OXFORD — With the way his car was running, there seemed to be an air of inevitability: Austin Teras would get to the front, and he would stay there.

It was hard for the other drivers to keep up with the Gray driver during Maine’s grandest auto race. When late-race cautions gave his competitors a chance, Teras simply shot past them on his way to Oxford Plains Speedway glory.

Teras claimed his sweetest victory yet, winning the 52nd Oxford 250 on Sunday night. The 22-year-old led for 123 laps, beating out runner-up Eddie MacDonald and DJ Shaw to take the checkered flag.

“It’s better (than all of my other wins on this track) combined,” Teras said. “(The car) had good, good drive, and we could put it down on restarts and get away. … To win one of these races, 100 things have to go right, and it did today.”

Racing from pole position, MacDonald held off an early slate of challengers to lead for the first 41 laps. Cole Robie of Windham then overtook MacDonald on Lap 42, and Teras overtook Robie on Lap 59 and began to pull away.

As the halfway point drew closer, though, Bubba Pollard (Senoia, Georgia) gradually began to close in on Teras. On Lap 125, he finally got enough space on Teras’ outside to become the race’s fourth leader, a position he would hold for the next 40 laps until Robie retook the lead.

Robie was out in front until Lap 185 before pitting, allowing Jimmy Renfrew Jr. (Candia, New Hampshire) to take get to the front. That lead would be the shortest-lived of the race as Teras, fresh off his only pit of the race on Lap 186, quickly made his way back to the head of the pack.

“(Austin) was just fast; I mean, he was fast even before he got tires — he hung in there for a while,” MacDonald said. “The way he was so good, it was tough to ride with him. … He would just smoke us on every single restart.”

Teras’ ability to do so was needed. As the race neared the finish, the predictable jockeying for positioning caused cautions on laps 213, 231, 240 and 248. Yet every time, Teras bolted to the front, and while his last one wasn’t as crisp as the previous three, it was more than enough.

“You come down to a two- or three-lap run in a place like this, and the inevitable is playing in your mind,” Teras said. “Luckily, I had guys like DJ and Eddie racing me; they race me with respect, and I race them with respect. It’s fun to do it with friends, and I’m glad those were the guys racing me.”

The win is the crown jewel of an impressive three-year run at Oxford Plains Speedway for Teras, who already has more Super Late Model victories than anyone at the track since the start of the 2023 season. He placed fifth in last year’s 250 after opening the week with a $10,000 win in the Open Competition 200.

As MacDonald said, there was simply no competing with Teras’ car on this late-August evening. Still, after a tough run at in recent trips to Oxford Plains, the winner of the 2009 and 2010 Oxford 250s was happy with how his own car ran throughout the weekend.

“We haven’t been the best here in the past couple years, so it was a great turnaround for us,” MacDonald, Rowley, Massachusetts, said. “We ran really well. … I was happy with second. Obviously you want to win, but we were just too tight on that last run.”

Shaw’s third-place finish was his third in as many years and his fifth overall. A solid race kept the current PASS North points leader from Center Conway, New Hampshire, in strong position in the standings as he continued what’s been an outstanding 2025 campaign at Oxford Plains.

“The best car did flat-out win tonight — it was unreal how good that thing was — but I’m really proud of everybody,” Shaw said. “Everybody on this Bar Harbor Bank & Trust machine just killed it all day, and all weekend, really. It was a solid weekend and a solid last four runs here, and all-in-all, I’m just pumped to keep the season rolling.”

Pollard, the 2018 winner, finished fourth. Brandon Barker (Westbrook), Mike Hopkins (Hermon), Sylas Ripley (Warren), Ryan Littlefield (Dayton), Cory Hall (Lyons Brook, Nova Scotia) and Ben Rowe (Turner) rounded out the top 10.