1. (#00^^) Mark Miller
2. (#57^^) Mike Billion
3. (#3) Matt Stevens
4. (#24) Gary Miller
5. (#8) Chris Stevens
6. (#5) Rob Jimenez
7. (#4) Ogre Stevens ---1 Lap down---
8. (#61) Dan Woodard
9. (#7) Josh Schute
10. (#0) Jim Losurdo
11. (#2) Fred Collins
12. (#1/#6) Rob Garrison ---DNF--- 13. (#53) Stu Feiske
14. (#14^) John Fellows
^ = 5.5hp motor
^^ = 5.5hp motor & illegal modifications
DNF = Did not finish race
Notes:
The evil Mark Miller (in his #00) won a fast and furious feature event
after he dominated the early portions of the race and then pulled off an
improbable come-from-behind win on the last lap. On the 1st lap, Gary Miller (in his #24)passed four people to
storm off to an early lead. Shortly after,
Matt Stevens(in his Galletta's #3) navigated through traffic
faster than the other high-point racers and battled Gary for the lead early,
but a wet 4th turn saw the #24 get loose, overcorrecting and coming together
with the #3 on lap seven, which gave Mark the lead and Chris Stevens
(in his Galletta's #8)second place. Chrispatiently followed Mark closely early, but also fell victim to the loose
4th turn where Mike Billion
(in his #57) and Wes "The Ogre" (in the Galletta's #4) were
able to stay on the track and pass him in successive laps. Mark and his
teammate Mike pulled away from Ogre and the rest of the competitors to
eventually gain a straight-away lead at times. Ogre held Chris and Matt off
for nineteen laps so they were unable to compete with Mark's #00 and Mike's
#57. With ten laps to go, Mark let Mike by in heavy lapped traffic and
attempted to block anybody in 3rd place for his pal, but Matt ruined Mark's
idea by taking Mark for 2nd on lap thirty-five. The white flag mistakenly
came out on lap 38, which led several of the racers to believe that there
was only one lap to go. On lap 39, which wound up being the checkered flag
lap, Mike's chain blew coming out of the 4th turn but he was able to roll
the #57 to a 2nd place finish, with he and Mark barely blocking off a
hard-charging Matt in the #3. Gary Miller had his best finish ever with
fourth, followed by Chris who was feverishly recovering from a late-race
lapped kart accident with Ogre and "Fast" Freddy Collins. Rob Jimenez (in the Galletta's #5) drove a competitive race for
sixth, and Ogre managed to drop to seventh after being strong early. The
race never had a 40th lap, which may be held the following week.
^^ = After the
event, track officials and competitors have become more alarmed at Mark
allegedly illegally modifying
his 5.5hp OHV engine, and possibly disguising a 6.5hp motor by removing it's
stickers. The 5.5hps were initially
to be allowed only for heavy drivers. However, Mark and his friends bought
them anyway even though they would weigh roughly the same as most of the
competitors if they had lighter go-karts. The extra horsepower enabled the 5.5hp karts to dominate the
early races. Track officials decided to allow 5hp engine heads to be shaved
in order to compete with the extra horsepower in the 5.5hps. This
then temporarily equalized the racing. However, in the last two events, Mark appeared to be much faster, and basically admitted to opening and
modifying their engines which were illegal (but temporarily allowed for
competition purposes) to race with in the first place. The track officials have
now officially declared this illegal due
to; 1) breaking pre-existing rules, 2) Prevention of escalating costs due to
racing parts, and 3) increasingly unfair competition to the vast majority of
the competitors who race 5hp engines free of special racing parts. By a vote of the
majority of the 5hp racers, the drivers accused of using modified 5.5hp
engines have been indefinitely disqualified the from the final points
standing purse awards, and will eventually be forced to either switch over
to 5hp engines by next racing season, or race their own separate class after
the 5hp feature events. The track officials and other drivers want all 5hp
motors, and anybody with one will be allowed to compete. This ruling stands until further notice.
Videotaped race. DVDs are now available for every videotaped event. Please
contact
Chris Stevensvia email.
Discuss this race & more via email at our
new
Galletta's Go-Kart E-mail Group, where you
can email all of the racers, friends, and fans of Galletta's Speedway!
