 1996. "I just try and treat everybody the same. I don't want to tell people I don't like race car drivers (as a whole) -- but it's just that once they put their helmets on, I like to think I look at them all equally. I don't have any favorites."

That's where Ryan draws the umpire comparison.

"He's the umpire," Ryan said. "Everybody, in whatever sport, at one point another is going to have a problem with a call. What I always try to explain to racers who call me about on-track calls, is that Randy or Kenny Tripp (the Acceleration Series race director) are like umpires calling balls and strikes. It's certainly your prerogative to think the umpire is wrong, but the reality is that the umpire is never wrong. The call is what the call is, and you've just got to go on.

"Racers can get caught up in that sort of stuff."

Like umpires, judgement calls left to Varney happen in a matter of seconds.

"It is what it is," Varney said. "It's a call I have to make, and like I always try to explain to (racers), I don't have the benefit of instant replay. This isn't (football). I've made the call. Whether it's wrong or it's right, it's final. You can come and talk to me reasonably, but it's not going to change anything."

With more than 100 cars entered in Sunday's event, Ryan said that it becomes the race director's responsibility not only to ensure fair competition, but also to make sure that teams new to the facility are complying with simple procedures.

"The most important thing on a day like Sunday is communication," Ryan said. "We may have some procedures that are not like procedures at other places. For an example, we never let guys pass the pace car, ever. If the pace car is out on track, it's for a reason. It's for the safety of a clean-up crew or an accident or the safety of the driver.

"But if somebody who doesn't listen in the driver's meeting goes blowing by the pace car at 50 mph trying to pit -- I have no tolerance for that. Randy doesn't, either. That, in a sense, is his job -- to communicate our expectations clearly to all the competitors."

And Varney will do that at a place that he as a strong attachment to. He lives just two miles away from the track, and he said that when he was racing, if he got home early enough, he could still hear former track announcer Bobby Walker's voice traveling to his door from Oxford's public address system. Varney's had offers from other tracks like Wiscasset Raceway and Beech Ridge Motor Speedway to jump on board their, but he's always turned those down.

"I'll help anybody out who needs it," Varney said. "But it just doesn't make sense to go anywhere else."

Which is why the region's biggest race of the summer is in good hands.

"He's a natural," Ryan said. "He's got the right personality, he knows a ton about racing and he raced himself. You need to be someone that's seen a lot of races. You need to know racing -- and not as a fan. You need to be a guy that's seen a lot of races as an official. You need to know the players and get a sense of the game, so to speak. Randy's got all of that."