Friday, August 12 - It was a perfect day. The sky was bright blue, the humidy was low and there was not a cloud in the sky. All this on a Friday, what could possibly make it better. I’ll tell you we had a motorhome trip plan up into New York. Bruce had the day off and I left at 12:30. At 1:30 we all rendezvoused at the Route 33 Park & Ride. Bruce showed up with the motorhome, I showed up after working half a day, Bruce’s brother Bob showed up from New Jersey and Mike Wenner showed up from Coplay, PA. Within 10 minutes we all piled in and were on our way to north of the border. Our destination was Glen Ridge Motorsports Park in Fultonville, New York. Bob and Mike were making their first trip to the 1/4 mile semi banked clay oval and Bruce and I were there the very first year they ever ran. We pulled the motorhome in at 6:45 and things have sure changed. The tiny grandstand that was there originally could never have held the nice crowd on hand to see the races presented by the close to 100 cars in the pits. What a difference!!

There were 30 sportsman, 21 big block modifieds, 15 rookie sportsman, 14 cruisers and 12 street stocks. The first heats took to the track at 7:35 and the sportsman ran four 8 lap heats before 8:00. The modifieds followed with 3 heats, the rookie sportsman had 2 heats and the cruisers and street stocks ran only features. The sportsman also required a consolation. Once racing started they ran one race after the other like a fine tuned clock. By 9:30 all was in the books except the modified and sportsman features. There was a 25 minute intermission and racing resumed. The modified feature was up first and the 35 lap event saw only two cautions. It was a highly competitive race and the final 10 laps saw a race for the lead that was awesome. Craig Hanson held off Kenny Tremont for the win followed by Marc Johnson, Jackie Brown and Bobby Varin.

The sportsman feature was last on the card and it looked like it was going to be non-stop but a 9 car tangle on lap 19 brought out the red flag. Dave Constantino won the 25 lap event.

Racing was over at 10:40 and it was a good night. What a difference from our first visit years ago. The only downside of the entire night was a rock the size of a baseball was thrown over the fence during the heat race and struck the man sitting next to Bob in the shoulder and then hit Bob in the rib cage. Bob sported a sore side the remainder of the weekend and a nice sized bruise where the rock hit him. We ate sandwiches in the motorhome waiting for the parking lot to clear then headed for the campground up near Caroga Lake.