Galletta's Karting Club - 2010 Season, Event #8 - Monday, July 26th, 2010:

2010 Season, Event #8- Monday, July 26th, 2010 - Another week, another Sunday show rained out to Monday. And... another Feature, another winner! Driving the Galletta's Greenhouse #7 kart, Kelly Miller, braving a rough high groove, passed Matt Stevens and held him off from a near-pass to win his 1st feature race at Galletta's Sunday. Some reconstruction to the track made the usually fast high groove bumpy and made the low groove unusually the slightly quicker line. But Kelly stuck it out enough to get by Matt -- and as Matt said, he was laughing to himself thinking Kelly looked like a Bo or Luke Duke driving the General Lee over a jump! -- and got the impressive win to become the 9th different winner of 9 features so far this season at Galletta's, including the 7th 1st-time first feature winner so far at John J. Galletta Memorial Karting Speedway.

Two rebuilt karts made their debut today. Tim Galletta purchased the original Dick Dann #86 kart earlier in the Spring, and after a slight rebuild -- by Matt and Ogre for Tim's 6'4" frame -- and Tim's new Matt Stevens-built motor, it becomes the Sid Harvey's #54. Shadoe Russell's #26 kart also went through a minor rebuild thanks to Russell Bartlett to also give the Doe-man more leg room and a little better handling. He also got, as camera girl Rungnapha said, some really "sassy" side panels. Both karts look sweet!

Everyone was happy to see Kyle Reuter come out for the first time in quite some time and help out with the flagging. Kyle raced with us between 2006-2007, had a ton of fun and a handful of wins. He's been a bit busy with 2-WD methanol karting, but it's always great to have him out and we hope he hops into one of the karts sometime soon like old times. In fact, Kyle jumped in the handicap Galletta's #7 during some hot laps, and was setting some torrid times like he never took two & 1/2 years off 1-WD karting. Now to the heats.

 (LEFT) Heat 1 saw Shadoe Russell lead 8 laps before spinning out after his spindle broke which set up Chris Stevens in the Galletta's #8 for the win. (RIGHT) Heat 2 saw AJ Nason hold off Matt Stevens and Kelly Miller until Kelly did a 360-degree spin trying to get under Matt and Matt was able to make a late pass in the Galletta's #3for the win.

1st 10-Lap Heat Order-of-Finish: 1st. Chris Stevens (Galletta's #8) 2nd. Russell Bartlett (Galletta's #9) 3rd. Timmy Galletta (Sid Harvey's #54) 4th. Randy Platt (Galletta's/Platt #2) 5th. Shadoe Russell (Doe #26)

2nd 10-Lap Heat Order-of-Finish: 1st. Matt Stevens (Galletta's #3) 2nd. Arnold "AJ" Nason (Hammerd #35) 3rd. George Russell (Galletta's #6) 4th. Michael "MC" Howell (Galletta's #0) 5th. Kelly Miller (Galletta's #7) 6th. Melissa Stevens (Scissors N' Fur #19)

[YOUTUBE VIDEO FORTHCOMING!]

Again, in our 20th year of karting, 15th year of points karting between family, and 10th year of points karting with expanded 10-15 kart weekly competition is going strong thanks to Matt's kart and track building, Chris' website and video promotion, and - last but not least - the drivers who come out week after week seeking to have fun racing professionally within a yard karter's budget to make our racing as great as it is. Despite some putting our class down, it is still the largest and longest running dirt karting class in the the local area and probably points beyond. We're sorry if we choose to make it affordable and we go "the wrong way" but it makes us unique, and some conformists don't like that. Oh well, we like being one of a kind and we're proud that our class isn't a bunch of cookie cutter karts. Each one looks and handles uniquely. Now to the feature...

The 8th event of 2010 saw the 9th feature of the season start a little late due to some badly needed track and kart work, but nonetheless exciting. (ABOVE) Here is early leader Shadoe Russell holding off AJ Nason, Randy Platt and Kelly Miller until...

(ABOVE) Shadoe Russell and Kelly Miller came together in turn 2 which caused a 10-kart pileup. Such a convoluted mess the pileup was that it was decided to just do a complete handicap restart minus the originators Kelly and Doe-man in the back. Top-point runners having a tough week - Tim Galletta unfortunately had a leaking head gasket in his #54's debut and dropped out early after trying the Galletta's #4 and not being comfortable in it. Chris's right rear axle in the #8 was bent in the pileup when MC Howell hit it, and he was forced to hop into his old 2000-2001 Klassic-Winning kart: the Galletta's #5. Chris and was flying up through the field and chasing down the leaders before a tie rod nut came loose. He then hopped into the #4 for the remainder of the race, but was never able to make it up front to challenge the leaders.

 

(ABOVE) The track's middle and outside grooves having bumps led to everyone frantically searching for a line - which seemed to change every few laps as well. Matt Stevens was able to work his way up and after 2 laps of racing side-by-side, passed AJ Nason for the lead on lap 20. Shortly after, when Kelly Miller moved the Galletta's #7 into 2nd on lap 22, AJ Nason and Randy Platt wrecked. This set up a big battle between Matt Stevens and Kelly Miller, who battled back and forth for the remainder of the race, with Kelly passing Matt on lap 27 and began to pull away. Matt then found a good low groove and caught back up, setting up a few more side-by-side battles between the two. Despite Matt coming inches from a pass, Kelly held Matt off for the win, his 1st at Galletta's since he started racing with us in 2005 and getting a handful of races in each season. Russell Bartlett took 3rd and stayed close to the battle in the Galletta's #9, but was unable to mount a challenge for the lead. Kyle Reuter and Kelly Miller went bonkers after the win, which again had people looking at that full moon over the track. We always have crazy stuff happen in full moon races.

45-Lap Feature Order-of-Finish: 1st. Kelly Miller (Galletta's #7) 2nd. Matt Stevens (Galletta's #3) 3rd. Russell Bartlett (Galletta's #9) 4th. Chris Stevens (Galletta's #8; #5; #4) 5th. Melissa Stevens (Scissors N' Fur #19; #80) 6th. Randy Platt (Galletta's #2) 7th. George Russell (Galletta's #6) 8th. Arnold "AJ" Nason (Hammerd #35) DNF 9th. Dick Dann (Destroyer Dann #86) DNF 10th. Tim Galletta (Sid Harvey's #54; Galletta's #4) DNF 11th. Michael "MC" Howell (Galletta's #0) DNF 12th. Shadoe Russell (Doe #26) DNF DNF = Did Not Finish DNS = Did Not Start Make-up Race Credit: 13th. Russ Hockey (Hockey #00) via 8/1/2010 make-up

DVDs are available of every single Galletta's Karting Club race held since mid-2005 at Galletta's (including every Galletta's Klassic since 1998, and every Oswego Kartway race between 2007-2008) and are of DVD-Quality (far superior to the YouTube videos, which are edited and compressed for time) for $5 per disc. Each disc contains between 1-2 hours of racing action, usually from two camera angles, complete and unedited. Most of the pictures on this website are lo-res screen captures from the DVDs. Contact Chris for your copy today, and he can make any copy from our archives, just ask. Here is the menu of this week's DVD volume:

Despite the fact that the main groove of the track was rough (it will be better next week, folks - the fresh moved clay just has to be worked in better), everybody still had fun. To us, that is the important part, and that is what at least a half a dozen drivers from the local speedways have told us - they like racing with us and like what we do because it's all about fun competing affordably. It's not about money or cheating, it's about racing.