Miller & Woodward
September 5th, 2005 – The evil super-villain Mark Miller
 (in his #00) [and that is just being humorous, we like Mark and we make funny nicknames amongst our karting friends, understand Mrs. ‘Humorlessly-print-the-website-and-show-it-to-everyone-to-say-we’re-terrible-people’ Seabrook?] 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.

Chris patiently followed Mark closely early, but also fell victim to the loose 4th turn where Mike Billion (in his #57) and Wes “The Ogre” Stevens (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 strategy 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 to date with fourth, followed by Chris who was feverishly recovering from a late-race lapped kart accident with Ogre and“Fast” Freddy CollinsRob 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.

9/5/05 39-Lap results:

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

NOTE: Videotaped race. DVDs are now available for every videotaped event. Please contact Chris Stevens via email. The video to this race is currently missing. If we find it, we’ll upload it to this page. Thank you!

Galletta’s Go-Kart Racing Association 
Galletta’s Speedway 2005 Points Standings
(15 races from 06/05/2005 thru 09/05/2005)

 

Rank

 

Average PointsPerRace

 

Total Points (Place)

 

Races (of 15)

 

Attend%

 

Win Total

 

Win % (of Attended)

 

Laps Led

 

Name & Go-Karts Piloted
* = Championships
^ = 5.5hp handicap engine
^^ = 5.5hp & suspected illegal modifications

 

1

 

122.17

 

1832.5

 

15

 

100%

 

5

 

33%

 

155

 

******Matt Stevens #3, #1

 

2

 

112.47

 

1687.0

 

15

 

100%

 

2

 

13%

 

84

 

***Chris Stevens #8 (^4), #0, #1

 

3

 

108.68

 

1521.5

 

14

 

93%

 

4

 

29%

 

77

 

Mark Miller #00/007^^

 

4

 

108.00

 

1512.0

 

14

 

93%

 

1

 

7%

 

49

 

Mike Billion #57^^

 

5

 

100.35

 

1003.5

 

10

 

67%

 

2

 

20%

 

42

 

Ed Meynes #18

 

6

 

90.93

 

1364.0

 

15

 

100%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Wesley “Ogre” Stevens #4, #5

 

7

 

85.50

 

855.0

 

10

 

67%

 

0

 

0%

 

1

 

Rob Jimenez #5, #0, #7

 

8

 

85.43

 

598.0

 

7

 

47%

 

0

 

0%

 

4

 

Bob Piazza #11

 

9

 

84.93

 

1189.0

 

14

 

93%

 

0

 

0%

 

8

 

“Fast” Freddy Collins #2, #5

 

10

 

84.55

 

930.0

 

11

 

73%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Jason Mills #83b/9, #6, #0, #1

 

11

 

84.36

 

590.5

 

7

 

47%

 

0

 

0%

 

31

 

Shane Miller #32^

 

12

 

82.50

 

660.0

 

8

 

53%

 

1

 

13%

 

71

 

Neil “Win or Bust” Gosch #44^^

 

13

 

82.17

 

739.5

 

9

 

60%

 

0

 

0%

 

49

 

Gary Miller #24, #0

 

14

 

81.20

 

406.0

 

5

 

33%

 

0

 

0%

 

34

 

John Fellows #14b (^3)

 

15

 

75.50

 

604.0

 

8

 

57%

 

0

 

0%

 

1

 

Ken Pitsley #7

 

16

 

75.50

 

302.0

 

4

 

27%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Josh Schute #7, #6, #5

 

17

 

69.75

 

279.0

 

4

 

27%

 

0

 

0%

 

5

 

Barrelin’ Brian Bortel #15, #5

 

18

 

68.00

 

408.0

 

6

 

40%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Kenny Meynes #20

 

19

 

70.00

 

210.0

 

3

 

20%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Jim Losurdo #0

 

20

 

83.00

 

166.0

 

2

 

13%

 

0

 

0%

 

3

 

Kenneth Auyer #1, #0

 

21

 

75.50

 

151.0

 

2

 

13%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Adam Barlow #1

 

22

 

74.75

 

149.5

 

2

 

13%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Tom Murray Jr. #6, #7

 

23

 

65.00

 

130.0

 

2

 

13%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Rob Garrison #1, #6

 

24

 

122.00

 

122.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Brian Osetek #6

 

25

 

56.00

 

112.0

 

2

 

13%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Dan Woodard #61

 

26

 

111.00

 

111.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Shawn McKeown #6

 

27

 

49.00

 

98.0

 

2

 

13%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Stu Feiske #53, #6

 

28

 

83.00

 

83.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

2

 

Jim Pitsley #1

 

29

 

77.00

 

77.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Chris Meynes #14a

 

30

 

77.00

 

77.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Richard “Dickie” Degroff #7, #1

 

31

 

73.00

 

73.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Eric Raponi #83a

 

32

 

73.00

 

73.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Eric Connors #6

 

33

 

73.00

 

73.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Mike Cleary #6

 

34

 

70.00

 

70.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Jerry Martin #6

 

35

 

70.00

 

70.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

David “Living Dead” Philips #1

 

36

 

69.50

 

69.5

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Mike Simoneau #5

 

37

 

65.00

 

65.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

Howard Degroff #6

 

38

 

61.00

 

61.0

 

1

 

7%

 

0

 

0%

 

0

 

William “Wild Bill” Hardy #2

POST RACE NOTES:

^^ = After the event, track officials and competitors have become more alarmed at some competitors seemingly and allegedly illegally modifying their 5.5hp OHV engines, and possibly disguising a 6.5hp motor by removing its stickers, possibly using racing parts, both of which are illegal under Galletta’s “Gas Stock Small Engine” engine rules.. The 5.5hps were initially to be allowed only for heavy drivers, as they were anywhere between 10-40lbs. more than most of the regulars with box stock gas 5hp flatheads. However, a few visitors bought them anyway even though they would weigh roughly the same as most of the competitors if they simply had lighter go-karts. The extra horsepower enabled the 5.5hp karts to dominate the early races, so much so that many believed that they were using MORE than a box stock 5.5hp motor as allowed. Track officials decided to allow 5hp engine heads to be shaved (or milled) in order to compete with the extra horsepower in the 5.5hps, because they clearly had more power and overall speed that needed to be addressed to make the racing even again. This then temporarily equalized the racing (equalized means everyone seemed to be roughly equal in speed, and prior racing experience was making the difference between 1st and last, as it should be in “box stock motor” theory). However, in the last two events, #007 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 stock 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 were 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 OHV 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. We were sorry that this had to happen because we love(d) racing them, but in the spirit of sportsmanship, all motors should have extremely similar, if not identical specs. That’s what auto racing is, and that’s competition. If some drivers are allowed bigger motors, it isn’t really fair to everybody else (which was a majority of drivers, and not a bias against any of the drivers. It is to be fair.).

In the meantime, enjoy surrounding races: