Archive for the ‘Oswego Supermodified News’ Category

2010 Bud Classic Winner: Bob Bond (Mike Pinner Johnson Photo)

Roury Williams / The Post-Standard

Bobby Bond, of Mexico, only raced three days this season at Oswego Speedway, but he managed to win two huge races, including Monday’s Budweiser Classic 200 — the Indy 500 for supermodifieds.

To win the race, he had to survive an accident on lap 129 that ruffled some feathers. Six-time Classic winner Greg Furlong, who started 11th, had climbed to fourth and was putting intense pressure on two-time winner Doug Didero.

In turn four, Furlong made contact with the back of Didero’s car. Didero spun into the inside wall and then came back across the track at the entrance to the front straightaway.

He may have tried to save the car by doing a 360-degree turn, but the result was a cloud of smoke and a hard crash into Dave McKnight. Joey Payne managed to drive around Didero, but his car was damaged when it grazed the outside wall.

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Otto Sitterly’s team faces the starting line for the playing of the U.S. and Canadian national anthems on Aug. 21 at Oswego Speedway.

(Lauren Long Photo)

Roury Williams / The Post-Standard

Otto Sitterly has gone back-to-back-to-back in supermodified track championships at Oswego Speedway. This Sunday, he’ll try to go back-to-back in the Budweiser Classic 200.

The race is the Indy 500 for supermodifieds, a division that has always revolved around Oswego Speedway and boasts the fastest cars in short-track asphalt racing.

“I will never top last year’s performance because it was my first Classic win,” said Sitterly, who is from Canajoharie. “That’s the unfortunate thing of it. In my eyes, you’ll never top that day. But I’m hoping that myself and Davey Hamilton, both, can have decent performances on Classic Weekend.”

John Nicotra, Sitterly’s car owner, will put Hamilton in the team’s backup car. Hamilton finished 18th in last weekend’s IndyCar race at Chicagoland Speedway.

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John Kandt

Roury Williams / The Post-Standard

Former Budweiser Classic 200 champion and car builder Mike Muldoon will unveil a shiny new supermodified this weekend at Oswego Speedway.

The immediate goal is to contend for the season-culminating Classic on Sunday, with Massachusetts driver Bobby Santos III at the wheel.

But Muldoon, 49, has more in mind than just the Classic.

He and his 16-year-old son, Michael Jr., have spent almost a year building the car, with the idea that Michael will drive it in Oswego’s top division next season.

“Somebody’s got to teach him,” Muldoon said. “He’s the one who built most of the car. … I kind of walked him through it. That’s why it took so long. We started building the car last September-October. It took almost a year to build it. You can usually build a car in a couple of three months.”

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Jim Feeney Photo

OSWEGO, N.Y. – With his seventh-place finish in Saturday’s shortened 30-lap feature, Otto Sitterly joined Greg Furlong as the only supermodified drivers to win four track championships at Oswego Speedway. In an equally astounding accomplishment, Sitterly joined Doug Didero, Mike Muldoon and the late Jim Shampine as the only drivers to win the title three years in succession.  Didero and Muldoon did it during their dominant years in the 1990s, while Shampine accomplished the feat from 1972 to ’74.

Sitterly built a formidable point lead with four straight feature wins to start the season. With Oswego’s tight point system and Sitterly’s ability to finish races, and usually in the top three, a serious challenge to Otto’s title was doubtful as the season hit mid-June.
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Roury Williams / The Post-Standard

For the second time in two weeks, the lights went out at Oswego Speedway on a Saturday night.

This time it happened without so much as a flicker of warning while the supermodified cars were racing on the backstretch, heading into the third turn at speeds of up to 140 mph.

The drivers were able to slow their cars and avoid accidents. When the lights went out at 10:35 p.m., Pat Lavery was leading on lap 23 and was under pressure from Joe Gosek.

The only lights at the track during the outage were from the race-car haulers and the concession stand in the infield. At 10:45 the lights began to slowly come back on, and racing resumed a few minutes before 11 p.m.

It took Gosek three laps to get by Lavery, and he was leading when the lights went out again at 11:05 p.m. during a caution on lap 26. Track officials blamed an overheating generator and said it was not the same problem that caused the previous outage.

The race was called off — in the dark — at 11:28 and Gosek was declared the winner.

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Paul Murphy Photo

Roury Williams / The Post-Standard

Otto Sitterly has made a habit of winning supermodified championships at Oswego Speedway, and he’s likely to add another one on Saturday night.

The Canajoharie driver leads Joey Payne, of New Jersey, by 97 points heading into the last night of points racing. The supermodifieds will have twin 30-lap races to wrap up the regular season.

“We haven’t secured it by any means,” Sitterly said Thursday. “We’re in a good position. I understand what we’ve got to do, so hopefully we can have some fortune and snag it.”

After a week off, the teams will return to Oswego for International Classic Weekend on Sept. 3-5. Sitterly won last year’s Classic for the first time.

A good showing Saturday will give him his third consecutive title and fourth in the last five years. Only three other drivers have won three consecutive championships: Jim Shampine (1972-74), Doug Didero (1994-96) and Mike Muldoon (1997-99).

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I met Bentley Warren at his saloon during a charity motorcycle ride to benefit a 6-year-old girl from Kennebunk suffering with a brain tumor. Right away I could tell that he was a happy-go-lucky, down-to-earth man. He had a smile on his face and was wearing a bandana headband, sunglasses, cut-off jeans shorts and black leather biker boots — a fashion statement that is all his own and hard to beat. One would never guess that this ageless 69-year-old biker was also a legendary super-modified race car driver and successful businessman with a very generous side.

Bentley Warren was born in Kennebunkport in 1940. He began race car driving in the late 1950s and five decades later he is still going at it. Warren drove in the USAC Championship Car series in the 1970-1975 seasons, with 37 career starts, including the 1971 and 1975 Indianapolis 500. He finished in the top 10 a total of 14 times, with his best finish in fourth position in 1970. Warren has raced throughout the country, with his most recent races at Oswego Speedway in New York, driving a wingless super-modified car. In 2007, Warren was inducted in the New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame.

Throughout most of his racing career, Warren has also operated a successful trucking business, Bentley Warren Trucking Inc., based out of Massachusetts.

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Sitterly at speed out of Oswego’s fast turn four

Mike “Pinner” Johnson photo.  www.gosupers.com

OSWEGO, N.Y. – Otto Sitterly drove his Nicotra Racing No. 7 to a fourth-place finish in Saturday night’s first of two 45-lap features at Oswego Speedway.  The top-five finish did little to negate Sitterly’s commanding point lead over the Oswego supermodified field, but it did end an impressive four-race winning streak that Otto had laid down to open the 2010 season.

Sitterly finished a disappointing ninth in the second 45-lapper and admitted the night never developed into what he had hoped.  The Canajoharie, N.Y., shoe spoke of tire issues that he felt clearly hindered his chances at a fifth victory on the 2010 season.
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Otto Sitterly (Pinner Photo)

Oswego, N.Y. – Otto Sitterly drove his blue G&I Homes No. 7 to his fourth win in as many weeks Saturday night with another win at Oswego Speedway.  

But Sitterly didn’t dominate this supermodified feature.  In fact, at one point a fourth win to start the season was very much in doubt.  

Sitterly ran in the bottom half of the top five for most of 45-lap affair.  A strong-running Dan Connors Jr. paced the field until the closing stages of the race, and pulled away from former Classic winners Joe Gosek and Tim Snyder in the process.  
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Otto Sitterly kept his track title defense on course by winning his second supermodified feature in as many weeks Saturday night at the Oswego Speedway. The Canajoharie driver chased down and bested Canada’s Dave McKnight, Jr. with 9 laps to go to earn the victory in the 45-lap event.

“I just tried to go easy at the beginning and not burn it up too much” Sitterly said. “But at the same time, you can’t wait around. They all seemed to be eager and hungry tonight, everybody.”

His competitors are certainly “eager and hungry” for a win. Sitterly has owned victory lane for three straight Oswego supermodified features, dating back to the 2009 International Classic.
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