BIG DIAMOND REVISITED (8th April 2025 BLOG)

The Last Blog ended on the 31st of March at my daughters place in Willow Springs, North Carolina. The previous night I’d been in New Jersey at the New Egypt Speedway attending the Super DirtCar Series.

I would be down in NC for a few days of family time and relaxing.

I was also hoping to do some web site maintenance. I’m not very good when it comes to fixing things on here and needed help from Carla. Last year when the site crashed, it left most of the BLOGS (Reports) all messed up , with the script and images all over the place.

She showed me the process of getting them back to how they should be. It’s a time consuming task that takes many hours to do. I’m in the middle of doing them right now, and hope to have them all done before the next BLOG. There are over 800 that need repairing , as I work back through several years.

In between doing this, I was spending time with the family . On Tuesday night, my grand daughter Sophia had her girls soccer team practice in Fuquay Varina.

She’s the Goal Keeper . (BTW) , That’s football to the rest of the world, oh , I do hate calling it soccer LOL

Another thing I like to do when away from home is to scout around the antique stores , thrift shops and flea markets searching for diecast cars. One town I hadn’t explored was Benson, which is beside I 95.

It’s about a half hour drive from Carla’s , so on Wednesday , I went for a joy ride. After looking around town I went into a gas station to fill up . I was wearing an Airborne Park Speedway shirt, and the cashier must have noticed it.

He struck up a conversation and asked if I was here for the Drag Racing ? No I said , why ?

He then went on to tell me , there was a big event taking place, just down the road at the local Drag Strip and race teams were there already. Obviously I was interested. He gave me directions to the Galot Motorsports Park that is located a couple of miles away , and just outside the town.

It was easy to find and as I pulled up at the pit gate , an amiable guy (obviously in authority) came over on a golf kart. I explained I was out for a joy ride and just being ‘nosey’. He said it was practice day and I was free to come in. He opened the pit gate and said I could park there. What nice guy ! I think he may have been the owner ?

As I arrived the cars were lining up to start doing there runs. I stayed and took pictures for about 45 minutes.

Click Here I made this short video clip too.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen drag racing. These days , it’s not really my ‘cuppa tea’ and find it a bit boring after watching oval racing.

Let me digress. When I was a school kid living in England back in the 1960’s , it was the cool thing for car crazy young boys like me to be attracted to it. The sport had just arrived in the country and the first permanent drag strip opened near to where I lived. The Santa Pod Raceway at Poddington, in Bedfordshire.

Photographer Unknown

Like I said it was the ‘in thing’ at the time and when I was about 14 years old, I became involved , helping out (or getting in the way ) of one of our local teams. The Liquidator, an Altered Class dragster, was based in Dunstable , Bedfordshire and I would go along each Monday night to watch the work in progress.

Once , I’d got a few pictures at the Galot Motorsports Park , I headed back to Willow Springs.

On Friday morning, I said my goodbyes to the family and began the journey back home.

I wasn’t heading straight back to Canada, I was stopping over in Pennsylvania that night . The Big Diamond Speedway near Pottsville was having their season opener , and I would be passing the Pottsville exit of I81 on my way.

The ‘Thaw Brawl’ looked like a good one.

It’s a track I’ve only been to twice before.

My first time visit, was 22 years ago, in 2003 for a Super Dirt Series, where Alan Johnson was the winner.

There were plenty of big names there that day.

My second visit was in 2013, when Jeff Strunk was in Victory Lane .

I left Carla’s place at 8-00 am and by 4-00 pm I was checking into the Econo Lodge in Frackville. It’s only about a 20 minute drive to the track , so, it wasnt long after that , I was pulling into the parking lot. I was there 15 minutes before the pit gates opened at 5-00 pm.

I soon met up with my ‘tog’ friends Joe Kaminski Jr, Jim Young , Bobby Armbruster and Walt Smith.

There was good turnout of Modifieds , that were joined by Sportsman , Limited Sportsman and Road Runners (Street Stocks)

I stationed myself on turn one and two , and didn’t venture too far from there.

On my first visit to the track 22 years ago I saw Billy Pouch 114 in action, this time I saw his son Billy Pouch Jr # 14.

Jeff Strunk was also in attendance who won the feature in the #4 on my second visit back in 2013. This time he was driving the # 357 car.

The first feature was a 20 lapper for Road Runners, which took longer to complete than I’d hoped for. 15 Laps would of been a lot better in my opinion.

The weather radar showed that rain was on the way as the 25 lap main event for Modifieds took to the track .

It was Mike Mahaney in the # 35 who dominated, up until lap 16, when he came to a halt with motor problems.

Mike Gular # 53 who’d been chasing a few car lengths behind , inherited the lead without having too much attention from those following.

For the last few laps there’d been a few spots of rain , and as Gular took the checkers it began to come down heavier. Ryan Krachun # 16 and Duane Howard # 15G followed him across the line .

Victory Lane presentations were shelved as the Sportsman lined up to come out for their feature. This was all to no avail . it was now after 10-30pm and as the rain got more intense the night came to an early end.

I was then on my way back to the nearby Econo Lodge.

I left Frackville Pa. at 6-30 am on Saturday morning and by lunchtime I was back in Cornwall Ontario.

I was in good time to relax at home behind the TV , watching the Ottawa Senators V Florida Panthers matinee game. The Sens got the win, which helped in their chase for the ‘wild card’ spot for the Stanley Cup play offs .

They had another game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday night and they won that too.

Their next game, two days later (Tuesday 8th April) also happened to be against Columbus, but this time away from home. They lost this one miserably.

They say that every cloud has a silver lining, and this was the case.

While they were losing in Columbus, play off rivals Montreal and Detroit were playing and the win by neighboring Montreal was enough to clinch a Stanley Cup Play off spot for Ottawa. The last time my ‘Sens’ got to the playoffs was in 2017, so this long time fan is super excited.