Galletta's Karting Club

OCTOBER 2014… TWENTY-THREE KARTS, ALL TIMING WITHIN 0.66 SECONDS OF EACH OTHER ARE AVAILABLE FOR THE 19TH RUNNING OF THE KLASSIC 200. MOST ARE UNFILLED. WHY DON’T YOU BECOME THE NEXT GALLETTA’S KARTING CLUB DRIVER AND TRY TO BECOME THE NEXT GALLETTA’S KLASSIC CHAMPION?

10/9/2014 – 19th Annual Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Klassic 200 is this Saturday! – 23 Karts Available. All time trialed less than 1 second apart. Drivers needed! – 

23 Karts are on site and available to be raced all June through Summer. Our 200-Lapper awaits… do you have what it takes to become champion of the most difficult marathon karting race in Oswego County? Bring it.

THURSDAY, October 9th, 2014, OSWEGO, NY –  For 19 years, late September through early August has been the date of the largest Karting event in Oswego. And it has never had anything to do with a pay track and its big price tags, and seemingly never-ending age, weight and engine divisions. Hell, no. Yes, the Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Klassic 200-Lap Point Season Finale – the premiere, original, longest-running, biggest, longest, most uncut-est and most prestigious single karting race in Oswego, NY – is this Saturday (barring excessive rain, rain date will likely be the following Saturday, 10/18) at 3pm (time trials at 2pm). There are 23 feature-winning/race-ready go-karts available to be raced at Galletta’s Greenhouse Backyard Karting Speedway. The most ever filled were 18 (and not since 2005!), and most races in the last seven years have been ten or less. This year in particular, we’ve only been filling six to eight. I thought Oswego was a racer city? A speedway and a few kart tracks. The local pay track fills up with 100 people who pay a lot of money to get a fleeting few minutes on a small track. Here, we race for an hour or two on a track twice as big. So… where are they? Snobs? Afraid? Don’t know about us? Someone talked trash about our club and they believed it? Beats us… we just want to race, and pit our races and the closeness of the karts against any other race division’s. The only thing we need is simply drivers on race day. Any karter with bawls shows up. Anybody who wants to ace in an equalized format will want to race with us. The ones who don’t… sorry. More details will be posted later this week. DRIVERS WITH BALLS SHOW UP AT GALLETTA’S ON 10/10/2014. Those who don’t? Well. We know. We know. Swollen baboon asses. Meanwhile, read about our KLASSIC HISTORY!

Every year, a few days before Klassic, Galletta’s Karting Club co-founder, Multi-Time Oswego Champion Karter, and head mechanic Matt Stevens works like a mad scientist on the fleet of karts at Galletta’s Greenhouse Backyard Speedway. Some are owned by visiting drivers, but ALL are maintained by Matt, and there isn’t anybody on the planet who could do better. You’re welcome to try, and many have, but the fact of the matter is, if you want to win, have Matt give your kart the once over. He is most proud – not when his own kart that he plans to drive is fastest, but rather when ALL of the karts are extremely close, and takes great joy in being able to hop in any of these karts and beat mostly everybody in any of them. Proud he was today… almost all of the karts were within a half second of each other, which is exceedingly hard to do in any motorsport – also consider that in a dirt track, conditions change, so the times would likely be even closer on asphalt. Here were the fast times for each.

10/9/2014 – Master Matt Stevens’ Annual Pre-Klassic Thursday Night Time Trial Session

10/11/2014 – 19th Annual Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Klassic 200 IS HERE!

SATURDAY, October 11th, 2014, OSWEGO, NY – The beginning of the 19th Annual Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Klassic 200!!!

But… let’s rewind a bit… it was a long and sad story to go from Matt’s Time Trial session to only 6 karts on track for our 19h Annual Klassic Championship.

19th Annual Pre-Klassic Cookout! … and… where is everybody?!

1 pm came. Grills are ready. No visiting drivers.

2 pm came. Track is ready. One visiting driver.

3 pm came. Two visiting drivers.

4 pm. Enough waiting. Cookout happens.

5 pm came. Three visiting drivers.

6 pm. Fvck it. We have waited long enough.

So, track is ready to race at 2 pm and only a couple of people show. Fine. If Oswego NY is filled with swollen baboon ass karters that are too cowardly to race, then so be it. It’s also filled with boys and men who race in the missionary position, pay dearly to do it, and pretend to be the best with their 5 minute express bullshit herd-on/herd/off kiddie track. Been there. Won that.

Our club, which from 2004-2010, was filled with anywhere between 10-16 karts per night (and that’s one class, I could care less for a dozen classes with 3-8 karts per, big whoop), and over two-hundred and sixty people overall. Now, we only have 4-8. To us, that means that despite all the effort to provide local drivers a chance to race against top-notch talent (and Matt and Chris are the best karters in Oswego, if you doubt it, come race them so they can prove it. Thank you) on a big and fast track, our club has been largely abandoned.

So. You know what? Fvck all of them. We’ll race our Klassic 200 season finale all by ourselves if we have to. And start again next season.

19th ANNUAL TIME TRIALS

To fill the field, Wesley “Ogre” Stevens, who last raced at Galletta’s in the 2007 Galletta’s Klassic 200 and who last raced any kart at all in the 2008 Oswego Kartway Gas Flathead Classic 50, come out of retirement. Chris Stevens gave up his backup (Wes’ former kart, the Galletta’s Greenhouse #4) for his dad, and then selected the Galletta’s Greenhouse #0 as his backup. Brian Galletta, who is on the physically-unable-to-perform list (dialysis side effects) agreed to start the race for points and be the starter/flagger/lap-counter in Wes’ place.

Time Trials Playlist

THE STARTING GRID

At least 6 guys and 1 girl tried. The rest? SMH.

* = Due to not enough drivers, did not even need to time to qualify for a starting spot, just own a kart and start the race. 16 unused karts, most of which have won feature events within the last 365 days AND time-trialed within a split second of each other. 9 guaranteed starter drivers did not show – including top-5 points runners like Keith Raymond and feature winners Kelly Miller, Kyle Reuter, Eric Woolworth, and Randy Platt. And someone who we even BUILT a kart for in time for Klassic. Not to mention the hundreds more who  quit after years of fun. Wow. Just… wow guys… how low do you think of us? It’s a serious slap to our faces. On to the race. Enough dwelling on quitters and people who disrespect us so much that they couldn’t even tell us why they couldn’t make it or check to see if we could reschedule. Thanks.

THE 200 BEGINS

…insane to think of 23 race-ready, feature-winning karts and only 7 drivers. What is up, people?

Opening lap… often one of the most interesting of the race as we see how the field lines up, and that, in turn, makes the strategy more apparent. Matt took the early lead and Chris followed him in 2nd.

Except before lap 1 was completed, the Galletta’s Greenhouse/Chrusher.com/R&C Sushi #8’s rear end gave out. Ogre gave him a tap and an axle or something gave way. Chris was flustered, as he felt the #8 could’ve taken it, as it did a few prior years. Regardless, he had to hop into his backup (since he let his dad re-take the #4), the Galletta’s Greenhouse #0, which is always a maneuverable kart and won Matt’s Thursday Night time trial session. If you’re going to try and beat Matt, you better have a fast kart, and the #0 fits the bill. Not that anyone else in the area had the balls to show up and try to do it.

After Matt Stevens took his obligatory two laps in the lead, he lets people by to save his kart for the marathon event. Most of the early race was Adam Lytle leading laps 3 through 11, then Kevin Galletta passing him and maintaining a fast pace between laps 12 through 97. Kevin pulled a half track lead at one point, but when he wasn’t, was being challenged by Adam, Wes Stevens, and Chris Stevens on and off in this portion of the race.

From lap 100 through 200, this was the race. We knew, with so few drivers showing up, that eventually these two would battle. And battle they did. Chris hounded Matt for 100 straight laps, but between these two, usually the one who gets into the lead first wins, and Matt was able to sneak into the lead on lap 98, passing Chris on a failed pass attempt on Kevin and then succeeded where Chris failed. Kevin retired on lap 110 due to both fatigue and work schedule creeping up on him. “It felt like I got into a fistfight with a brick wall!” Kevin exclaimed the next day. The 200 lap marathon is not an easy task, and every driver will be sore for at least a day, if not half the week. This isn’t missionary position kart racing, boys and girls. This is grown man karting.

The sixth and final caution of the night came on lap 121, where a tie rod come loose on the #0 in turn 2. After a quick repair timeout (Chris saved his all year just for this purpose), Adam Lytle (who was – as seen in pic – staying close to Matt and Chris and would’ve inherited 2nd) retired due to fatigue. This left the brothers to duke it out for the final 79 laps until the end. And that would be CONSECUTIVE laps.

After 79 consecutive green flag laps – and this isn’t a teeny-weenie track with 8 second laps, those 79 laps clocking between 15-16 seconds each took 22 minutes of continuous green flag racing to complete, a winner was found. It was close, but this was lap 200. Matt Stevens wins his 1st Klassic since 2009, and his first Klassic won in the Galletta’s Greenhouse #3 since 2005 (his #33 was built in 2006 and he had started all but 1 Klassic in the #33 since it was built – even though he and the #3 had won seven out of the first ten Klassics!). Matt beat his brother to the stripe by around 8-10 kart lengths – and after 79 consecutive laps, that is amazingly close. And there is not another driver in NY State that could’ve finished closer than that after that many laps in a row with Matt in front. If you think not, bring your swollen baboon ass up and try. Most would get lapped. In fact, only four local pay kartway veteran drivers have even completed the 200 laps – and two of them are in that picture, and the other two retired from the pay kartway. And no active local pay kartway driver has ever completed our 200 lapper (well, at least on the lead lap). It’s a different breed. Only the very best can do both. Period.

10/11/2014 – 19th Annual Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Klassic 200 won by Matt Stevens; Clinches Track Title & Overall best karter in Oswego, NY. Again.

SATURDAY, October 11th, 2014, OSWEGO, NY –  200 laps.  Only 6 cautions. No fuel refills. And 79 consecutive green flag laps to the finish. Matt Stevens again proved why he is the best karter in Oswego County for 19 years now. He not only prepared 23 on-site karts and made them all within 0.66 seconds of each other (we defy anybody on the planet to do that in any motorsport race anywhere at any time!), but he time trialed on the pole for the 19th running of the area’s largest, longest-running, and hardest to win kart race, took it easy for a bit and then dominated the 2nd half of clinched what he already led almost all season – the Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Speedway Track championship. Can’t buy it. You have to earn it. There are only five drivers in the world that have won a Galletta’s Klassic, and only 2 drivers in the world that have won Galletta’s Track Championships (see above) and Matt has won more of them than everybody else combined. Sadly, the only downfall was the club has lost drivers. 23 karts were race-ready at 2pm. We waited. And waited. And waited. We settled for 7 drivers, including the un-retirement of former 2006 Klassic Champ Wes “Ogre” Stevens! But still… only 7?! From 2004-2009, the track was filled with 10-15 drivers on track a week, by far the largest karting class in Oswego, NY. Now, we are averaging 4-10. Now, while that is still above average for a karting class, but we don’t limit by weight, age, and karts on track – if 23 people showed up, we could have a 23 kart race. For our 20th anniversary of point racing at Galletta’s, which resumed next Spring 2015, more drivers are badly needed. See you next year at Galletta’s, but stay tuned for finalized point standings forthcoming. God bless!

2014 | 200 LAPPER – FINAL ORDER OF FINISH:

SCORING NOTES:

• 200-lap point earning chart in effect.
• Only green flag laps counted as a lap (200 green, 7 additional caution laps were counted for bonus points = 207 laps total).
• Green flag laps counted for bonus points (Standard Galletta’s bonus points: 1st place = 1.0 pt. each; 2nd/3rd place = 0.5 pt. each).
• Yellow flag laps in top 3 counted as 0.5 points each. Must be on track to be scored for completed lap bonus points.
• No bonus for not refueling this year, as not one driver refueled. Yes, you read that right methanol karts… 200 laps (207 counting cautions) on ONE stock gas tank. NO REFUEL. Eat that, b!tc#e$.
• Time trials counted and scored as a heat race. Must have timed a kart to earn those points.

Now to the 19th Annual Season Gas Flathead Karting World Championship at Galletta’s Greenhouse Backyard Speedway Points and the races that built the final tally of the 19th Point Season at Galletta’s Greenhouse Backyard Karting Speedway!

The result…

2014 Gas Flathead National Championship &
2014 Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Speedway Point Standings

[After final 2014 event at Galletta’s – the 19th Annual Klassic on 10/11/2014.]

Position (Last week)	Name (Go-Karts Piloted) [Hyperlinked Borders have Driver Profile] ®=Rookie *=Makeup T =Timeout BOLD = Raced in Big Points Klassic 200	Total Points (Place)	Average Points Per Feature	Features	Feature Wins	Win %	Heats Won/ Entered	Years Pro at Galletta’s	All-Time Feature Wins
1st	Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #3, 74, 33, 6, 5, 2, 1, 43) 2014 Overall World / Oswego Gas Flathead Karting Track Champion	2,448.50	163.23	15	5	33%	1/7	19th	125
2nd	Chris Stevens (Galletta’s #8, 4, 0, 5) *	2,332.00	155.47	15	1	7%	1/7	19th	71
3rd (4th)	Adam Lytle (Lytle #33c’ Galletta’s #9) 2014 Galletta’s Visiting Driver Track Championship	1,991.00	132.73	15	2	13%	1/8	3rd	3
4th (3rd)	Melissa Stevens (Scissors ‘n Fur #19, 80)	1,914.00	127.60	15	0	0%	3/7	8th	7
5th (8th)	Kevin Galletta (Plattnum-Galletta #28) *	1,524.00	152.40	10	1	10%	1/5	2nd	2
6th (7th)	Brian Galletta (Plattnum-Galletta #42, 28, 54) *	1,445.50	144.55	10	1	10%	1/6	8th	7
7th (5th)	Keith Raymond (Raymond #88, Galletta’s #1, 6) ® **	1,322.00	94.43	14	0	0%	2/7	®	0
8th (6th)	Kelly Miller (Galletta’s #7, 9, 5)	1,198.50	108.95	11	1	9%	0/5	7th	3
9th	Eric Woolworth (The Raven #88, #78/02)	680.50	113.42	6	2	33%	0/3	3rd	4
10th (Last)	Wesley Stevens (Galletta’s #4)	487.00	487.00	1	0	0%	0/1	12th	20
11th (10th)	David Turner (Plattnum-Turner #43, Galletta’s #9) ® *	478.50	95.70	5	0	0%	1/2	®	0
12th (11th)	Jon Raymond (Galletta’s #9, 6, 1, 0) ®	251.00	125.50	2	0	0%	0/3	®	0
13th (12th )	Branden ‘Tumor’ Matott (Galletta’s/Matott #1872 , Galletta’s #1)	214.00	107.00	2	0	0%	0/0	2nd	1
14th (13th)	Kyle Reuter (Galletta’s #5)	170.50	170.50	1	1	100%	0/0	6th	5
15th (14th)	Alex Bennett (Galletta’s #9, 2) ® (*$)	159.00	79.50	2	0	0%	0/0	®	0
16th (15th)	Randy Platt (Galletta’s #5)	152.50	152.50	1	1	100%	0/0	5th	7
17th (16th)	Clifford Crowe (Galletta’s #1) ® (*$)	143.00	71.50	2	0	0%	0/0	®	0
18th (17th)	Chris Larkin (Galletta’s #9) ®	141.00	141.00	1	0	0%	0/2	®	0
19th (18th)	Chad Combs (Galletta’s #9, 2) ® (*$)	132.00	132.00	1	0	0%	0/2	®	0
20th (19th)	Mike Harrington (Galletta’s #1) ®	132.00	132.00	1	0	0%	0/2	®	0
21st (20th)	Eddie Bristol (Galletta’s #42) ®	128.00	128.00	1	0	0%	1/2	®	0
22nd (21st)	Grover Sixberry Jr. (Galletta’s #2) ® *	120.00	60.00	2	0	0%	0/1	®	0
23rd (22nd)	Matthew Daniels (Galletta’s #1) ® (*$)	91.00	91.00	1	0	0%	0/1	®	0
24th (23rd)	Ray Castaldo (Galletta #54)	88.00	88.00	1	0	0%	0/0	®	0
25th (24th)	Lilybeth Stevens (Tootles) ®	83.00	83.00	1	0	0%	0/0	®	0
26th (25th)	Unknown Rookie N00b from 8/10/2014 (Galletta’s #1) ®	61.00	61.00	1	0	0%	0/1	®	0