OSWEGO, N.Y. — While the track crew worked full tilt with a pair of rollers and other track prep equipment in an effort to restore Saturday night’s bomb field of a racing surface to respectability, Sunday’s driver’s meeting for the big block Billy Whittaker Cars 200 was unusually combative.
Issues ranged from length of caution periods where the lap counter is frozen for four laps to how many points the race should award as many expected a large amount of attrition during Sunday’s race should the track be as treacherous as it was on Saturday.
Underlying everything was dissatisfaction with the racing surface that peeled up areas the size of a dining room table entering the turns, combined with ruts and holes in the turns. In many places, the temporary dirt track was worn down to the asphalt. Suspensions, tires and drivelines took a major beating during Saturday’s small-block feature.
• There was a noticeable lack of Canadians during Super DIRT Week. Some racers such as Mat Williamson proved that they race for a living and are allowed across the border without major complications. However, the usual hordes of campers, fans and small-block modified and Pro Stock teams from Canada were notably absent.
• How treacherous was the five-eighths-mile track on Saturday night?
The opening event, delayed for hours as the track crew toiled, saw the first two Sportsman Last Chance races take over an hour to run 15 laps each. By the end, the holes mended in the surface had begun to be a factor and would progressively worsen.
While many fans and other observers blamed the track crew, those in the know, laid the problems to the weather. Weeks of rainy weather led to wet clay going down over the asphalt and it never mended into the smooth, shiny black surface seen in recent runnings of Super DIRT Week.
• The field of Pro Stocks numbered only 31. That meant no last chance race and everyone making the show, a plus for a racing surface needing less, not more, laps on it.
• Some Oswego residents don’t like DIRT Week, as they have to endure a lot of noise, which they also have during the Oswego Classic, which is run on Labor Day weekend. With Super DIRT Week, residents also have to deal with dirt in the air in the neighborhood near the track.
But on the other side of the coin, area merchants love the racers and fans who buy everything from beer to groceries to gas.
We even had the pleasure of meeting the owner of an Irish pub, who was moving his establishment to a building next door and gave us free Guinness as he discussed the economic impact of racing on the community.
For sure, the town has changed a great deal since our college days there more than a half century ago. In those days, we always had to pay!
• Nine former winners of the big-block 200 grace Sunday’s Billy Whittaker 200 field, with Jimmy Horton having the longest tenure. Notably absent from Saturday’s small-block classic was former winner Matt Sheppard, who along with Mike Mahaney and Max McLaughlin, bailed out of Oswego for the Short Track SuperNationals at Afton (N.Y.) Motorsports Park.
McLaughlin had a great night, winning the high-dollar event in a Pennsylvania based car as his season of musical cars continues, while Sheppard prevailed in the match races for an extra pay day.