Saturday night, August 6th, was the 25th Annual $10,000 to win Mr. SuperModified at Oswego Speedway. This one was filled was thrills and spills as some of the top SuperModified drivers in the country battled it out for bragging rights and the big paycheck. The night started out slow with rain showers moving through, but after the track was dried for the second time, the racing program rolled off about an hour and half behind schedule. The big show took the green shortly before 10PM and the racing was very hard, but not very clean, right from the get go. Joey Payne, Brian Sobus, Dan Connors, Ray Graham Jr. all took turns in the lead. Behind them, several big crashes took place sweeping up points leader Dave McKnight, DJ Schullick, Shaun Gosselin, Bobby Haynes, Shawn Muldoon and Keith Gilliam. Multiple yellow's resulted in the first of two red flags. The first one was for the Gosselin, Schullick, McKnight crash during which the teams were allowed to refuel the cars. When racing resumed Otto Sitterly put the spurs to the Nicotra Racing #7 and ran down leader Ray Graham Jr. When the white flag flew you could throw a blanket over Graham and Sitterly. The two raced hard into turn one, Graham pushed up, Otto got a run to the bottom exiting turn two and with the big money dangling out in front neither was going to give an inch. Half way down the back stretch the two touched ever so slightly. Otto took a hard turn to the left and hammered the back stretch wall just past the pit gate. The #7 did a full 360 in the air before careening back across the track and coming to rest against the outside wall in a smashed heap. The crowd all stood and a hush came over them. Everyone knew this was a bad wreck and few could remember anyone hitting that hard. To the refief of all Otto climbed from the mangled remains of his car A OK. This crash brought out the second red flag of the night and after a lengthy cleanup, it was back to green flag racing for the last lap, which was run pretty much lock step by the top 3. Ray Graham cruised home just past midnight to collect his second straight $10,000 check and title as Mr. SuperModified. Second was Double 00 Joe Gosek and rounding out the podium was the 88 of Randy Ritskes.

Skip to 2:02 for the thrilling, and scary, white flag lap.

Hate Figure 8 races, such a waste of a buncha cars.

With the way shop classes are getting axed from high schools around the country, and the decline of the number of auto repair shops for someone to work at, where else are younger folks/inexperienced folks going to learn the fundamentals of how to build a racecar? It's better for folks to learn how to weld a cage, fabricate body panels, change parts, etc. in something cheap and slow than to start with a street stock, smash it up once and never come back.

I know a lot of tracks cheap out and make them the show without adding incentives for folks to move up from them, or use them instead of a real racing division, but you have to accept what they let you do, assuming they're done correctly.

Heres a better view of the wreck from my local track this weekend.