OXFORD — After countless oh-so-closes, this win meant the world to Joey Doiron.

The Berwick driver let out an emphatic yell as he maneuvered his body out of his car in victory lane after winning the All That’s Metal Celebration of America 300 at Oxford Plains Speedway on Wednesday. After 10 minutes of photos with his trophy and various family members and friends, he had a tear in his right eye that said it all.

“It’s unreal,” Doiron said after his victory that garnered a check for $40,000. “I’ve won past races, but in the (Oxford) 250, I’ve finished every spot inside the top five more than once, and I just haven’t won it. … This has been an unreal year.”

Doiron overtook Limerick’s Trevor Sanborn, who started in pole position and led the race’s first 173 laps, on Lap 174. Doiron maintained the lead until a pit stop on 219, after which he maneuvered his way back to the front of the pack, regained the lead on Lap 265 and held it for the rest of the race.

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, the 2011 Oxford 250 winner, left the race following a wreck on Lap 271. NASCAR Xfinity Series and Pro All Star Series (PASS) driver Derek Griffith of Hudson, New Hampshire, placed second, and Cassius Clark of Farmington, also a PASS driver, took third.

“Joey’s been the guy to beat here all year, so it’s hard to compare to him because he’s been on another level,” Griffith said. “Yesterday, (my team) was trying some different (front-end) stuff that we don’t normally do that we thought would work, but it didn’t, so we got back to basics here, and the car was good.”

Sanborn maintained his lead through early cautions on Lap 5 and Lap 23, pulling well ahead of the field with Joe Pastore (Gorham, New Hampshire) trailing him. Meanwhile, two big names — Palmyra’s Max Cookson and NASCAR Cup Series driver Daniel Hemric of Kannapolis, North Carolina — struggled early, both falling a lap down inside the first 40 laps.

Pastore came close to passing Sanborn after a third caution on Lap 46, but the leader maintained his top spot through the next three cautions, on Lap 67, Lap 70 and Lap 91. The race then went 54 laps without another caution and Sanborn maintaining his uninterrupted lead.

Sanborn, who finished 10th, finally pitted for new tires during the race’s eighth caution on Lap 174, allowing Doiron to become only the second leader of the race. He stayed in front for the next 45 laps before hitting pit road himself on Lap 219, at which point D.J. Shaw (Conway, New Hampshire) took the lead.

“He pitted, and I got the lead, and I probably would have stayed out (on 219), but I was a bit nervous that we weren’t going to make it on fuel,” Doiron said. “My goal the whole time was 70-100 (laps) to pit the first time and anytime from 210-230 the second one. We stuck to our plan, and it worked out.”

Shaw led for 36 laps before Garrett Hall of Scarborough overtook him on Lap 255. Yet it didn’t take long for Doiron to make his way back to the front of the pack with his No. 7 3D car overtaking Shaw on Lap 265, one lap after the 11th caution of the evening.

That caution was the first of three in seven laps, the third of which sent Busch to the garage for the evening. Doiron maintained his lead through all three, holding off a fierce challenge from Griffith on Lap 280 to earn a cherished victory at Oxford Plains Speedway.

“I felt like a rookie out here; I kept hitting the curb going into Turn 1, and I hit really bad once and just stopped to try to stay on the bottom,” Doiron said. “He tried to get in there, but we had to try and get on the bottom if we were going to win the race, and luckily, we were able to come out the other end.”

Whereas Doiron and Johnny Clark had good initial track positions as the No. 2 drivers on the outside and inside, respectively, Griffith and Cassius Clark had to work their way through the field. Griffith’s 444 car was 11th on the inside, and Clark’s was even further back at 14th on the inside.

“We didn’t have very good position to start, but we were able to work our way back to the front there,” Cassius Clark said. “We actually got there quicker than I thought we were going to. I had to short-pit it there for strategy to run with those guys, and we were able to stay there long enough to pit with them.”

The evening’s other purse race, the $10,000 New England Supermodified Series 100-lap event, went to Jon McKennedy (Chelmsford, Massachusetts), a late entry who led the race from wire-to-wire. Ben Seitz (Bourne, Massachusetts) overtook Russ Wood (Pelham, New Hampshire) late in the race to clinch second place.

The main card of the two-day event, the Celebration of America 300 drew a significant crowd to Oxford, with fans packing the bleachers on both sides. In the minds of one racer, it could be the start of a new racing tradition in the state.

“You look at the people who came on a Wednesday before the Fourth of July, it’s pretty cool,” Griffith said. “This is going to be a marquee event in the Northeast, I think. Hopefully, (owner) Tom (Mayberry) does it again next year.”