Austin Teras, right, and his father, Jay Cushman, hug after Teras won the Oxford 250 on Sunday at Oxford Plains Speedway. Cushman, who is also the owner of Teras’ racing team, has been involved with the Oxford 250 for 42 years. Sunday night was his first victory at the race. Anna Chadwick/Staff photographer
OXFORD — All eyes were on Gray driver Austin Teras on Sunday night after he held off Eddie MacDonald and DJ Shaw to win the 52nd Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway.
But as the 22-year-old Teras celebrated in Victory Lane, away from the cheers and posing for photos stood his father, Jay Cushman, whose smile was as wide as his son’s.
Cushman was not just celebrating his son’s triumph, but his own as well. Cushman, 63, also owns the car and had been chasing an elusive 250 victory for more than four decades.
“It hasn’t even sunk in yet,” Cushman said after the win. “There’s so many ways to lose the race, and so many things out of your control. You just kind of wait for it all to fall in place one year.”
“I’m not sure I quite have the words to describe (getting a win for Cushman),” added an emotional Teras. “It means everything, really.”
Cushman, who owns Cushman Competition in Windham, has invested an estimated seven-figure amount into winning the Oxford 250 over the years. He’s been building race cars since he was 15, helping his father, Joe Cushman, a former drag racer. Jay Cushman tried to make the 250 as a driver from 1983-86, but never qualified.
Jay Cushman and his son, Austin Teras, chat in the pits during the 2023 season at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal file photo
As an owner, Cushman has fielded cars for Larry Gelinas, who won the 1996 Oxford 250 for another team, Ted Christopher, former NASCAR Cup driver Regan Smith and multi-time Wiscasset Speedway champion Scott Chubbuck. Before Sunday, Cushman came closest to victory in the 250 was in 2004 when Chubbuck led 50 laps.
It all fell into place on Sunday night for Cushman and Teras, who got his first 250 victory after having more Super Late Model wins at Oxford Plains Speedway than any other driver since the 2023 season. Teras had a dominant run, first taking the lead over Windham’s Cole Robie on Lap 59, and again on Lap 192 when he passed Jimmy Renfrew Jr. shortly after coming out of the pits on Lap 186 — his only pit stop of the race. Teras led 125 total laps.
“We built a car just for (Oxford Plains), and we don’t run it anywhere else but here,” Cushman said. “We just try to make it better every week. We were working for this race and everything came together (on Sunday). We had a strategy and stuck to it, even when it seemed it might not be the right one. (Teras) just never made a mistake and cashed in.”
Throughout the race, Teras continued to ward off challenges.
“(The car) was just too tight to run with Austin, congrats to those guys,” said MacDonald, the runner-up, who nearly joined an exclusive club of three-time Oxford 250 champions (he won in 2009 and 2010).
Teras went the first 186 laps on the same set of tires, staying out on the track through multiple pit stops for other drivers. It proved to be a winning strategy.
Jay Cushman times laps for his son, Austin Teras, during a practice session at Oxford Plains Speedway in 2023. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal
“It was just a lot of luck involved (in the strategy),” Teras said. “To win one of these races, 100 things have to go right. They did (on Sunday). Only one thing has to go wrong to lose it.”
“We had a really good car, so it made any strategy that we had look good,” added Cushman. “But (Teras) had to do his job and not make any mistakes, too.”
Cushman has been a guide for his son since Teras first began driving at an early age.
“I started him in go-karts before his fifth birthday,” Cushman said. “I had fake birth certificates (for him), so I could race him with the older kids. For 10 years, we raced from Daytona (Florida) to (Las) Vegas. We always raced up in classes, not down in class. He didn’t get beat often (back then). He did a good job (on Sunday).”
