6/14/2020 – 25th Annual Season Opener: 14 Karts, 45-Laps, Chris & Matt Stevens Survive to Take the Wins! (AKA, “Did We Hit a Bunny!?” Race)

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20200615_002228_25th-Openergallettas-2020-06-14-helmet-start-1Sunday, June 14th, 2020 – Our 25th Point racing season began but far from smoothly! Everything got started late and finished late. And during our twin feature races — particularly the 2nd feature race — the track started eroding and taking its toll on the karts, thus more and more started dropping out due to breakage, and even a couple of flips. Add to that, our camerawoman had to retire to put the kids to bed before the start of the 2nd as well.  So… Just… everything piled on. So much so that we decided to take the next weekend off to catch up (and the following one as well).

gallettas-2020-06-14-helmet-start-2gallettas-2020-06-14-tower-startAs for the races themselves, we instituted a dual-file start for the 1st time outside of our Klassic 200-Lappers! We figure it will shake things up a bit, as passing is at a premium due to most of the karts and drivers being very close.

Even the website coverage is behind due to the late night and errands I had to run today, myself! I usually get a victory pic and videos up. But do not despair… I’m working on them. Come back soon to see!


COVID-19 & Social Distancing:
Considering that most of the time, we only have 3-13 weekly racers and 0-5 spectators (and have never had more than 17 or 18 racers in a single race in our 25+ year history despite having around 20 arrive-and-drive karts on hand), we do not anticipate COVID-19 shutdown, and will practice social distancing. Wear a mask if need be, but during the race, we’ll all be wearing our full-face shield helmets and racing in the dust and fumes, so good luck with the virus getting through all that. Spectators may only be allowed if can wear masks and keep social distance. Thanks!

FEATURE #1 START (25 Laps)

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As for the races themselves, we instituted a dual-file start for the 1st time outside of our Klassic 200-Lappers! We figure it will shake things up a bit, as passing is at a premium due to most of the karts and drivers being very close. Restarts will remain single file… bit now the restarts have started to become a point of contention for the drivers as well.

6/14/2020 25-LAP FEATURE #1 START:

  1. Andrew Hook (Galletta’s #0)
  2. Dennis Richmond (Galletta’s #6)
  3. Steve Perez (Galletta’s #7)
  4. Travis Bartlett (Galletta’s #5)
  5. Greg Blanchard (Galletta’s #33c)
  6. Nicolas Olivares (Galletta’s #1)
  7. Zachary Blanchard (Galletta’s #28)
  8. Eric Woolworth (Galletta’s #78)
  9. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s #9)
  10. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s #8)
  11. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #3)
  12. Melissa Stevens (Galletta’s #80)
  13. [DID NOT START] Kevin Galletta (Galletta’s #43)
  14. [DID NOT START] George Kalkowski (Galletta’s #2)

NOTE: Kevin Galletta was scored, as he was in attendance and ready to race, but for very understandable reasons, he decided he could not stay and would try again another week. George Kalkowski arrived late and started the 2nd feature, qualifying him last in the 1st.

2020/06/04 – 25th Annual Opener (Tower Camera Footage)

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Some great shots from the OswegoSushi.com helmet-cam worn by Chris Stevens. Here’s a couple of screen caps from the start of the 1st feature, which showed how close we are wheel to wheel.

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Now for some videos.

2020/06/04 – 25th Annual Opener (OswegoSushi.com GoPro Helmet Camera w/Chris Stevens Footage)

The complete, unedited video to Chris Stevens’ Helmet camera, sponsored by R&C Sushi.

2020/06/14 – Kelly Miller Flips to avoid hitting Travis Bartlett (Chris Stevens GoPro)

At the end of the 1st feature, Travis Bartlett and Kelly Miller were all by themselves battling for the lead with one lap to go. As they were entering the final turn of the race, Travis spun out and Kelly went off the track to avoid, and flipped badly. He was a little sore, but resumed in the 2nd feature.

UPDATE: We regret to inform that Kelly actually broke a few ribs in this crash and will be out of action for some time.

This is a reminder to the reason why racer / webmaster / video producer / point adder-upper Chris Stevens insists EVERYONE wear some sort of armor. Chris himself wears a SNELL/DOT approved helmet, karting neck brace, karting jacket over dirt bike armor (protects ribs, shoulders, arms, and spine), armored gloves, armored knee pads, shin protectors, and a cup (same one he’s worn racing for 20 years and has kids solely because of it!). He’s been called Captain America and Iron Man over it, but he’s been pretty banged up in too many wrecks (a few of which were painful and scary enough that he was forced to reexamine if he should continue racing — he did… with more armor) and seen too many people get hurt to chance it. He probably has an additional 10-15 lbs. of weight, but he could take a pretty good spill and be fairly well protected.

FEATURE #1 FINISH (25 Laps)

  1. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s #8)
  2. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #3)
  3. Zachary Blanchard (Galletta’s #28)
  4. Travis Bartlett (Galletta’s #5)
  5. Greg Blanchard (Galletta’s #33c)
  6. Andrew Hook (Galletta’s #0)
  7. Nicolas Olivares (Galletta’s #1) [DNF]
  8. Steve Perez (Galletta’s #7) [-1L]
  9. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s #9) [DNF]
  10. Eric Woolworth (Galletta’s #78) [DNF]
  11. Dennis Richmond (Galletta’s #6) [DNF]
  12. Melissa Stevens (Galletta’s #80) [DNF]
  13. Kevin Galletta (Galletta’s #43) [DNS – LE]
  14. George Kalkowski (Galletta’s #2) [DNS – LA]
    7/19/2020 – MAKEUP HEAT RACE POINTS
  15. Devon Tonkin (Galletta’s Greenhouse #5)
  16. [Name Needed] (Galletta’s Greenhouse #1)
  17. Jake Sivers (Brian Galletta’s #28)
  18. Chase Wegzyn (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9)
  19. Tyler Thompson (Galletta’s Greenhouse #78)
    — CUT-OFF — NO MORE RETCON POINTS FOR WEEK #1

KEY:
[DNF] = [DID NOT FINISH]
[-1L] = -[1 Lap Down]
[DNS] = [DID NOT START] (Was at track and qualified to run; LE = Left Early; LA = Late Arrival)


FEATURE #2 START (20 Laps)

  1. Dennis Richmond (Galletta’s #6)
  2. Steve Perez (Galletta’s #7)
  3. Travis Bartlett (Galletta’s #5)
  4. Greg Blanchard (Galletta’s #33c)
  5. Nicolas Olivares (Galletta’s #1)
  6. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s #9)
  7. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #74)
  8. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s #43)
  9. George Kalkowski (Galletta’s #0)
  10. Zachary Blanchard (Galletta’s #28) [DNS – LE]
  11. Andrew Hook (Galletta’s #2) [DNS – LE]
  12. Eric Woolworth (Galletta’s #78) [DNS – LE]
  13. Melissa Stevens (Galletta’s #80) [DNS – LE]
  14. Kevin Galletta (Galletta’s #42) [DNS – LE]

KEY:
[DNF] = [DID NOT FINISH]
[-1L] = -[1 Lap Down]
[DNS] = [DID NOT START] (Was at track and qualified to run; LE = Left Early; LA = Late Arrival)

The race started with Dennis Richmond taking command early, but the cameras didn’t pick up exactly what happened when the light in turn 3 somehow got unplugged, leaving a prone Richmond somehow sideways on the track, when Matt STevens AND Chris Stevens both unable to see him, and both crashed into him blind. As scary as the accident was, nobody was hurt munis the #6’s front end getting wrecked and retired Dennis for the evening.

Nic Olivares then led, but his kart broke down again late, as a few other competitors karts did as well. This put Matt Stevens in the lead for the remainder of the race.

2020/6/14 – Galletta’s Karting Club 25th Season Opener Clip (by Greg Blanchard)

Late in the 2nd feature, after Greg Blanchard’s kart broke down for the night, he took some footage around the side of one of the greenhouses.

Neither Matt (2nd and 1st) nor Chris (1st and 3rd) felt like they were the fastest on the track and got very few passes. In fact, ay observer could see that when Chris was in the #43, it appeared to be the slowest kart all night. They simply just survived a few wrecks, didn’t break down, and picked up wins.

FEATURE #2 FINISH (20 Laps)

1. Matt Stevens (Galletta’s #74)
2. Travis Bartlett (Galletta’s #5)
3. Chris Stevens (Galletta’s #43)
4. Nicolas Olivares (Galletta’s #1) [DNF – B]
5. Steve Perez (Galletta’s #7) [DNF – R]
6. Kelly Miller (Galletta’s #9)[DNF – B]
7. George Kalkowski (Galletta’s #0) [DNF – B
8. Greg Blanchard (Galletta’s #33c) [DNF – B]
9. Dennis Richmond (Galletta’s #6) [DNF – B]
10. Zachary Blanchard (Galletta’s #28) [DNS – LE]
11. Andrew Hook (Galletta’s #2) [DNS – LE]
12. Eric Woolworth (Galletta’s #78) [DNS – LE]
13. Melissa Stevens (Galletta’s #80) [DNS – LE]
14. Kevin Galletta (Galletta’s #42) [DNS – LE]
      7/19/2020 – MAKEUP HEAT RACE POINTS
15. Devon Tonkin (Galletta’s Greenhouse #5)
16. [Name Needed] (Galletta’s Greenhouse #1)
17. Jake Sivers (Brian Galletta’s #28)
18. Chase Wegzyn (Galletta’s Greenhouse #9)
19. Tyler Thompson (Galletta’s Greenhouse #78)
      — CUT-OFF — NO MORE RETCON POINTS FOR WEEK #1

KEY:
[DNF – B] = [Did Not Finish – Breakdown],
[DNF – R] = [Did Not Finish – Retired],
[DNS – LE] = [Did Not Start – Left Early]

Galletta’s Greenhouse Speedway 2020 Point Standings

All races from 6/14/2020 – 6/14/2020:


Handicap For Next Race

Drivers are inverted by a formula of current-season wins, career wins, and points-per-race.

Dennis Richmond
Steve Perez
Andrew Hook
Greg Blanchard
Zachary Blanchard
Nicolas Olivares
Travis Bartlett
Eric Woolworth
Kevin Galletta
Kelly Miller
Chris Stevens
Matt Stevens
Greg Kalkowski
Returning Vets
(inverted by Career Wins)
1st-Timer Rookies (Inverted by Weight)
Melissa Stevens

NEXT RACES…

20200615_002228_25th-Opener2020 #1 20200705_210638-matt-victor2020 #2 20200712_2220580-winners2020 #3

POST-RACE NOTES

Lots of things went wrong, including the video:
Our footage of this race was a little spotty and required a lot of editing for the following reasons, as:
[1] due to our late night, our camerawoman Rung “Aou” Stevens had to put the kids to bed after the 1st feature (Chris set up a stationary camera for the 2nd feature),

[2] Chris’ GoPro helmet-cam was plagued with a malfunctioning battery (one of three), which chopped up the footage considerably as he had to change to a better battery twice during a wreck intermissions, and…

[3] Due to the late start and a few lights going down DURING the races, most of the footage is very dark and required doing a lot of contrast and night vision adjustments to even make out the karts and drivers. [NOTE: In hindsight, the footage actually was a LOT more complete than Chris had anticipated, as he only lost a few laps on the helmetcam due to the low battery and the tower caught every lap, regardless! It still took time to fix the low lighting levels, synch everything up, and then identify each kart in that low light to count the laps for points, tho!] This led to a…

[4] LONG SCORING DELAY: 2nd Feature (initially) COULD NOT be scored for bonus points:
Upon further review of the video, during scoring, the camera angle was poorly stationed, and I initially thought that I could not score lap-by-lap bonus points. This is almost unheard of, but spending too much time on it and not being able to make out anybody on the stationary Tower cam, we sadly thought that we couldn’t count this 2nd feature for bonus lap points. This may even be the first time in our recent history that his happened to a regular-season race with more than 7 drivers, but we’re terribly sorry. The final order still is counted as a 20-lap feature, so all was not lost.
UPDATE: Wait… NO! IT CAN!
UPDATE: I doctored the lighting on the video as much as humanly possible and was PAINSTAKINGLY able to BARELY make out the drivers every lap and score accordingly! Hooray! Problem was… it took almost 2 weeks to get the video, scoring, and points all finished!

[5] Not to mention a couple of days prior… 

The DEC Cometh!
[4] a mentally ill and psychologically deranged paranoid schizophrenic person, in another fit of jealous hate and angry psychosis, spied on our karter group’s private conversations via Messengers, and called the DEC on us. Why? Well, Chris and Matt have been wildlife lovers for our entire lives. We love observing most of the animals that live around us at Galletta’s. Since childhood, we’ve always been happy to observe the painted turtles that visit us every summer, as we are surrounded by ponds and streams and they lay eggs on our property. When we were younger, we had many pet turtles in a small pond on our property and also large aquariums. We were very good at taking care of them and often they would live 15-35 years in captivity and were VERY tame. So what happened?

However, around 10 years ago or so, the allegedly peaceful, not-fascist, not-communist, not-socialist, not-iron-fist-ruler lawmakers in NYC and ALbany law passed around 10 years ago that outlawed having native to NY animals as pets, even turtles that were bought in pet stores for decades and decades prior. So, because Matt mentioned that he rescued turtle eggs from getting run over and destroyed on the track — to which we have saved from the roads and hatched and released snappers and painters many times over the years — on top of having kept many *legal to own* pet store bought (and bred) pet turtles since the 1980s and beyond, saving them from certain death (from getting run over or eaten by racoons, skunks and possums), we got a ticket! Yep, due to that new law passed around 10 years ago that outlawed having native to NY turtles as pets). So, a few pets confiscated (not all, as many were pet store buys and legally kept turtles), and likely a fine.

Now, one would think that that’s absolutely CRAZY that someone would do that to us. Someone would have to really HATE us to spy on our private messages on Facebook and turn us in to authorities over pet turtles, right? Hell, even the DEC officers couldn’t figure it out, as they were doing their job but found it perplexing that we were reported as well. We weren’t doing anything wrong, other than not having a permit to possess a few native turtles. Most of our turtles we had as pets YEARS before the law was ever made, so we lost some treasured pets in the process.

However, having the authorities called on us for extremely small and petty things (none of which are really illegal felonies or major crimes per say) is a common occurrence here. The worst thing Matt and Chris have ever done in our lives are a couple of speeding tickets! So who and why?

A person who lived on the property (or a person who speaks directly to a person who lives on the property) terrorizes us, as we have seen many times. For example, Chris and his wife’s small business — R&C Sushi LLC (we have made sushi daily for the college since 2011 and at the local Price Chopper from 2011-15) — has been reported to the authorities on multiple occasions. For what?! Well, for not doing anything illegal, but the details of the reports (once to the health department, once to worker’s compensation insurance — all of which we were cleared of any wrongdoing, but that did NOT stop the person who reported us!) are details only known to someone who actually were with us and/or reported to others that heard us talk in private conversations and THOUGHT that something could get us fired, hence the reports. It didn’t. One was a mild misunderstanding of protocol and the other was a clerical error, both of which were straightened out, and NEITHER would have EVER been known unless they heard our private family conversations and then called the authorities.

However… The person who did this is only one of a small few potential people: A relative (likely because of details known ONLY to people who live on this property AND login to and read every social media message Matt has ever made), a karter (because of a private discussion between our karters), or a hacker (who hates Matt because of his politics on social media and has hacked him before). One’s first instinct is that it was a karter, but for Chris and his wife, their reports had NOTHING to do with the karters, and who the hell would report such things unless they were insane and filled with hate? This lines up to be very eerily similar — a report to authorities that the authorities themselves ind to be petty and hateful, and by a person VERY close to us, as nobody knows or even cares about such tiny things.

So regardless of who it was, can everyone please tell Matt to change his password to one that NOBODY can sign in and read every single word he says and post things on Facebook in his name? Please? That could stop SOME of it, but we have an idea it’ll keep on happening until the person is caught and the authorities slap them with just rewards. Keep them coming, people in glass houses!

And… in closing… regardless of whoever it was that reported us, thanks for the fines and keep in mind that it didn’t our daughters were upset that they could not continue to feed and see their baby turtles grow up (and if it IS a relative being a hypocritical ass, which most of us suspect… we see how much you love your own family, you filthy scumbags).

Sorry, but I had to, as it was sort of related to our delays and our club. And some of you readers may not like it or feel that it is appropriate here, but the same people seem to not understand that we’re dealing with people whom we don’t know exactly who they are, but don’t like us and try to get us in trouble. Making a record of it, as when it keeps on happening, we’ll have something to look back on.

*FLUSH*

Onto the next race!