Galletta's Karting Club - 2010 Season, Event #9 - Sunday, August 1st, 2010:

2010 Season, Event #9- Sunday, August 1st, 2010 - In the 2010 Mr. Galletta's "10,000 Dirt Particles-To-Win" 50 Driving the Galletta's Greenhouse #33 kart, Matt Stevens, held off a strong last-lap pass attempt from Mike "MC" Howell with Chris also nearby to take his 1st win of 2010 at Galletta's Sunday. This breaks Matt's drought with his last win coming during the 2009 finale last November, and got a rare fist-pump from the usually mild-mannered master of karting. Matt became the 10th different winner of 10 features so far this season at Galletta's in 2010, making it the closest season in Galletta's Speedway History, which began in 1990, developed into point races and "Klassic" races since 1995, and further developed into website-documented point races since 2000. Points, results, pictures and videos:

 PART ONE OF TWO:

[YOUTUBE VIDEO FORTHCOMING!]

Per usual, all in-action race snapshots are screen captures directly from our weekly race DVDs, which document the entire race from two camera angles, usually are anywhere between 1-2 hours, and are only $5 each, in higher quality resolution than our YouTube vids which they are made from. Just like the donations that run all of the karts, all proceeds go back into the club (in this case the DVDRs and the website).

Heat 1 saw Randy Platt dominate from his pole-starting position, leading all 10-laps in the Galletta's #2 and pulling away from Chris Stevens and MC Howell. Randy is doing what Tim Galletta did earlier this season, getting his own motor on a Galletta's kart until his is ready to go. With Tim it was the Galletta's #7 until his Sid Harvey's #54 was being built, and in Randy's case, his motor is on the Galletta's #2 while his kart is being built (and he has been building it with Matt and Ogre all week).

Heat 2 saw AJ Nason lead all 10-laps from his pole-starting position, but behind him several competitors passed each other back and forth looking for a heat win. Great to see Kyle Reuter out there, as he was testing the Galletta's #7 for Kelly Miller. He is credited with heat points and a qualifying spot in the feature, and he again did a great job as race starter and head flag-man. Apparently, he plots to take MC's job.

1st 10-Lap Heat Order-of-Finish: 1st. Randy Platt (Galletta's #2) 2nd. Chris Stevens (Galletta's #8) 3rd. Michael "MC" Howell (Galletta's #0) 4th. Kelly Miller (Galletta's #7) 5th. Kenny  Lindsley III (Galletta's #5) 6th. George Russell (Doe #26) 7th. Jeff Tetro (Galletta's #1) DNF

2nd 10-Lap Heat Order-of-Finish: 1st. Arnold "AJ" Nason (Hammerd #35) 2nd. Matt Stevens (Galletta's #3) 3rd. Russell Bartlett (Galletta's #9) 4th. Russell Hockey (Hockey #00) 5th. Kyle Reuter* (Galletta's #7) 6th. Melissa Stevens (Scissors N' Fur #19) 7th. Tim Galletta (Sid Harvey's #54) 8th. Shadoe Russell (Galletta's #6) * = Testing motor for Kelly Miller

Again we had a make-up race for drivers who missed at least one feature event. Re-capping what this is, a 5-Lap B-Main is raced, and each competitor is credited at the end of a race that they missed. This means that missing a race does not kill your chances for the season, and it keeps you alive. I prefer this method over the common method of scratching the worst showings of each driver in order to help a driver who misses. There's still racing to be done and nothing gets thrown out.

5-Lap Make-up B-Main Order-of-Finish: 1st. Randy Platt (#2) Credited for 6/14 2nd. MC Howell (#0) Credited for 6/14 3rd. Tim Galletta (#54) Credited for 7/18 4th. Russ Bartlett (#9) Credited for 7/18 5th. Kelly Miller (#7) Credited for 6/27 6th. Ken Lindsley (#5) Credited for 7/18 7th. Russ Hockey (#00) Credit for 7/26

Now to the feature, which was decided would be a 50-Lapper to celebrate "The 2010 Mr. Galletta's 10,000 Dirt-Particles-To-win" Night. A tremendous show was in store for the event with 15 qualified racers, and 13 took the track (Jeff Tetro was shaken up during the heat and decided to just watch, while Kyle Reuter elected to be the official starter).

Early on, we saw AJ Nason showing his progress by leading nearly 40 laps of the show. Randy Platt was holding a strong 2nd in the Deuce until he badly bent the drive-wheel axle and his clutch on lap 11. Russ Hockey had to pit but initially told the starter to restart the race without him when he was asked if he wanted to use a time-out. Russ changed his mind and went back on the track after another restart, but was 1 lap down thereafter due to waving the field away. Chris Stevens was holding 2nd looking around AJ until Matt capitalized on Chris' #8 hitting a bump in turn 3 which moved Matt's #33 into 2nd. Kelly Miller then moved into 5th, and blew the motor on the Galletta's #7 while challenging Chris for 3rd. Then, MC Howell was able to make his way back into the top-4 when Matt cut Chris off in turn 2, checking the #8 up and giving MC room to move the #0 into 3rd.

MC Howell challenged Matt for 2nd, which forced Matt to make his move when AJ Nason's motor bogged on a restart and Matt powered the #33 by him in the low groove for the lead. MC followed him by on the outside when AJ tried to slingshot Matt back but did not have the power. Chris was also able to get by him later, as it seemed as if AJ's Hammerd #35 was losing power as the night went on. A late restart set up a tremendous battle. Even Russ Hockey entered the fray although a lap down, he was getting closer and closet to getting to get his lap back. And on the final lap, Matt almost fell to the same thing that enabled him to get by his brother Chris - the bump in turn 3. As the below picture shows, MC used that to pull along side Matt and actually take the lead momentarily coming out of 4, but Matt barely snipped him back side-by-side at the line, awarding Matt his 1st feature since the final show of last season in November 2009. Although it took Matt all season so far, he makes for the 10th different feature winner in 10 features so far at Galletta's! And almost all of them came down to the wire. That's racing folks.

Mr. Galletta's 50-Lap Feature Order-of-Finish: 1st. Matt Stevens (Galletta's #33) 2nd. Michael "MC" Howell (Galletta's #0) 3rd. Chris Stevens (Galletta's #8) 4th. Arnold "AJ" Nason (Hammerd #35) 5th. Melissa Stevens (Scissors N' Fur #19) 6th. Kenny Lindsley III (Galletta's #5) 7th. George Russell (Galletta's #6) 8th. Russell Hockey (Hockey #00) -1L 9th. Kelly Miller (Galletta's #7; #9) DNF 10th. Tim Galletta (Sid Harvey's #54) DNF 11th. Shadoe Russell (Doe #26) DNF 12th. Russell Bartlett (Galletta's #9) DNF 13th. Randy Platt (Galletta's #2) DNF 14th. Jeff Tetro* (Galletta's #1) DNS 15th. Kyle Reuter* (Galletta's #4) DNS DNF = Did Not Finish DNS = Did Not Start * = Qualified & Credited with points, Elected not to run

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:

And what of the points after this 50-Lapper? Matt seems to always get these bigger shows...