Galletta's Karting Club

9/23/2007 – The 12th Annual Galletta’s Go-Karts Klassic 175 200!

The Galletta’s Go-Kart Klassic was held on Sunday, September 23d, 2007! Go-Karters from everywhere were invited to attend, and only the best and least cowardly competed for the stock-part gas flathead 5hp karting championship of the planet. 2 Galletta karts sat un-rented and several others sat in garages unused, an embarrassment of cowardice for all local karters that chose to not attend.

2007 Volume #17 & 18 DVD Set – The Galletta’s Go-Karts Klassic 175 200:
This 2-disc set contains the Galletta’s Go-Kart Klassic Championship (175-lap + 25 caution = 200/20+ Mile race) from September 23rd, 2007! There is no methanol karting race close to this, and if you think you can hang, bring it so we’ll show that you probably can’t. Each disc has a different camera angle of the same race, pre-race commentaries and National Anthems – including Ogre’s! Totals over three hours!

 

Now for the preview of the contents on this three-hour/two-disc set!

Sunday, September 23d, 2007 – Matt & Chris Stevens, Kyle Reuter, Ryan Coleman & 7 more very talented karters showed up to determine the undisputed best karter in Oswego of 2007. How do we have the gall to say that? Name the best, winningest karters in Oswego? Look at the starting grid? Yep, the only ones that didn’t show were the handful of pussies who turned down the invitation to fill the remaining arrive-and-drive karts that were all tested to e the same speed and as many wins as any of the other karts on track And the result? The best battled and we had a fantastic race that everyone who missed out on, just robbed themselves of a great one. After 200 laps, Matt Stevens emerged as the winner, but the otherwise excellent and highly competitive  race was marred by club co-founder, chassis builder and racer Wesley “Ogre” Stevens getting injured on a freak luck spill after entangling tires with a newbie. Get to the race, son.

Matt Stevens, co-founder, co-owner, and head mechanic of all 10 of the feature-winning arrive-and-drive Galletta’s Greenhouse Go-Karts again proved that he is the best karter in the solar system again with his incredible streak of winning championships in every racing field that he competes in! He also shattered the track record for his pole-winning time trial with a 15.82, which is basically an annual occurrence for the Supplement Boy. Scheduled for 200 green flag laps, and after adding the 25 caution laps means we went 200 laps for the 1st time in our history, thus proved we could do it, and plan to do it every year from here on out! And unlike many pay tracks, this kid didn’t do it in a 5-kart/20 lap race against a bunch of nobodies. No way. You name the best karters in the city, and you have most of them in this race, and the ones who aren’t either didn’t know or flat out wussed out and didn’t show. Let us review the race, shall we?

– THE MOST TALENTED STARTING LINEUP OF ANY KARTING TRACK IN OSWEGO – PERIOD! – 

Here was the starting lineup for the 12th Annual Galletta’s Kart Klassic. This may very well be the most talent-filled go-kart race within the city limits of Oswego, NY  in decades, as many accomplished karters and a handful of extremely successful all-time winners with local karting legendary status such as Matt Stevens, Chris Stevens, Kyle Reuter, Ryan Coleman, wily vets of local karting such as Buddy Cottom, Wes “Trogre” Stevens and Michael “mc” Howell joined other up-and-coming drivers such as Russell Hockey, Melissa Gabel, Oscar Berry, and newbie rookie Chad Leroy!  We defy any track in the state to add up that collective experience and wins… Anywhere. We’re waiting, you just can’t do it – it doesn’t matter if you see it and ignore it, or don’t know about it and don’t care… it’s just true.

The starting lineup is determined by time-trials, and here are the times that the starters compiled:

Time Trial Results (Determines Starting Grid)

 The opening laps of our longest race in Galletta’s Karting History!

Early on, Wesley “Ogre” Stevens used his usual strategy of dominating and setting an oddly fast pace early. Kyle Reuter, Mike Howell, and Buddy Cottom didn’t want to let him out of their sites, but meanwhile, Matt and Chris used their usual strategy and faded to the rear, in order to conserve their karts, gas, and the track for the marathon event.

Last race’s winner, Ryan Coleman, had a rough night. He  crashed and flipped a handful of times in the Galletta’s/Kelly Miller #9, which had a spiffy new paint job to match Ryan’s helmet and SBS #29 car.

And here, 1st-time diver Chad Leroy crashed into Buddy Cottom, who were then both clobbered by the aforementioned Ryan Coleman. Ouch.

“Awa! Mary! Awa! It’s Gonna’ Hurt, Tonight!”

On a sour note however, is that early-race dominator Wesley Stevens was injured in an accident shortly before the midway point when his kart flipped after being pinched off of the track by an inexperienced driver’s 1st time on the track – Bad Chad Leroy. Wes was driven to Oswego Hospital where it was discovered that he sustained five broken ribs and a broken shoulder blade, and was transported to Syracuse for hospitalization and overnight observation. Wesley returned home on Monday and will be resting and recuperating for a while.

[Offseason edit: Wes was lamed up and missed over a month of work, but he is feeling much better and probably will be his usual self in no time.]
[Edit 2012: He never slept in his bed again, only on love cushions and couches, and the injury also slowed up his work skills].
Well-wishers can comment on this message board thread here. Ogre thanks you all in his usual way, which is usually grunts and groans. He also said, that his racing career is “Done.”  Ogre recovered completely a month later, except for the time he missed at work, so sales of the ’07 Klassic DVDs will go into the “Ogre’s Lost Wages Recovery Fund!”
[2008 UPDATE: We’d like to thank all 0 people who donated $0.00 to Wesley’s recovery fund – this includes all friends, relatives of Galletta’s Karting Club along with those at the Oswego Kartway who apparently read this page more than we do and donated nothing! Way to go, friends! Wes knows who’s got his back. Oh, too soon?) Back to the action…]

The contest didn’t even begin to warm up until the half-way point and a mid-race refuel (and we could have possibly made 175 laps without a refuel! Ha – Try that methanol karts!). Matt then started turning up the heat on race leaders Kyle Reuter, Chris Stevens, Buddy Cottom, and MC Howell. A small clip of this fantastic battle is found here:

However, the race was virtually sealed when Chris got a little loose and high in-between turns 3 & 4 on a restart, which caused he and Buddy Cottom got together and caused a pileup behind them. Avoiding the wreck was the Galletta’s Silver Bullet #33 of Matthew Stevens, which set the then-7-time Klassic Champion into prime position to win another Galletta’s Klassic and clinch his 9th Galletta’s Track Title! Without Chris there to block him, he makes short work of everybody else one-on-one. Kyle Reuter’s fast Galletta’s Greenhouse #5 broke down, so he hopped into Wes’ also fast, but abandoned Galletta’s Greenhouse #4 to finish the show.

Matt then took care of business from there, pulling away from the rest of the field by half of  track (before a restart that was) and winning the 2007 Galletta’s Karting Championship!

 
Matt has an astounding 50% win percentage in 2007 on both Oswego and Galletta’s Tracks! That means he wins one out of every two races that he entered all season on Oswego Speedway’s dirt track and Galletta’s Back-Yard Speedway. And still, all 12 Galletta’s Klassics and 1 Oswego’s Dirt Yard Kart Klassic have all been swept by the combined Matt, Chris, and Wes Stevens.

The top three! Matt was followed by Mike “MC” Howell in the Galletta’s #0 (with a freshly Matt-Tuned reconditioned used motor off ebay in its first race ever) and Chris “Chrusher” Stevens in the Galletta’s #8. Chris felt he could have had a little something for Matt if his motor’s head wasn’t leaking, but settled for third. Truly a great job by all involved, as only three karts and two drivers didn’t finish the 175 lap race.

Here is the 2007 Galletta’s Kart Klassic final order of finish:

The Galletta’s Klassic is so large that one DVD cannot possibly contain all of it. Filmed on two camera angles on Hi8 and Digital-8, and transferred to high quality DVDs, the entire Klassic is available via a 2-DVD set. Disc one is 1 hour & 26 minutes and contains the entire center angle, videotaped by Gene Galletta. Disc two is 2 hours & 20 minutes and contains the entire Galletta’s Go-Kart Tower angle, commentary by Chris “ChrusherComix” Stevens, videotaped by his wife Rungnapha “Au” Stevens, and with a rousing action-packed score by Chris’ favorite composer, John Williams. Digital pictures of all the drivers and karts in attendance, hysterical pre-race commentaries by Kyle Reuter and MC Howell,  and the National Anthem (including the botched-up one by Ogre Stevens), are all included. Contact Chris to purchase a set today! Now, here are the final 2007 Summer Season:

Galletta’s Go-Kart Club 2007 Point Standings
(for the 2007 Stock/gas 5hp Championship of Oswego County & the Planet)
After 16 events from 6/3/2007 to 9/23/2007:

2007 Volume #17 & 18 DVD Set – The Galletta’s Go-Karts Klassic 175:
This 2-disc set contains the Galletta’s Go-Kart Klassic Championship (175-lap/20-Mile race) fromSeptember 23rd, 2007! Each disc has a different camera angle of the same race, pre-race commentaries and National Anthems – including Ogre’s! Totals over three hours!

 

Don’t miss the next Galletta’s Go-Karts race!
The 2007 Summer Season at Galletta’s Go-Kart Speedway is over after the Klassic annually, which finalizes the Summer Points Standings. Due to Ogre’s injury and the lack of interest by enough drivers, we are unsure if we will have any more races this year at all. However, we may consider a Fall Points Challenge if enough people are interested. To try and schedule a race, either call Matt or Chris and/or post on the message board. I would prefer Saturday afternoon races if at all. Thank you to everybody who has raced this year and a double-thanks for all that plan to continue to race more. Post-race discussion and comments about future races are in this message board thread here.  Next race is here->

 Oswego Speedway 2007 Super-Yard Kart Classic 50:

On August 30th, 2007, Chris “ChrusherComix” Stevens won the 15-kart Oswego Speedway Classic Weekend’s Dirt Super Yard Kart Classic 50, his 1st Feature at Oswego since 2006, and his 3rd overall feature of 2007 in his Galletta’s #8. His father Wesley Ogre Stevens took 2nd in the Galletta’s #4, and his brother and mechanic Matt Stevens got 3rd in his Galletta’s #33.  More->

The Galletta’s Go-Kart Speedway from outer space sometime in Spring 2006! Thanks to Google Earth!