2001 Season
THE 2001 GALLETTA’S 5-HP BOX STOCK GAS GO-KARTING LEAGUE SEASON
2001 Season videos are digitally transferred and uploaded from VHS and VHS-C to this playlist as we find them. Well, we found some in 2021, so twenty years later this page gets a video update! Here they are! Enjoy!
2001 Opener Video!
2001 Regular Season: In 2001, we raced 22 regular season point events between June 10th & October 13th, 2001. Again, this season was another 100% box-stock gas 5hp flathead Briggs & Stratton motors, as we still hadn’t met local race folk forced us to upgrade our motor rules yet. This season, we started having big track guest-star racers join us and have a ball! We raced with brother Oswego Speedway Limited Supermodified drivers Fran Rowe, Cameron Rowe and Gordon Smallidge, Supermodified driver Randy Ritskes, Street Stock driver Joe Miller, in addition to Supermodified co-owner Eric Syrell, and some of his pit crew members Sean Stevens (no known relation), and (our cousin) Brian Galletta.
Cameron in particular helped our club greatly, as he recommended that Matt create stagger on the karts, which in past seasons, we had absolutely none–all four tires were the same size! This increased the speeds about one second with no motor work or anything!
2001 Time Trials & Klassic B-Main Video!
2001 Klassic 80-Lapper!
Cam, then a rookie in the Limited Supermodified division at Oswego (later renamed Small Block Supermodifieds), ALMOST became the 1st visitor to ever secure a feature win in our mid-1990s-to-2001 history, but broke on the last half lap, so out of compassion, we granted the feature win despite the fact that he led many a lap and was unable to ever get one.
It was later determined that the kart he drove (The Galletta’s #2) was plagued with an undiagnosed hairline fracture of the drive axle. We always wished he would, as over the years many of his friends, pit crew and SBS competitors came out to race and also invited him… but he sadly never returned.
Here are the points standings after the Summer series and going into the ’01 Galletta’s Kart Klassic…
2001 Regular Season Point Standings for the Galletta’s Karting Season Box stock 5hp gas go-kart championship of Oswego, NY
| Rank | Name (Main Kart Piloted; Some more than one) | Total Points (Place) | Average Points Per Event | Events | Feature Wins |
| 1 | “Mighty” Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #3) | 1503.50 | 68.3 | 22 | 11 |
| 2 | Chris “Chrusher” Stevens (Galletta’s #5, 6, 2) | 1455.00 | 66.1 | 22 | 7 |
| 3 | Wes “Ogre” Stevens (Galletta’s #4, 2) | 1160.50 | 52.8 | 22 | 3 |
| 4 | Brian Galletta (Galletta’s #1, 7) | 445.50 | 40.5 | 11 | 0 |
| 5 | Cameron Rowe (Galletta’s #2, 6) | 319.50 | 39.9 | 8 | 1¹ |
| 6 | Sean Stevens (Galletta’s #7, 6) | 219.00 | 36.5 | 6 | 0 |
| 7 | Fran Rowe (Galletta’s #7) | 94.00 | 31.3 | 3 | 0 |
| 8 | Jesse Vivlemore (Galletta’s #6) | 56.00 | 28.0 | 2 | 0 |
| 9 | Gary _________ (Galletta’s #7) | 36.00 | 36.0 | 1 | 0 |
| 10 | Gordon “Gordie” Smallidge (Galletta’s #6) | 29.00 | 29.0 | 1 | 0 |
| 11 | “King Mark” Marc Dumesnil (Galletta’s #6) | 27.50 | 27.5 | 1 | 0 |
| 12 | Eric Syrell (Galletta’s #6) | 23.50 | 23.5 | 1 | 0 |
| 13 | Mike Rowe (Galletta’s #1) | 16.00 | 16.0 | 1 | 0 |
| 14 | Randy Ritskes (Galletta’s #6) | 15.00 | 15.0 | 1 | 0 |
| 15 | Joe Miller (Galletta’s #1) | 15.00 | 15.0 | 1 | 0 |
1¹ = Granted a feature win despite breaking in the lead with 1/2 lap to go.
2001 Galletta’s Go-Kart Klassic
This season saw an 80-Lap, seven kart Klassic race on October 24th, 2001; our latest Galletta’s Klassic in history because it is usually in mid-to-late September annually. Most of the season, Team Rowe (Cameron, Rowe, Fran Rowe, and Gordon Smallidge) filled our ranks in these humble beginnings that we built from scratch. But by the time for our Klassic, we only had 6 entrants: three Syrell team members (Eric Syrell, Sean Stevens, Brian Galletta) and three originators of the club (Chris Stevens, Matt Stevens and Wes Stevens).
Pic of the Syrell Supermodified Team by the excellent Robert Clark Photography. The final 3/5ths of the team in this pic joined us for our 2001 Galletta’s Go-Kart Klassic!
This was the season where three of the five members of the Syrell Supermodified racing team raced with us (as seen in this great pic from Robert Clark Photography, complete with lightning strike over Lake Ontario!).
Chris won the 2001 Galletta’s Klassic & clinched the points standings!
Eric Syrell led a good portion of the Klassic early, but Chris Stevens took the lead on lap 29 and led the remainder of the show by holding off Matt’s repeated attempts to pass him to win his third of three straight Klassics and earned points in the Klassic. He also BARELY passed and clinched his third straight Track Championship that year, in his orange Galletta’s #5 kart. One reason it was held so late is that nobody could make it until October. Galletta’s Karting Club.
2001 Rookie of the Year Cameron Rowe shocked everybody by not showing up for the Galletta’s Klassic, even though he and his brother Fran (also a Limited Super driver) qualified the event before. We were stunned by the no-shows (but… over the years, we kind of got used to it by now). The Syrell team thankfully bailed us out and we were able to have something more than a 3-4 kart Klassic. We also had a bit of a minor internet celebrity with us… ChrisChrusherComix’s friend from the JWFan messsage boards, “King Mark” visited all the way from Montreal, Quebec, Canada and joined us in a race! Now the finalized points standings:
2001 FINAL Point Standings for the Galletta’s Karting Season Box stock 5hp gas go-kart championship of Oswego, NY
| Rank | Name (Main Kart Piloted; Some more than one) | Total Points (Place) | Average Points Per Event | Events | Feature Wins | Classic Win |
| 1 | Chris “Chrusher” Stevens (Galletta’s #5, 6, 2) | 1734.50 | 75.4 | 23 | 8* | 1 |
| 2 | “Mighty” Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #3) | 1721.00 | 74.8 | 23 | 11 | 0 |
| 3 | Wes “Ogre” Stevens (Galletta’s #4, 2) | 1374.50 | 59.8 | 23 | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | Brian Galletta (Galletta’s #1, 7) | 641.50 | 53.5 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Sean Stevens (Galletta’s #7, 6) | 405.00 | 57.9 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| 6 | Cameron Rowe (Galletta’s #2, 6) | 319.50 | 39.9 | 8 | 1¹ | 0 |
| 7 | Eric Syrell (Galletta’s #7, 6) | 218.00 | 109.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 8 | Justin _____? (Galletta’s #?) ** | 162.00 | 162.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | Fran Rowe (Galletta’s #7) | 94.00 | 31.3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | Jesse Vivlemore (Galletta’s #6) | 56.00 | 28.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | Gary ________ (Galletta’s #7) | 36.00 | 36.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 13 | Gordon “Gordie” Smallidge (Galletta’s #6) | 29.00 | 29.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 14 | “King Mark” Marc Dumesnil of JWFan (Galletta’s #6) | 27.50 | 27.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | Mike Rowe (Galletta’s #1) | 16.00 | 16.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 16 | Randy Ritskes (Galletta’s #6) | 15.00 | 15.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 17 | Joe Miller (Galletta’s #1) | 15.00 | 15.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
KEY:
* = Klassic Win!
1¹ = Granted a feature win despite breaking in the lead with 1/2 lap to go.
** = After locating the 2001 Klassic videotape and digitally transferring it for viewing here TWENTY YEARS AFTERWARDS, we realized that a Justin (last name unknown) raced in the Klassic, and it was said that the drivers were noting that he broke a few karts down. In hindsight, we retroactively scored him in last place of the starters in the 80 lapper and placed him in his proper spot both here ad in the All-Time points. We just don’t even remember him, late alone his last name.
Note: We also held a November Fall race that did not count in the points this season. Matt Stevens won it. Technically, if we counted that one for points, Matt may have been able to edge back into the overall points lead. But since I (Chris) am the statistician and I won the Summer + Klassic points, I didn’t count it, haha! However, all joking aside, traditionally we do not count post-Klassic “Fall Exhibition” races in the points standings, so my overall Track Championship is legit.
