Due to his work schedule as a trucker, Dick Dann could only race around once per month during 2009 at Galletta's, and to make matters worse, two of those potential race dates were rained out. Having motor problems on his #86 and #68 team karts, Dick navigated the Galletta's #7 kart on the post-'09 Klassic bonus points race on October 11th, 2009, and led all 25-laps and take his 1st feature win of 2009, hence keeping his streak of at least one feature win per season since his rookie campaign in 2006. More info and the YouTube video of his dominant lead-every-lap win is found here.

Dick Dann passed Larry Phillips late in the race to win the 2nd 30-Lapper on October 19th, 2008 (Melissa Gabel won the 1st 30-Lapper, although Dick was in 2nd for most of that race as well). It was the 1st time that the Dann #68 kart (usually driven by his son Nick) visited victory lane at Galletta's, although Nick did score an Oswego Kartway win earlier that year on. More here

 

Dick Dann time-trialed the pole at the Oswego Kartway 2008 Classic Time Trails, even getting a faster time than 1st & 2nd place All-Time point earners Matt and Chris Stevens. He was allowed the handicap of a Raptor carburetor for this event, the only one in the race with one, as Galletta Karting Club events have mandatory 1990's-type gas stock carbs to regulate price and top speed. (Click picture to see more!)



Dick Dann won a highly competitive feature on 8/5/2007 topping a field of top-notch local karters bar none, proving that weight does not hold people back from winning at Galletta's - unlike smaller, less banked local tracks. Dick won the same night that he violently flipped and nearly busted his helmet! (See the exciting below video, and give it a good rating. Lots of haters [sometimes needlessly arrogant WKA-type karters, sometimes gaymers "gamers" who think racing a video game is real racing, sometimes people who watch bigger forms of racing - like NASCAR for example - and think anything less expensive is less talented] online giving our videos bad ratings.).

DICK DANN FLIPS AT GALLETTA'S BACKYARD KARTING SPEEDWAY
(THEN COMES BACK TO WIN THE FEATURE...) :

Won a late-season exhibition Feature event in the Galletta's Fall Challenge Series of 2006.

Dick often rebuilds yard karts into 1-WD racing karts in his spare time. You can see in this slideshow shows the rebuilding of the Nick Dann #68 in the 2008 offseason and the the building of his newest chassis in the 2010 offseason.:

Dick posing with his #86 at the 2006 Galletta's Karting Klassic 150 on 2006/09/23
Photo by Gene Galletta, Remastered by Chris Stevens.

The kart has come a long way from then after several rebuilds - as seen from top picture (a hybrid WKA-styled kart with 1-WD) to this one (slightly race-adapted yard kart). This was his rookie season. Oddly enough, although Dick has been a semi-regular competitor since his rookie year, he has missed the 2007, 2008, and 2009 Galletta's Klassics, and the 2007 Oswego Classic, while not finishing the neither of the ones that he did start ('06 Galletta's and '08 Oswego). In his first four years of karting he has only raced a total of around 30 of around 850 "Classic" or "Klassic" laps, which are the highest-point-scoring races in our Karting Club. Even so, Dick has still managed enough Regular-Season-Summer races and Fall-Bonus-Point races to still be one if the highest scoring visiting drivers in the history of the Galletta's and Oswego Dirt Karting Point Scoring, as witnessed in our All-Time Oswego and All-Time Galletta's Point Standings. He vows to make the 2010 event and pass points rival Gary Miller.

Did you know? Fun Facts:

• That Dick brought a lot of visitors to the Galletta's Go-Karts website during the 2006-07 off-season, just from people doing Google image searches for "Dick." Oddly, as soon as I posted this, it stopped. Hmm... Google is a fickle creature, no? Haha!

• Dick is known as The fastest man weighing over 200 lbs. to win in Galletta's 5hp history (Proving the stubborn and belligerent Oswego Kartway Track Operator and his friends, the "Intek-OHV-6.5hp-oops-I-forgot-to-tell-you-guys-that-we-are-now-Gas-Stock-Animal-Outlaws" gang wrong; with the right setup, talent, and on-track experience, you can win without buying a bigger motor than the next man). Always finishes well, races well, and has wins every season - with a gas flathead?! Gasp!

• Dick is the pioneer of the idea of utilizing a race cam to equalize a weight handicap in our gas stock flathead karting club, althugh he did so without permission, we adopted his idea and encorporated it into our rules a. In 2007, he tried out the Dyno 94-SS cheater stock cam when all other drivers had a box stock 5hp cam. Being a heavier driver, he was allowed this otherwise breach of the rules, and unlike what most tracks would do (most tracks would disqualify him), we encorporated the exception into our allowed rules in order to help heavier drivers, a rule that has expended our competition and increased our wins list. He has also experimented with methanol and methanol Raptor carbs on trial basis. As usual at Galletta's, we are open to experimentation and we adjust our rules by majority vote with the single condition of affordability in mind. Regular drivers weigh around 200 lbs (weight is added for anybody lighter). Bigger cams for heavy drivers (over 220 lbs) are allowed, as are racing headers. However, we still do not allow methanol or Raptor carbs, unless the driver would be a super-heavyweight (at Galletta's, we would likely consider this for someone possibly in excess of 280 lbs). At Galletta's, we do NOT believe in making 15 weight and motor classes. Yes, this means some people unfortunately do turn away (only because they would want to invest $600-$3,000 in a motor or they admittedly "love to eat, but I still love to race" and weigh over 280 lbs), but it does mean we have the most fun racing, make the speeds as close as we can (letting experience and talent be the biggest determining factors) and we actually decide an overall champion.

• Despite the fact that Dick is one of the higher-point earners in Galletta's 2000-up Points History, he only competed in ONE Galletta's Karting Club's Annual Klassic 200-Lap Championship, the 2006 one!
Between first his work and secondly his love of Clone and Heavy Methanol karts that apparently schedule their money races on the same day as our Klassic that predated them by over a decade, he now races less than he ever did in our club, which saddens mostly everybody, as he is largely respected as a good, clean driver,.

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