Galletta's Karting Club

7/19/2015 – Matt Stevens’ Mastery of the Low Groove Secures 139th career feature win!

SUNDAY, JULY 19th, 2015, OSWEGO, NY – With rain on Friday and not enough drivers on Saturday, we postponed the feature to a hot and sunny Sunday afternoon. Keith Raymond and Brian Galletta had eyes on the prize leading good chunks of the 50-lap feature, but both broke down while leading. Matt Stevens took the lead from there and – as the high groove proved problematic for the 2nd weekend in a row – he used his mastery of the low groove in turn one to secure his 139th Oswego Karting Feature Win (counting  feature wins at Galletta’s and Oswego Kartway combined since 2000 and counting 1990s Klassic wins). All while in his trusty old Galletta’s Greenhouse #3, which he has won a majority of those features in. More details below.

1st Heat

Brian Galletta wins heat 1, but not without Matt testing him at the stripe. Track looked a bit loose, and our early (late afternoon) start led to more track-drying sun than we usually have to deal with.

2nd Heat

Keith Raymond takes the 2nd heat. Again, the loose track and messy turn 1 led to no passing, as both Adam Lytle and Chris Stevens got loose in turn 1 and lost ground on Keith and Melissa.

50-Lap Feature Start

Keith Raymond again dominates the early going in the #88 in search of his 1st feature win. Brian Galletta tried surprising him on a few restarts in the #28, but to no avail. Keith gradually pulled away to a straightaway lead.

Early on, 3rd place Adam Lytle fell victim to the loose and bumpy turn 1 and got sideways in turn 2. He collected 4th place Kevin Galletta’s #54 and 6th place Matt Stevens #3, with 5th place Chris Stevens narrowly avoiding the pileup in the #0. While Adam and Kevin suffered no damage, Matt was forced to one of his mid-race timeouts to repair a bent steering assembly.


As the sun peeked through the clouds, lapped traffic again caused shenanigans as Ray Castaldo took up the track bobbing and weaving in the #1 and forced some evasive maneuvers from everyone on the lead lap! Here Brian Galletta and Chris Stevens barely evade him to keep hold of 2nd and 3rd. Oh that crooked heel, Ray Castaldo! And look at that tricky Matt, hugging the inside of the track!

Shortly after this, Keith Raymond’s sprocket finally bent enough to break. He’s had it with the tease #88, which is a fast kart but has a bad habit of bending sprockets, often while up front.

Brian Galletta was then in control in the #28 looking for his 1st win of 2015 until a most misfortunate thing occurred. A Bonadinator weld on his side bumper broke, and it started to snag the track. Brian at first attempted to break it off, but the bumper holds up the brake assembly, so he was forced to humorously hold the bumper up (inset pics). To no avail… as at this point Matt already worked his way back up through the field, and got Chris Stevens to take the lead as Chris got in a loose patch trying to pass Brian and then passed Brian himself during the incident. The Wrath of the Bonadinator Welds strike again! Odd… it helped Matt again!!! :O

Poor Brian. Even after hopping into his backup, the Bobandinator/Platt-num/Galletta Bros. #42… something else breaks in the front end. If that was me, I’d need a cig too. And I don’t even smoke. 🙁

Due to high and middle grooves in turn 1 completely breaking down to bumps and loose dirt before the mid-way point, Matt (#3) & Chris (#0) battle it out in the low groove for the remainder of the race. Chris kept challenging him on restarts, but Matt kept getting out of the hole quicker in turn 2 to put a few kart lengths padding after a couple of laps en route to his 3rd feature win of 2015 (139th All-Time feature win on the two Oswego area dirt Kart tracks in the 2000’s). We don’t call him master of the low groove for nothing!

10-Lap Powder-Puff Race / Addendum to 50-Lap Feature

After the feature, all-girl action broke out! A 10-lap powder-puff race between Kristina McCann and Brielle Wilkins! And this picture? After around half the race with the #1 in the lead, and another half with the #2 in the lead, and some very wild laps in-between (especially concerning Kristina’s unique track lines), here they are crossing the finish line… in a dead heat! A tie!

NOTE: This year, in order to speed up the races, in addition to regular competitors only having 3 per regular season and 1 per Klassic (plus regular season rollovers) a mid-race repair time-out will also cost -5 points for a regular-season event. Why? Long wait times and late shows are what many ex-GKC racers use as #1 complaint against our races and why they gave up (a second one is because they usually got sick of not being able to beat Matt or Chris or a third is they just flat out ran out of interest and/or money). When each driver usually has at least one kart to hop into as a backup, there usually isn’t a strong reason to delay the show for a repair on most race days. Repairs AT race time instead of racing is the #1 reason for long wait times, long shows. Once the races start, without timeouts and long delays between races, it usually runs quickly and smoothly. Use a backup (still costs -5 points BUT is often faster than a repair).

2015 Gas Flathead National Championship / 2015 Galletta’s Greenhouse Karting Speedway Point Standings

As of completion of 6/7/2015 – 7/19/2015’s race events in the 20th Annual World Championship of Clockwise Gas Stock Flathead Karting:

Position (Prior)	Name (Go-Karts Piloted) ®=Rookie *=Makeup Features T =Timeout k=Mid-race Kart Change (-5pt)	Total Points (Place)	Average Points Per Feature	Features	Feature Wins	Win %	Heats Won/ Enter	Years Pro at Galletta’s	All-Time Track Feature Wins
1st	Chris Stevens (Galletta’s #8, 4, 0, 5) k	1,081.50	135.19	8	3	38%	0/2	20th	74
2nd	Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #33, 3, 74, 1, 2) t	1,015.50	126.94	8	3	38%	0/2	20th	128
3rd ( 4th )	Adam Lytle (Lytle #33c)	919.50	114.94	8	1	13%	0/2	4th	4
4th ( 3rd )	Keith Raymond (Good Guys Barbers. #88, Galletta’s #6)	912.00	114.00	8	0	0%	1/2	2nd	0
5th	Kevin Galletta (Galletta Bros. #28, 54) *	827.00	103.38	8	0	0%	1/2	3rd	2
6th ( 7th )	Melissa Stevens (Scissors ‘n Fur #19)	661.00	82.63	8	0	0%	0/2	8th	7
7th ( 6th )	George Sweeting (Galletta’s #7, Sweeting #81) ® k *	623.50	89.07	7	0	0%	1/2	®	0
8th	Eric Woolworth (Woolworth #78)	487.50	97.50	5	1	20%	0/0	4th	5
9th	Nick Cameron (Galletta Bros. #54, Galletta’s #7) ®**	332.00	83.00	4	0	0%	0/1	®	0
10th	Ray Castaldo (Galletta’s #7, 5, 1)	322.00	80.50	4	0	0%	0/0	®	0
11th ( 12th )	Brian Galletta (Galletta Bros. #42, 28)	297.00	99.00	3	0	0%	0/1	8th	8
13th ( N/A )	Ray Lewis (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9) ®	199.00	99.50	2	0	0%	0/1	®	0
14th ( 11th )	Kevin Finn (Galletta’s #6, 9) ®*	191.00	95.50	2	0	0%	0/1	®	0
15th ( 13th )	Liam Shaughnessy (Galletta’s #1) ®	122.00	122.00	1	0	0%	0/1	®	0
16th ( 14th )	David Demling (Galletta’s #6) ®	115.00	115.00	1	0	0%	1/1	®	0
17th ( 15th )	Branden ‘Tumor’ Matott (Matott #187²)	111.00	111.00	1	0	0%	0/0	2nd	0
18th-tie ( N/A )	Kristina McCann (Galletta’s #2) ®	87.50	87.50	1	0	0%	0/0	®	0
18th-tie ( N/A )	Brielle Wilkins (Galletta’s #1) ®	87.50	87.50	1	0	0%	0/1	®	0

Handicap Starting Order for the next race:

Next race will be Harborfest avoidance extravaganza. When this will be? TBD/TBA.