Sunday, May 8 - We spent the night at a Best Western in Johnson City, New York and the next morning left around 10:45 to make the trek back up Rts. 26 and 21 to the Broome-Tioga Sports Center. This large facility is located on both sides of Rt. 79 west of Center Lisle. Our directions were not very good and we traveled about 10 miles out of our way in searching for the complex. As you approach Broome-Tioga on the right side is a large motocross track which had many riders on hand along with many motorhomes for the participants. On the left side going west was the next part of the complex which consisted of a demo derby pit and a 1/7 mile dirt off-road course. We arrived around 12:50 and paid our $10 admission which allowed you to visit both tracks. We walked over a nice bridge built over the stream and walked toward three sections of metal bleachers with wooden planks as seats. Lo and behold in the center section near the top row sat long time trackchaser, Rick Schneider from Long Island, staking claim to another new race track. We sat with Rick and chatted the entire time we were there after not having seen him for close to two years.

The autocross and demo derby were scheduled to begin at 1 PM but it was 1:25 until things got underway. There would be two heats for the six car autocross field and one demo derby for the five vehicles entered. The first group of heat racers were given one slow lap to check out the contour of the track which consisted of a short straight leading into the first corner with the first jump shortly thereafter. They then proceeded uphill where they encountered two more jumps before reaching a tractor tire filled with hay. There the descent began to another tight, wet corner and into the final jump which was also the finish line. Each heat races was three laps in distance with the feature being four laps in length. The two heats were entertaining and were spun off quickly. The announcer with his stout announcing system stood in front of us and kept us informed and stirred up the crowd to make noise and have fun. His best statement was “we are not here for a long time, just a good time” and he was indeed correct has the entire program took just a little over an hour to complete. After the heats were run the demo derby was contested. After the demo derby was finished they cleaned up the smashed cars from the pit area surrounded by concrete barriers before venturing into the autocross main event. The feature went green at 2:25 and just five minutes later Jerry Harman, one of the heat winners, stood in victory lane with his trophy and check as winner. We all went out into the parking lot and Rick and us swapped stories for the next hour until we finally bid farewell and headed to the exit. It was an enjoyable day in the sun and hoping that the promoters can drum up more cars to be built and brought out as it was entertaining and would be more so with 12 to 18 cars racing.