RICK @ the RACES (19/20/21 Oct 2012)
19 Oct Orange County Fair Speedway, Middletown. NY
20 Oct Orange County Fair Speedway, Middletown, NY
21 Oct Orange County Fair Speedway, Middletown, NY
This past week I made my annual pilgrimage to the Eastern States Week End at the Orange County Fair Speedway , Middletown NY. It’s one of the longest running events in the North Eastern dirt racing calendar and this was it’s 51st year of running.
I first heard about it, back in the late 1970’s when I was still living in England. In those days, there was no such thing as e-mail or ‘Face Book’ and instead, we had ‘pen friends’. I had a few ‘racing pen friends’ in the USA that I exchanged letters with, and one of them lived in Ft Montgomery , close to Middletown NY. His local track was the Orange County Fair Speedway and he told me about the drivers , and sent me copies of the ‘Hard Clay’ (the tracks colourful publication) .
I remember seeing pics of Buzzie Reutiman and a young up and coming Sportsman driver named Brett Hearn. Over the years, the latter has made the track ‘his own’ and since my first visit there back in 2003, he’s been a dominant force.
There are two ways of getting to Middletown NY, from my home in Cornwall, Ontario, and they both take about six hours. You can either go down 187 via Albany or 181 via Binghamton. This time I chose 181 for my Fridays outbound journey, and arrived at the track at 6-45 pm.
It had rained for most of the way down , but had cleared up by the time I got there. The problem was, it had rained quite a lot there too, and on arrival , attempts were being made to dry the track to get things under way. Eventually the Sportsman cars came out to help with the packing, but it was obvious they were fighting a losing battle.
After a while, it was announced that part of Friday nights show would be run on Saturday morning with the Pro Stocks being postponed until Sunday. 
This effected my buddy, Rob Yetman, so he left his car in the pits , locked up in the trailer and returned home to Albany.
On most occasions I’d be really disappointed about a rain out, but not this time. The ‘Eastern States Week End’ is more than just racing, it’s one of the best social events of the year, with the traditional Friday and Saturday night parties at the tracks bar , The 31st Lap.
There were lots of friends in there and the first person I bumped into was Pennsylvania’s former Ms Motorsports, Alyssa Sharman. She was there with the Brett Hearn team reveling in the fun.
A few people including my buddy Jamie Weaknecht, had come dressed as cow for a costume party that they’d arranged.
My New Jersey, Face book friend Loralyn Brinster was dressed up as cop and accompanied by her bunny rabbit friend !
Another good friend I was drinking beer with, was NY media man Mike Mallet. Also mingling with the party goers were some of the DIRTCAR officials and I got a great pic of Jamie with Joe Skotniki !
As usual , it was a great night and at about 2-00 am I crawled back to my luxury hotel ( my Chevy HHR) that I’d parked amongst the other campers. With seats folded down and a big duvet cover, I slept like a log.
Part one of Saturdays show started soon after mid day, and the sun was shining. Just right to take pics from my favourite spot on turn 3. It was good to meet up with my fellow photographers, and I ended up hanging out with my buddy Boris Rudzinski and his girlfriend Laurie.
The big event on the afternoon show was a 50 lap Sportsman event that was won by Brian Krummel.
This was over by about 5-00pm and before the evening show began, I drove into town for supper. After a nice hot roast beef sandwich and veggies I was back at the track around 7-00pm.
The headline event on Saturday night was the 100 lap race for the 358 Mods, which were joined on the program by Sprint Cars and another Sportsman race.
Unfortunately there is a mid night racing curfew , and with things running late, the 100 lapper ended up being about 88 laps when the checkers had to be dropped prematurely . Brett Hearn had led for most of the race, with Tim McCreadie, not appearing to be making gains in second. Once again, just like Syracuse two weeks ago, Brett ‘the Jet’ was in the right place at the right time.
With the program running behind schedule, it meant a later visit to the 31st Lap, for the traditional New Years Eve Party .
Once again I joined the party crowd, and it was 2-30 am before I was snug in the back of the HHR.
In the morning I had my breakfast at the local McDonalds where I was joined by the Yetman team, who’d arrived back in town from Albany. Once back at the track I wandered around the front stretch ‘Pit Party’ that’s put on each year for the fans to meet the drivers. This is always well attended , and gives the regular race fan a chance to get up close to the cars.
There was a lot of racing to get in , with the additional Pro Stock race, along with the programmed Street Stocks and Vintage Cars,
to run before the 200 lap Big Block Mod race. After the preliminary races,
the Pro Stock Feature was first, where Rob, got a start to finish win.
The Street Stocks were next, followed by the Vintage.
By now it was 3-00 pm and the ‘pre race pomp’ of the 200 lapper had not begun. With a six hour drive back to Canada and me having to be at work early the next day, I knew I wasn’t going to see all of the big race.
I made the decision to head for home early and made arrangements with Boris, to get me a Victory Lane shot.
I decided on the 187 route this time and while stopping for cups of tea in Albany at Plattsburgh I found out via Alyssa’s Face Book messages that Brett had done it again. The young Sportsman Champion of 1977 that I heard about all those years ago, had made a clean sweep at this years Eastern States.
By 10-00pm I was back home in Cornwall, and recovering from my crazy weekend, and starting to wonder if I’m getting too old for all this !