WATERVILLE, Maine -- Even the drivers who will race for tens of thousands of dollars at Wiscasset Raceway this weekend can’t help but draw the comparisons. They still sound like the guys settling for second-best.

During a radio appearance at Hafford’s Saloon in Waterville on Tuesday night, Super Late Model driver Chuck Lachance spoke for his fellow competitors when he called Sunday’s New England Toyota Tundra 250 at Wiscasset "our 250." It is their race, literally – a Super Late Model race paying $30,000 to win.

But in a figurative sense, there’s still something running second-place for many people when it comes to this weekend’s first annual event. It’s not the Oxford 250, which is now an open Late Model race, despite the fact that PASS-legal Super Late Models (also known as Pro Stocks) will run for a purse larger than the one posted at Oxford each July.

"Well, this is our 250," reiterated Lachance, a weekly competitor at Wiscasset who hasn’t run a PASS race in years. "I mean, the Oxford 250 was the only thing we’ve known. That’s the only thing we have to compare this to."

Track owner Doug White, in his first full season at Wiscasset’s helm, made no bones about the fact that he welcomes comparisons between his 250 and Oxford’s.

"I’m not competing against it. I think we’ve replaced it, as far as Pro Stocks go," White said. "We are a Pro Stock track. What I do want to bring back is the old Oxford 250 in the days of old. I always went to it, went to it for my entire life. I think people still want it – it’s a need for the motorsports people that are around it all their life."

And White firmly believes that he’s providing the venue for the best cars and drivers in the area.

"The Pro Stocks, the Super Late Models, whatever you want to call them, that’s the elite class and people want to come see these guys," he said. "These guys are the top class of the northeast. These guys all have qualities that, if given the right opportunities, would do just as well at the higher (NASCAR) levels."

The decision by White and PASS flies directly in the face of the controversial change made at Oxford Plains Speedway in the summer of 2006 – when OPS owner Bill Ryan announced Super Late Models would no longer compete at the track, either in the 250 or as a weekly division. Where Ryan has attempted to open his 250 to more drivers and teams across the northeast, White has tried to emphasize the "elite" nature of the Super Late Models and welcomes a smaller field with bigger "stars." Where Ryan sought to create a scenario where virtually anybody could win the Oxford 250 by welcoming lower-budget teams, White pumps up accomplished – and aging – veterans like Mike Rowe and Stan Meserve as having entered the Toyota Tundra 250.

And, finally, White has offered lots of provisional starting spots and is running the race as a PASS-sanctioned event to draw competitors, while Ryan opts to let history and a true open format – despite pressure from the American-Canadian Tour – draw his teams.

Scott Chubbuck is a multi-time Wiscasset track champion and winner of plenty of races on big stages. He’ll run the Toyota Tundra 250 for Hight Motorsports on Sunday, but even he thinks it would be impossible to replace the Oxford summer classic – and that it would be best not to try.

"The (Oxford) 250 has been around forever and there’s prestige with it," Chubbuck said. "You can’t replace it, but we’re not trying to. We’re just trying to have a big-paying race with these cars, and that’s what you need to keep these cars around."

White is certainly trying to do that. Asked if he has considered eliminating Super Late Model racing from his track on a weekly basis, he was firm in his response.

"No," he said. "There will always be Pro Stock racing here, for as long as I own the track."

But White is keeping a keen eye on the turnout in the pit area this weekend. With just 33 cars on the unofficial entry list as of Tuesday afternoon, he’s already begun to wonder if it was necessary to offer up $30,000 to Sunday’s winner when a fraction of that may well have lured the same number of teams to attempt to qualify.

White did say that he posted so much purse money to announce his commitment to Super Late Models.

"I wanted to make a statement that the Pro Stocks are back, and it really is something that people want to see, and I think we’ll see that this weekend – even in bad economic times," White said. "I still think you’ll see a good turnout, fantastic racing and quality drivers. That’s what it’s all about."