One thought on “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.”

1. 

   Chris & Matt

   10/12/2014, 10:06 pm

   (PISSED-OFF) POST RACE NOTES RANT:
   Firstly, this is not for the guys who raced with us as much as they could this season and entered the Klassic. Matt, myself, Melissa and Wes wish to thank Adam Lytle, Brian Galletta, Kevin Galletta for racing every time they possibly could and also joining us for Klassic. Thanks to all the guys who raced with us most of the year. You guys are great and we appreciate not only racing with you, but also standing with us when others blew us off. (To a lesser degree, we’re not quite completely pissed off (more like mildly miffed) at the guys who raced with us in at least a handful of races this season, but still need an apology for blowing us off AT THE CHAMPIONSHIP 200-LAPPER. Dude… if you make ONE RACE… THAT’S the one to make. Period.)

   This is for everyone else. Those local people who like to think of themselves as drivers (or aspiring ones) who could’ve raced with us, but blew us off for one reason or another.

   So, as I stated earlier in the page, 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). Now, we only have 4-8. To us, that means that despite all the effort to provide local drivers a chance to trace against top-notch talent on a big and fast track, our club has been largely abandoned.

   Why?

   Economy? Other “pay” tracks have karts and entrance fees that at 100 to 1,000 x’s more expensive than us and pack them in like they are trying to win a NASCAR or Indy race. So it isn’t that.

   Whispers of unfairness? Look at the above 23 kart time trial chart – the karts are equal, most of them a split second apart on a large track, so if you have a lick of talent and a little experience you can compete and win here. If you overrate your talent, you’ll leave pissed, and you’re welcome. So it isn’t that.

   What is it, then?

   Is it the day? How could it be? We race when no other local kart tracks run. We’ve had a flexi-schedule that works around the schedules of the most possible active club drivers. We’ve raced every day of the week, but traditionally, 99% of all of our races have been run on Summer Sundays and Fall Saturdays, until Klassic Championship 200 in late September or early October. Whatever day nets the most drivers and the weather cooperates, we work towards. So, that excuse also doesn’t hold much water. Unless some may say it’s too flexible. To that we say, tell us a better day and time, then.

   We know some of the local pay track drivers mock our club. Yard karts they say. Go the wrong way they say. Whiners because we didn’t like being forced to race against bigger motors and then got barred from the local pay track for having a problem with that, they say (meanwhile, they would never race against bigger motors themselves, the hypocrites – they seperate their classes by an ounce of weight, age, and motor class!). They think if they spend a few grand on a prefabricated race chassis and find a way to bend WKA rules enough to beat the next guy means they are superior drivers. But when you see we have raced for 19 years of extremely grueling races every weekend all Summer through Fall, you will see that our experience defeats their like a seasoned professional compared to a pre-schooler. Try it. Find out. So it can’t be that,

   We know one driver – defending Klassic 2013 Champ, no less – just quit because we postponed a race last month because we only had 1 willing driver wanting to race that day, himself. Wow. Lame. It is not worth the monumental effort of time + money + work to run a  regular season race for just one driver, no matter who they are, unless they wanted to rent the track or something.

   Some say it’s because of me, your webmaster, who sometimes scribes up some wink-and-nudge jokes that apparently people get miffed about. Grow up, babies. This is for fun, whiners.

   [Advance warning: Apologies in advance for the below language, but seek twenty years of this website and you won’t find it anywhere else on this family-friendly site. It is used now because, quite frankly, we see how people treat us, how they disrespect us, lie to our faces, snub us, act like they are better than us, and how low they must think of us to do that. So…. language, in this rare occasion, stays.] 

   This likely is due to the the whispers of whiners that it takes too long to race at Galletta’s. But that is also mostly bull. Sure, we sometimes get out late, but we used to race until midnight or even after. It’s a backyard speedway, we race when we can and have enough people. And… For every one or two races that gets out late (maybe say 9pm or the occasional 10 or 11pm race, and that is usually due to visiting driver breakdowns and repairs), we have five to seven races that start on good time and finish around dusk. And I guess this means you aren’t committed to racing. Sometimes we race and go to work on a few hours of sleep – this webmaster has done it many times. Grow some.

   Often times, the occasional late start is – a majority of the time – waiting for enough visiting drivers to be at the track to begin the race. Some say, “Well, don’t wait for people, start without them!” Because we never have had a TON of drivers, we wait to make sure the most possible people can make it, because we respect their time and schedules and don’t want to step on people’s toes by blowing them off. Problem is, the people who are there wind up waiting around too long. So that is a two-edged sword.

   We were ready to begin the Klassic cookout at 2pm / 3pm for race time if people were here. On more than a handful of occasions in the past few years, this has happened, yet we get blamed. We can’t put on a show (prep 23 karts, get a track prepped and watered, do points, videos and website) for just a couple of drivers on a regular basis. It’s too much effort, too little action. Been there and done that in the 1990s. The race happens with NUMBERS, especially when we have 23 race-ready/feature-winning/competitive karts on site.

   People didn’t come.

   We waited and waited and waited and nobody came. Including a few who lied to our faces and said they were coming.

   So the next time somebody says we don’t start on time or get out late, shvt the fvck up. 

   So. You know what? Don’t want to race with us? Say start with or without people? Fine. You get what you asked for. Fvck all of them. We’ll raced our Klassic 200 season finale all by ourselves because we were forced to. And we did it all through the 1990s, so we can and will continue even if it’s a couple of people. But we hope we’ll get new people or some older drivers back whenever they decide to get over butthurt that kept them away in the 1st place.

   Next season, we are looking for people who are interested in racing weekly all Summer and part of Fall. Also, we’d like it of you can (1) drive – or wish to learn, (2) can afford to donate at least $5 a week to race their own kart or $20-25 a week to rent a kart, (3) show up every week they possibly can or let us know when they can’t make it, and (4) won’t backstab us and blow us off on race day. You will be welcome and appreciated.

   All others? . . . Well . . . I’ve used enough profanity for today. I’ll best leave it be now….

   Drivers interested in pure, fun, highly competitive racing with honest, good people that have done it for two decades for bottom dollar? See you next year.

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