Galletta's Karting Club

Oswego Speedway Dirt Track Go-Kart Exhibition:
Friday, August 25th, 2006 (One 10-lap heat & 20-lap Feature)

Mark Miller in the 6.5hp-powered Outlaw #007 (2007 pic for reference)

Mark Miller (6.5hp OHV #00) got the win, but behind him, controversy occurred on and off the track. 

The 1-WD Gas Stocker / Racing Yard Kart division this week was again the biggest at the track, with between 12 to 15 karts large between the Galletta’s-type Flatheads and Outlaw OHVs.

The race more or less was between (Team Outlaw #007 kart driven by) Mark Miller and Ed Maynes (driving a Galletta’s-type Team Maynes kart of his own design). But controversy arose  when — according to several eyewitnesses including a camera woman from the Seabrook Team — Miller and Maynes came together while batting for the lead. Witnesses say that it appeared that Maynes’ kart was intentionally spun out. This caused an off-track argument in both the spectator area AND the pits, with verbal threats of fights, finally leading to track officials being called over to intervene before any actual physical altercations arose. (More below the point standings).

Myself? I — website/video editor Chris Stevens — was about mid-pack in the race and did not get a clear vantage point of the accident, but did see why many spectators (and Ed Maynes himself) had a right to be upset about. Someone did appear to spin him when he was battling for the lead. Who that was? We’d like to see the tape.

Now, while we did not have a camera filming footage for us, so we can’t upload it for all to see (like 99.9% of this website’s coverage has), Team Seabrook — who claimed that someone in the Outlaw team appeared to intentionally wreck Maynes — DID have a camera rolling. However, when asked for a copy of the tape, it was never given to us to add to our massive video library (as seen all over this site). We at Galletta’s love documenting every race our club is in for this website (controversy or not), so if anybody still has a tape of this or any other Galletta’s Karting race on any track, please contact us! We’ll even pay for it, or at the very least give you some free kart rentals on any give race nite! We *love* our race video library.

UPDATE:
Although the Galletta’s Karting Club ran the inaugural 2006 season at Oswego Speedway‘s Dirt Kartway as an exhibition, in order to do the All-Time stats in the 2008-09 off-season, we retro-graded the points. Meaning, we had nobody recording the race, nor scoring where everybody finished, although we do know who entered the race and who won each. So, each driver is scored 60 points for entering a race no matter if they finished 2nd-through-16th, and the Feature winners earned 40 more for the Feature win. Using this method, we are finally able to create the points. So… here is the finalized version of the:

2006 Oswego Kartway Gas Stock/Super Yard Kart Point Standings:
FINALIZED. Each driver earned 60 points-per-event, except for the race winner earning 100 points-per-win. In 2006, we were not only the largest class at the track, but also the only division that counted points. The gas “yard karts” as they mockingly say, are more organized than the methanol “flat-karts”!

Post-Race Notes: 

At the Oswego Speedway‘s dirt track, we give kudos to Mark Miller, who won a hectic race. Although we have had disagreements with Mark in the past over racing different kinds of engines than we do, he is a very passionate, hard-charging and competitive driver, and we always hoped that he would get a stock Briggs 5hp and Matt could help him set it up to race with us. The very same goes to Mike Billion, who is also a good, hard charging driver, as he was unfairly wrecked by a very inconsiderate driver driving an “Open” methanol Raptor flat kart racing class go-kart numbered 21x. The 21x (who we’ve never met and don’t know his name), also appeared to intentionally wreck Mike and several other drivers, damaging more than one kart and severely damaging Brian Bortel’s kart, breaking off the front wheels and bloodying Brian’s shin (and also a nice knot). 

But why do we always have drama when we race at Oswego Kartway? Every race at Galletta’s is fun, calm, cool, and rational, all with gas-stock 5hp motors, single-wheel-drive racing karts, and nobody ever complaining about rules or cheating, usually the only complaints are that we start or get out late (completely agree with that… we do). However, every race at Oswego Kartway has controversial track officials making unfair decisions, mixed motor arguments, and people angry with the officiating and the mixed-motor lawlessness. Which track is supposedly the professional one and which one is supposed to be the not-for-profit backyard one?

Many laid the blame of this completely on not one, but two of the track officials in charge, one of which is a limited supermodified driver who seems to flat out dislike us although we only know him as a limited driver, flagger at the kart track and nothing else, and the other is a man who raced with us at Galletta’s a few times, and clearly plays favorites with his good buddies, admitted to cheating with their OHV engines, and also seems to have a bone to pick with us for reasons completely unknown to us.

These track officials lied to us on more than one occasion and told us that we could run our own class of stock 5hps if we had more than 4 karts (which we have had every single week), then forced us to run in an open class with mixed horsepower OHVs and Raptors (the souped-up racing versions of the stock 5hp Briggs that we all race with) and run away from us and/or ignored us every time we wanted to speak with him about it.

Then, when we arrived, we asked if we were too late to make the show. When we were told that they hadn’t started yet (other than warm-ups), we paid, signed in, and began preparing our karts to race. Without warning, the same track official started the heat race without any warning to us, and threw the green flag even though he saw us there and saw us coming to the track. He later stated that we were late. If we were late, then we were never told this when we arrived, he didn’t tell us when he saw us before the heat, and it certainly didn’t stop him from taking our money (and I, Chris, didn’t even get one lap of racing in, yet I still paid the full fee).

This open class and has caused a lot of problems (Do you force the Stocks to race Limiteds? Or Limiteds race Modifieds? Or ISMA race wingless supers? Then why do you force us to race with different types of karts?) that have made us decide that we won’t race there anymore unless they allowed us to race in our own class, or at least punished drivers that cause accidents. They do neither. We have no problem with the Oswego Speedway itself, as we and our family have been weekly attendees and loved the races there for decades. But we feel like we’ve been lied to and treated unfairly by the dirt track officials, and it is thanks to that we will not race there unless they clarify some things with us. But I fear that Mr. Furlong and Mr. Gioia will not be happy to hear about a few lunatics out there wrecking everybody and hurting people, and they should not tolerate it at all.

Finally… a certain person – who was was running around with printed pages off this site (some from last year) and taking friendly nicknames, race descriptions out of context, and badmouthing us to everybody in sight including total strangers –  should stop it, especially because they are a laughing stock of a bad driver and a mean-spirited gossip. The website is free for all to read, and there is nothing to hide in it. But do not take things out of context, call us cheats, and then try to make us enemies. It’s low, and if you think any of the comments I made are bad, then take them up with me directly, not spread false rumors and take old web pages out of context. We all have funny nicknames, but the funny thing about a nickname is that out of context it seems like a slam.

Nonsense… anybody who knows me knows that although I’m a serious, honest guy, I also like to have fun and joke around with my friends and family – and our karting club and this website is a reflection of that. We are all friends and family racing, we do not cheat, we do not purposefully wreck people, we don’t hate people we race with and want to cutthroat beat them, we only want to race with people who obey our box stock rules, and cheaters can’t race if they can’t be honest about box stock, ok? I have noticed that in doing this website, only a couple of people have had a problem with it – cheaters and people who did not want us to point out something wrong. If that is the case, then I’m glad that this website stands up for truth, clean racing, and rule-abiding racing amongst friends and family. If you want to race for blood and try to cheat, then do not race with us. Thanks. We likely will not run at Oswego Speedway’s dirt track anymore next season unless these problems are cleared up and the track operator assures us that these things will no longer happen. Comments?