Galletta's Karting Club

6/26/2016 – Week 3 of Galletta’s Backyard Karting Season!

Sunday, June 26th, 2016 – We had an action-packed Twin-30s night that was unfortunately marred by a wreck between the two rookie powder-puff girl warriors coming together and taking a nasty spill in turn one, effectively ending the second race at 18 laps to get them medical attention. We will pass along more info later as we have it (see below).

35-Lap Feature #1 – START:
1. Jason King (King #12J)
2. Josh Arnold (Arnold #93)
3. David Hall Jr. (Hall #29)
4. Mike Patak (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9)
5. Mike Chrisman (Galletta’s Greenhouse #5)
6. Kevin Galletta (Galletta Bros. #28)
7. Adam Lytle (Lytle #33c)
8. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse #33)
9. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse #0)
10. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s Greenhouse #7)
11. ® Kristina McCann (Galletta’s Greenhouse #2)
12. ® Taylor Barlow (Brian Galletta #42)
13. Melissa Stevens (Scissors n’ Fur #19)

THE RETURN OF THE CAMERAWOMAN!!! Thankfully, our heroic camerawoman Rungnapha ‘Aou’ Stevens returned from her month-long visit to her family in Thailand (both of her parents have been very ill and in and out of the hospital, stressing her entire family greatly, but thank God, improved during her stay). As you saw when she wasn’t here, we had volunteers who aren’t used to it and it showed. Without her, the videos, the point scoring, the picture captures, and the entire website suffers. When you see her, thank her for her diligence and talent at this. As the two on-the-spot volunteer cameramen found out in the first two weekends of our 2016 season, it is harder than it looks and she makes it look so good it looks easy. We appreciate the ones who at least tried… Mumble mumble, cough no thanks to Miserly Mel the Miserable, Uncooperative and Demanding Queen of the Galletta’s Forest … cough mumble….

I really don’t need to describe the pictures as much as I have had to in the past seasons because starting this season, we have every video up usually the night after the race. Weeks 1-3 have been up by the following morning. And, as a reminder, I have painstakingly uploaded almost every video we have in our library from 2005-current. That’s every single race we’ve ever run since mid 2005 (and a handful of races before it, such as the 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 Klassics!). There are a few that require editing and are private until done, but nearly every single race in the last 11 seasons is now online and available for viewing! Just browse our website to watch them all!

More big fields and very good racing. With so many 1st year drivers on the track at the same time, we’re having more tangles than usual, but it comes with the territory and will get cleaner and cleaner, and the new guys already show signs of improving week to week. There’s a few tangles here and there, but not too bad and getting better. These guys will start to be scary good in no time flat.

Rookie Mike Patak took a wild ride into the turn 1 tower wall in the Galletta’s #9 during the 1st feature.

35-Lap Feature #1 – FINISH:
1. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse #33)
2. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s Greenhouse #7)
3. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse #0)
4. Jason King (King #12J)
5. Josh Arnold (Arnold #93)
6. Kevin Galletta (Galletta Bros. #28)
7. Mike Patak (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9)
8. Mike Chrisman (Galletta’s Greenhouse #5)
9. ® Kristina McCann (Galletta’s Greenhouse #2)
10. ® Taylor Barlow (Brian Galletta #42)
11. DNF – David Hall Jr. (Hall #29)
12. DNF – Adam Lytle (Lytle #33c)
13. DNF – Melissa Stevens (Scissors n’ Fur #19)

Retcon Makeup Point Race Credits:
14. Keith Raymond (Galletta’s Greenhouse #0) credited via 7/24/2016 Makeup Heat Race

35-Lap Feature #2 – START:
1. ® Kristina McCann (Galletta’s Greenhouse #2)
2. David Hall Jr. (Hall #29)
3. Mike Chrisman (Galletta’s Greenhouse #5)
4. Mike Patak (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9)
5. Kevin Galletta (Galletta Bros. #28)
6. Josh Arnold (Arnold #93)
7. Jason King (King #12J)
8. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse #0)
9. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s Greenhouse #7)
10. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse/Chrusher.com/R&C Sushi #74)
11. ® Taylor Barlow (Brian Galletta #42)
12. DNS – Adam Lytle (Lytle #33c)
13. DNS – Melissa Stevens (Scissors n’ Fur #19)

During the early portion of the race, Kelly Miller joined the Nature Boy Club at Galletta’s. What is that? It’s what you join if you get sent careening into the brush alongside most of the back stretch. Past members include Wes Stevens, Fred Collins, and “DJ” Mike “MC” Howell. There’s been more, but they stand out. As the video shows, the racing was a bit helter skelter, with drivers changing position left and right due to hooking bumpers and rubbing tires. Matt, Chris and Kelly were racing mid-pack until they quickly got into the top three when the leaders got stuck together and slowed in the front stretch.

Well, we may have a candidate for our “Worst Wreck EVAH Taped At Galletta’s” to usurp our most-viewed (and harshly judged) one from 2007. Two rookie powderpuff racers – Kristina McCann and Taylor Barlow, hooked wheels in turn 1. Taylor got airborne and flipped over Kristina and both young ladies hit the ground hard. The worst yet was Taylor’s helmet got landed on by Brian Galletta’s monstrous #42 (re-numbered ?). Luckily, Taylor’s step-dad Jesse Fox is an EMT and was being a volunteer corner man, and 1st on the scene.

This was the 1st one only time in our 21 years of racing that a race had to be stopped due to an accident, but both young ladies were in a good deal of pain and complaining of sore necks and backs. Two ambulances were called in and they were transported to Upstate Medical. Kristina got a badly bruised back (and a possible minor fracture of her leg?), but thankfully is otherwise fine and should recover. Taylor took the worst of it, as her cracked helmet showed. Her mom reported to us, “it is a minor break in in her 4th vertebrae as well as broken and damaged tendons surrounding it. She is ok and will be fine but she is very lucky.”

The race ended at that moment, emergency shorted to 18 laps as as follows.

35-Lap Feature #2 (Shortened to 18 After Accident) FINISH:
1. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse/Chrusher.com/R&C Sushi #74) +39
2. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s Greenhouse #0) +10
3. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s Greenhouse #7) +13
4. Josh Arnold (Arnold #93) +0.5
5. Jason King (King #12J) +6.5
6. Mike Chrisman (Galletta’s Greenhouse #5) +6
7. DNF – ® Kristina McCann (Galletta’s Greenhouse #2) +1.5
8. DNF – ® Taylor Barlow (Brian Galletta #42)
9. DNF – David Hall Jr. (Hall #29) +18
10. DNF – Kevin Galletta (Brian Galletta #28)
11. DNF – Mike Patak (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9) +2
12. DNS – Adam Lytle (Lytle #33c) +6.5
13. DNS – Melissa Stevens (Scissors n’ Fur #19)

Retcon Makeup Point Race Credits:
14. Keith Raymond (Galletta’s Greenhouse #0) credited via 7/24/2016 Makeup Heat Race

2016 World 1-WD Gas Flathead Backyard Karting Championship Point Standings

As of the 6/12/2016 – 6/26/2016 Races:

The Saga of the Camerawoman/Wife War Wages on….
Melissa Stevens was initially disqualified by club co-creator, statistician, webmaster and video producer Chris Stevens for spitefully not helping the club with at least one camera angle on the finish line, or a movable one from the tower for the first two weeks. Usually one of her absolute bare minimal nah… scratch that, non-existent club duties to provide a backup camera if needed, and BOY was it needed as regular camerawoman Rungnapha Aou Stevens was helping her sisters with their ill parents in Thailand for a month. It created a deep hardship on Chris’s complete video library AND stat keeping, and forced Chris to ask painfully ask inexperienced race watchers — not even volunteers, really — who had no experience operating a camera before with… well, mixed results at best (no blame to them, at least they TRIED for the sake of the club, they were just inexperienced at it).

That and some in-family disagreements that boiled over into the karting between the two wives of the club founders Chris and Matt (Melissa won’t like this being aired, as she is so quiet, smiley and polite to people she hardly knows, but if you live around her for a few years…  she slowly reveals that she is a very self-absorbed, jealous, spiteful, prideful, vengeful, and petty person who holds serious grudges over perceived slights that only happened in her mind and everyone else is at a loss of words about. For example, the only thing we can think of is that she currently — despite going to see her not-dying parents who only live around 25-30 minutes away by car on a daily basis and cries when she leaves them all the time — was very judgemental and PISSED that Aou went to see her extremely ill parents when she’s only seen them literally only 4 times in 10 years and they live literally 25-30 hours away via pricey plane rides!!!! That and Chris and Aou are finalizing the purchase and preparation of placing their 1st home on the property, something that she is startlingly and nonsensically petty, vicious, nosy, judgmental, and actually a little vile about. Now, considering how happy we were when they got their 1st home a few years prior, this make ZERO sense to us… unless she is jealous? You got us, because it’s a head scratcher to us as well. This whole debacle with barely usable videos for the 1st 4 weekends of our season is proof of that.)

So, After a day and a night of arguments (including some that boiled into the active karters private messaging — and THEY don’t want to hear it either), an understanding has been reached and apologies have (sort of?) been traded. Melissa’s points were then reinstated. Hopefully, that will be the end of it. (Cough… don’t bet on it tho… just keep reading these pages and I’m sure more shit will go down around Mel and her nosy, judgemental, prideful and backstabber mom like it did many times before….)

NEXT WEEK’S HANDICAP:
Based on inverting via (1) Wins (season), (2) Wins (career) and (3) Average Points-per-race (season). We will alternate Career wins and PPR occasionally to keep the starting lineups fresh and avoid the same starting lineup every week.

POST-RACE NOTES: 

The accident has forced us to reexamine our safety rules and permissions. Firstly, we have always highly recommended every driver to wear as much safety gear as humanly possible. Full-face helmets and full body covering has always been mandatory (although many ignore the full body covering part), but more is being strongly suggested into making mandatory as well. For example, Chris Stevens (your intrepid racing website editor/racer) wears a racing neck donut, gloves (with extra protection on the knuckles), a karting flap jacket (that is heavily padded for the ribs and back), an anti-abrasion karting jacket over that, elbow pads, knee pads, shin guards, and a cup (the cup has been worn since the 1990s, and my daughter thanks me… seems like a few boulders crash downstairs a few times a year). A little stiff to walk in, but much safer. Chris has even taken some ridicule for the armor in the past from some now retired “tough guy” racers calling him “Captain America” (so tough they quit the club because we raced too late!), but has always said he’d rather be safe than sorry, and an accident he had in 2014 proved him right. Two karts collided in front of him, one went airborne and landed on his chest and leg, so while he still suffered sore ribs and a painfully deep nickel-sized puncture wound on his shin (that required antibiotics and a tetanus booster shot, and a week and half off of full-time racing), the safety gear saved him from hospitalization, as he believes that he would have suffered potentially broken ribs and probable serious knee damage. Chris never enters a race without as much gear as he has on hand, and believes all should follow his lead. He is even considering MORE, despite being the most heavily armored driver on the track as is.

While this is the 1st time we’ve had to call in ambulances to the track in twenty one years of points racing (and around five or six years of “non-points/for fun” racing before it), there has not been very many accidents that have required same-night hospitalization (all of whom admitted themselves without requiring an ambulance). Of these, two were men, one was a teenage boy, two were women, another was a teenage girl, and another third woman (another teenage girl) was badly shaken up and broke glasses in addition to the above. Considering that of the hundreds of drivers and thousands of laps raced at our track in the prior two decades, our races consist of 99.9% men racing at full speed, yet an alarmingly high percentage of the worst accidents are young women in relatively much, MUCH fewer laps raced. This creates a problem for us, as we want the girls to race and have fun, but this accident exposed that while anybody can get hurt, the girls are far more susceptible to injury in fewer laps and fewer accidents. The property owner has long and strongly protested that anybody under 17 (unless have prior race experience AND an adult parent/guardian present) should not race and any girls under 130 lbs. should not race either, but we have allowed it – much to her protest. It’s something we must consider, because we never want to see anything even remotely close to this accident ever happen again. Whether the girls have to be a class of smaller, lighter custom karts with stock motors, full kart bodies, seat belts and roll cages or not, it’s something we’ll be discussing in the immediate future.