Stupid Weather!

I'm hoping to at least see SOME racing this weekend, but the outlook is not good. If there's enough of a break in the rain tomorrow I'll be at my Friday night home Arcade Int'l Raceway. The show I REALLY want to see however is Saturday's RoC Modified Tour 75 at Dunn Tire Raceway Park. Over 30 modifieds are expected including Chuck Hossfeld, Matt Hirschman, Jan Leaty, Ted Christopher, Erick Rudolph, Eric Beers, Earl Paules, the list goes on. Pretty much the best modified drivers in the northeast will be in attendance on Saturday if the stupid weather would cooperate!

Looking ahead to next week, AIR is off for graduation weekend, but DTRP is hosting what should be another big race in the SST Modified tour 75. While they aren't the "big" modifieds, the SST Tour should put on a great show at DTRP with Lancaster regulars Andy Jankowiak, Billy Putney, Billy Burd, Jon Price, Jeff Price, and Tom McGrath going up against the likes of Wilbur Hebing, Buck Catalano, and Tony Hanbury.

Race-Free weekend...weird

This weekend is the first one in a very long time where I didn't race r/c or go to a race.  It's pretty weird.  At least I have the next few weekends booked for racing.  We might hit up Black Rock this Friday.  They'll be having an open tire $1000 to win Sportsman 30 lapper.  I might skip out on that and only go to Canandaigua's opener on Saturday though to see some big blocks.  After that, the following Friday is the season opener at the "reborn" Arcade International Raceway.  Then Saturday and Sunday I'll be in the Jamestown area for the r/c race I'm promoting; the Jamestown Oval Showdown.  I've just learned that May 1 will be the season opener for the ASCS Patriot Sprints up at the Black Rock Speedway.  So, I've got the next 3 weekends booked full of racing...can't wait!

410 Sprints...sweet

Well, I've FINALLY seen 410 sprints.  Last Saturday we went to Port Royal Speedway.  I made sure to get there early enough for hotlaps because I had been told we could get in the infield to watch.  It was pretty cool to see the sprints fly down the front straight from the infield.  

Once we got up to our seats, the show started big with a makeup feature for the sprints.  Todd Shaffer (88) and Greg Hodnett (22) had a great battle going through the middle stages of the race.  Shaffer worked traffic much better, pinning Hodnett behind slower cars.  On the final lap of the race, a right rear tire blew out on one of the lapped cars as the leaders caught him, sending him hard into the fence with a big tumble.  For some reason the leaders never got the checkered flag.  In the final lap dash it was still Shaffer holding off Hodnett for the win.  

The late model heats were next.  They just could not seem to stop wrecking.  30 cars were on hand for the night, but not all of them made it to feature time.  One driver went hard into the backstretch wall while in a side-by-side battle.  Another wreck sent one late model driver back to the pits with a lot of angry people waiting for him.  The black #17 car I think it was, drove someone all the way down into the turn 1 guardrail.  His victim then bounced back out into traffic and got hit by two more cars.  Needless to say, there were a lot of people not happy with the 17 car.  The sprint heats went off without a hitch.  

Since it was pretty cold, we decided to walk around and went to the infield to watch the street stock (or pro stock, whatever) feature.  Standing at the end of the backstraight makes street stocks look a lot faster!  Not knowing the race order, we noticed the sprints were rolling out for their main next, so we hurried back to our seats at the conclusion of the street stock feature.  In the second sprint car feature, it was still all Todd Shaffer.  He came from 6th to take the lead on a mid-race restart and never looked back.  Hodnett had more of a challenge coming from 12th to the top 4 by race end.  Our final race of the night was the late model feature which we decided to watch from the infield.  It was pretty cool.   I had my eye on the orange #15 car who had to have made the most passes throughout the race.

My first racing trip to Southern/Central PA was pretty cool.  Hopefully I'll get down there again sometime.  I need to go see the WoO or at least the rest of the PA posse race. (Dewease, Rahmer, etc.)

The weekend is almost here!

I'm putting the finishing touches on my car to race in PA this weekend.  Rebuilt diff, rebuilt shocks, rebuilt front end...pretty much a rebuilt car.  Hopefully I can have a good showing.  

I'll be getting up bright and early on Saturday morning, 5:00 actually.  F1 Qualifiying from Malaysia starts at 5:00am, which is a convenient late-morning qualifying session...if you live in Europe!  This whole catering to the European audience thing is getting really annoying and it's only the second race of the season.  Anyway, I won't get to see the final round of that since we'll be hitting the road by 6:00 to start on our nearly 4 hour trip to The Strand R/C Raceway in McAdoo, PA.  The plan is to get a few hours of practice in before heading out to Port Royal to watch the 410 Sprints.  I checked Port Royal Speedway's website and found out they're running two sprint features this Saturday!  Man, I can't wait to see that since I've never seen the 410's before, or any sprint for that matter on that big of a track.  After that, we'll go crash at the hotel back near the r/c track.  Sunday is the big (r/c) race day.

Is it Racing Season Yet?

Well, I gave up pretty quickly last year updating this page.  Hopefully I'll do a better job this time around.  I'm also going to start including stories of my r/c racing travels as well.

2009 is shaping up to be a really promising year for the NYS asphalt racing scene. (unless you like asphalt late models).  Dunn Tire Raceway Park is back with a nearly full schedule of Modified and SST Modified racing.  With a solid schedule in place, there seem to be a lot of racers preparing modifieds and sportsmen for the new season.  There are also a lot of exciting events on the schedule for me this year.  First up will be on Memorial Day weekend with two days of Modified and Winged Supermodified racing.  MSA and RoC will be at Oswego Speedway on Saturday and MSA will be going to DTRP the next day for the first winged supermodified show there since ISMA raced at Lancaster in 2003!  The RoC Tour is back to a NYS tour this season, with some of the always good DTRP, Oswego, and WCIS shows reurning.  On the dirt side of things, my local dirt track is opening back up with a new owner, a new name, and lots of support behind it as the only weekly dirt track in the area.  Arcade International Raceway (formerly Freedom) will probably be my Friday night home this season with the Fastrak crate late models as the flagship division.  They'll also be hosting a super late model special and a 360 sprint special along with making lots of improvements to what was a pretty dumpy facility.  I can't wait for this season to get going!

Racing season is starting early for me this year, this Saturday at Port Royal Speedway in PA.  I'll be seeing 410 sprints for the first time ever and I can't wait!  The real reason we're going down to PA is to race in the PA Short Track Championships at the Strand R/C Raceway in McAdoo, PA.  I'll be running in the stock 13.5 1 cell class, but I might try racing in the faster 21.5 2s class.  We'll see.  Anyway, it should be a really fun weekend!  I can't wait to get a whiff of some methanol...

Top 10 reasons for attending Opening Day at Dunn Tire Raceway Park

Posted by Kenny Troyer on raceny

10. OPENING DAY...... New cars, new paint jobs and seeing old friends. Who's gonna show up? The only chance for the photogs to get the "before" shots........etc.

9. WEATHER.....forecast looks good

8. MODIFIEDS......To me, these low slung 600 Horsepower go-karts provide the best show in all of short track racing. DTRP is about 400 miles closer than All-Star Speedway in NH.........

7. EARLY START......The 2:00 PM start will allow those that don't have too many COORS LIGHT time to get home and watch the race from Darlington. For those that have to work, may I suggest:

a. calling in sick
b. start early, leave early
c. quit

6. VICTORY LANE.....Nothing quite like the satisfaction of being in Victory Lane and ruining Wackoracer's day......lol

5. SUPPORT SHORT TRACK RACING....While I don't believe threats are any way to do business, Ralphie Boy says that if there aren't enough cars he will cut purses or discontinue the oval track portion of LANCASTER SPEEDWAY altogether. I believe a more telling stat will be HIS bottom line. If there are enough fannies in the stands for him to make money, I think the place will stay open.

4. BILL MISLIN.....enough said....lol

3. LORI.......Lori has put a ton of work into this. At one time, it didn't appear that there would be any oval track racing at DTRP this year. Largely due to her efforts, many will have a place to race close to home. I'm sure this was done with little or no compensation for her............THANK YOU LORI OVERDORF

2. KARL HEHR....To me, watching Karl take his first laps in almost 2 years is worth the price of admission alone.

1. THE COMPETITION......Let's start with 5 LANCASTER SPEEDWAY MODIFIED CHAMPIONS: Sergio Fandanzo, Tom McGrath, Billy Putney, defending champ Buck Catalano and the return of Dave Wollaber to modified competition. Add to that former SPENCER modified champ Patsy Catalano and former Lancaster LM champions Karl Hehr and Brett Scherrer. Throw in the defending race winner, Wiiiiiiiillllbuuuuuurrrrr Hebing and you have one he11 of a show. All that and the favorite may be a 17 year old kid by the name of Erick Rudolph. With a couple of appearances already this season, I'm sure this kid will be tough to beat. He may not be racing around here much longer........COMPETITION

Rain and Supers

I had planned on seeing the first BRP Can-Am 360 LM race of the season this past Friday at Black Rock, but it was canceled Friday morning. So, we tried going to the races at Woodhull Saturday. The skies weren't looking great, so that was a bad decision in the first place. We got there, saw the end of 4 cylinder hot laps and the first Modified heat and that was it. (besides packer trucks messing around on the slippery high banks). So Saturday turned out to be a wash too.

I had been watching the weather all week for Sunday at Oswego and it looked like we were good to go. I'm glad we went because it was a nice Sunny day, just really cold with the wind. Hotlaps were eventful to say the least. First was a spin involving A.J. Russel in the Morton 70, Kelly Miller (16), and Otto Sitterly (7). The 7 & 70 had some front end damage, but were able to get them back together in time for the heats. Then came the big one... Craig Rayvals had a stuck throttle down the backstretch and pounded the turn 3 foam, flipping violently on impact. (See photos here). Todd Stowell in the 89 car also had a run-in with the wall. Watching practice, Timmy Jedrzejek (8), Randy Ritskes (32), and Charlie Shultz (7) seemed to be the fastest. When time trials were all said and done, it was Timmy J. on pole with a new track record! DJ Shullick was close behind and had a lap only thousandths off the previous track record as well. The supermodified feature started off looking like it was going to be a great race. Randy Ritskes, Greg Furlong, Timmy J, and Charlie Shultz were all on the move early in the going. Ritskes looked by far to be the fastest car on the track while out front the 19 of Moe Lilje was walking away. Things got wild however about 15 laps in to the 40 lap main when the leaders came up on the drastically slower #21 of Matt Palmer. Ritskes and Furlong split the 21 coming out of turn 4 with Ritskes on the bottom. Just as he got almost by, Ritskes was tagged in the right rear by the slower car turning him violently almost head-on into the outside wall and collecting with him Greg Furlong and Randy Burch (52). The Soule 32 and the Furlong 72 were pretty messed up in the incident and will need substantial repairs to get back racing again. The 52 suffered only minor front end damage. Shortly after the ensuing restart, after a lengthy red flag to clean up the frontstretch, the 19 of Moe Lilje had a catastrophic rear end failure. This handed the lead over to his teammate Shullick in the 49. During the middle portion of the race the 49 got out to a sizeable lead over the rest while Shultz and Jedrzejek fought through traffic to run 3rd and 4th. With 10 to go, the 8 was really reeling in the 49, getting very close to being able to pull off a pass for the win. With 5 to go, he clipped the left rear tire which broke off the right side of the #8's nose wing causing a debris caution. With part of the wing gone, the #8 was too tight to keep pace with the 49. So the final top three went 49, 8, 7. All in all it was a pretty good day at the track for us. I know my friends (who had never seen supermodifieds before) loved it. It was also cool of Charlie Shultz, driver of the May #7, to give my friends an explanation of how the moving wing functions and offer to answer any other questions they may have.

Next up: This Saturday, May 10, is the season opener for the newly renamed Dunn Tire Raceway Park. A decent field of 17-20 modifieds is expected including the returns of Karl Hehr in the 59 and Dave Wollaber in the 5. It's great to see Karl back racing after his terrible accident at Lancaster in '06. I'm also glad to see Dave Wollaber back in a modified. As talented as a driver as he is, I couldn't believe all last year he didn't have a modified ride. This Saturday will also be my first time going to the races and trying out this writing gig. I'm definitely looking forward to that.

I'll be at Lancaster a lot this season...

I'll be going to the races at Dunn Tire Raceway Park for every race this season...for free! Reason? I'll be writing the SST Modified section for the DTRP race program. I'm pretty excited about this. I have always wanted to be involved in racing in some way more than just sitting in the stands and now is my opportunity. If you've read this blog, you've read the extent that I've written about racing, so this opportunity is sure to be a learning experience. Anyway, I can't wait to get out to Lancaster *ahem* Dunn Tire Raceway Park for the season opener on May 10.

DTRP is running a limited oval schedule this year, so I am still going to get to see most of the races that I had already planned to. Here's the rundown of their schedule for 2008:

May 10- Opening Day- Modifieds 50 laps
May 24- Military Night- Late Models plus SST Modifieds 50 laps
May 31- Late Models plus Modifieds 50 laps
June 7- Regular Show
June 21- Late Models plus Modifieds 50 laps
June 28- Golden Anniversary! Streets 50, SST Tour 50, Super Stocks 50, RoC Modified Tour 100
July 5- Late Models plus Modifieds 50 laps
July 19- Regular Show
Aug. 16- Tommy Druar/Tony Jankowiak Memorial 50 & Heroes Homecoming
Aug. 30- Late Models plus SST Modified 50
Sep. 6- Season Finale- Modifieds & Late Models
Sep. 26-28 U.S. Open