On THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4th, 2008, the Galletta's Karting Club participated in THE OSWEGO KARTWAY'S 2nd ANNUAL DIRT TRACK CLASSIC at THE OSWEGO SPEEDWAY. Though the karts kicked off Classic Weekend's racing action originally scheduled for AUGUST 28th, 2008, it was the rain that took center stage after the conclusion of the time trials. Although Dick Dann won the 3-day Classic Weekend pass with his fastest gas-powered kart time of the night, the rest of the show was postponed and held on 9/4/2008, and it saw the inventors of Single-Wheel-Drive Gas Stocker racing; Wes, Matt, and Chris Stevens sweep the top three spots in the Gas Stocker Classic for the 2nd year in a row (but not without some controversy on the final lap). Although Wes led not one lap, he was awarded the win when the caution flag came out on the final turn of the track, and although all participants in the race (and several spectators) saw the yellow, mildly retarded asshole  temper-tantrum-throwing loudmouth jackass track operator Jim Losurdo threw the checkered flag and awarded Wes the win, as his bumper passed passed the checker before his son Matt's (who had a comfortable and insurmountable lead before he slowed for the yellow flag). The Galletta's Official Scoring awarded the race a tie between Matt and Wes, although Oswego officially awarded the race to Wes, and then banned our class from the track and mocked us several times on public web-forums (including ours) and to everyone they know. Ah, what a smart man they have in charge of that little tiny bullshit ring they call a track.

Above: Ogre wins the longest race of 2006 at Oswego Speedway's dirt track of any class. Wes is not a skilled passer, but when he starts near the front, he is very very fast and can be extremely tough to pass. This is why he seems to do well when he time trials (his kart is always fast, but he has not mastered the art of passing). He took the lead early and then was untouched in this 40-lap race at the Mixed-Motor Racing Yard Kart class at Oswego Speedway's dirt track in 2006 (before it was known as Oswego Kartway). Yet, he can also be passed by drivers with years less experience driving slower karts on any given race at any given time. What an oddity he is!

On August 30th, 2007, Chris "ChrusherComix" Stevens won the Oswego Speedway Classic Weekend's Dirt Supermodified Yard Kart Classic 50, his 1st Feature at Oswego since 2006, and his 3rd overall feature of 2007 in his Galletta's #8. His father Wesley Ogre Stevens took 2nd in the Galletta's #4, and his brother and head mechanic Matt Stevens got 3rd in his Galletta's #33. This makes the three originators of Oswego-area Yard Kart racing taking 1-2-3 in the first ever Oswego Yard Kart Classic! View more on this race here. More->

Favorite drivers:
Himself; None noted (unless his "old buddy Eddie B. or cheer for who Kwis and Madyew cheer for!"). Ogre will usually watch endless hours of Speed channel and not have a favorite to cheer for or even anybody to root against. Many have said that it you don't have a horse in the race, sports are very boring to watch, yet if you have something to root for, then that is where the excitement comes from. But not to Ogre! :)

2006/09/23 - Photo by Gene Galletta, Remastered by Chris Stevens.
 

Fun and F***in' Foolish Facts:
Wesley has a "feast or famine" racing talent. He either is very fast and tough to beat, or he makes rookie-mistakes and can't pass anybody. An example of this is that he didn't win one race between 2005-2006 except for the two biggest races of two tracks during the 2006 season: Oswego Dirt Track (40 laps) and Galletta's Greenhouse Backyard Speedway Klassic (150 laps) . Another example is that he always time-trials one of the quickest every year even though he collects very few wins for his speed.

And finally, another prime example is that he led most of the 2007 Klassic, then spun out, and then coming back up through the field, he crashed wildly, breaking 5 ribs and his shoulder-blade - which forced him to retire from full-time racing and only race sparingly per season, wife and doctor's orders made him decide to finally retire to flagging. The wreck did force Galletta's to make safer karts designed lower to the ground and re-affirm our rule to restrict all carbs to stock gas carbs only. This accident indeed created a paradox with our brand of racing: It proved that our racing is indeed fast to prove the WKA karting snobs wrong (when we say this, we do not mean all WKA-type karters, as we have friends who raced with us and also raced WKA. They all respect our racing and know that our regulars are damn good racers who could race any type of go-kart and win. We mean the jerks who race WKA who mock us as inferior and think that they are automatically superior racers just because their karts cost $2,000-3,000 more, even though very few of them could do all that well in our class with our equal karts and a salary-cap on parts), yet it was just a freak one-in-a-million wreck that caused a broken bone (the only one in countless thousands of green flag laps at our track) that may have scared some people away. Sometimes our class just never gets respect no matter what way you look at it, and yes, that does make us defensive, as you can read in some of our webpages. We now highly recommend chest pads in addition to mandatory full-face-coverage helmets, neck braces, and full body coverage with clothes and/or padding, and maintain that our form of racing isn't any less more or safe than other brands of karting, and still much safer than most forms of racing.

Although many think that this forced Ogre to retire, that assumption is not entirely true. He wanted to retire for a few years, but losing a month of work due to the injury just solidified his retirement. He only came out of retirement to race a handful of times at Oswego in 2008 to increase our kart count by one and his boys attempt to try to get him from stop being such a chicken and use that fast Galletta's #4 kart. Upon retiring fully in 2009, Chris decided to race it regularly again (he used to race it in the mid-1990s).

Although Ogre retired from racing (partially after his wreck in 2007 and from full-time racing in 2008 after drunk and stupid redneck assholes with too much time and expendable income on their hands disgruntled speedway officials banned our class and mocked us at Oswego Kartway), with more volunteers and some additional arm/leg/chest pads, Ogre could perhaps be talked out of retirement, but his wife usually shuts him down since his injury due to his age. He only raced 2008 at Oswego because the puny track is so small and built for children that he wasn't scared to get in a kart on it. Well, that and he resumed racing at Oswego after the gas motor classes were properly split and the gas flathead class needed people to fill it so it wouldn't be an embarrassing and boring 4-6 kart class like most of them are. We'll only race with 8-18, and our usual kart count is around 10-12.

Hobbies & interests:
Work ("I'm a weld-or. Rarr."), watching news, sleeping while watching news, eating, almost sleeping while eating, sleeping, watching & sleeping during racing, watching Speed Channel, sleeping while watching Speed Channel; Racing go-karts; Re-occurring parodied character and co-star of his own comic book and read-along-storybook CD-and-comic that was written and illustrated by his "big boy" Chris when he was still an immature teenager (although some still question his maturity, haha).

More of Ogre, Matt & Chris' complete racing history at Galletta's and beyond is found here::

__________________________________________________
Website by Chris Galletta Stevens - professional cartoonist, graphic novelist & affordable website designer:

Please buy Chris's new children's book (co-created and written by Robert Buchanan)
named, Tee and Wee: Health and Nutrition for Young Earthlings, ON SALE NOW:

Buy it or get a sneak-preview.

Chris' kid-friendly/family-friendly comic strip named Towner (with over 10 years of comics):


Chris' 2007 Graphic Novel, Chrusher - End Cycle:


Chris's 1988-1999 teen-to-adult comic book named "ChrusherComix" (with over 19 years of comics):