Saturday, August 16 - Pat had to go to her new office in the Morristown area and unpack her boxes for her office. I went along for the muscle part and moved and help empty over 10 boxes. It took longer than we anticipated as we finally left around 4 and headed south for our Saturday night destination, the New Egypt Speedway. It was our first appearance of the year at New Egypt and the main reason for showing up was to watch the always competitive and exciting ARDC midgets. We arrived at 5:55 for the scheduled 6 PM starting time with warmups still underway. Action started early in the midgets as Stephanie Stevens took a nasty flip in turn one during warmups when a torsion stop came off. It was 6:34 when the first competition green flew with the sportsman running three heats for their 31 car field. Next up was the super stock time trial session for their 24 cars which run with several at one time on the track.

The first feature of the evening was called to the line at 7:05 for the crate 1 sportsman which consisted of 14 cars. Bridgeport invader, Pat Hires, slammed his way past leader, Richie Cass Sr., in turn three coming to the checker and prevailed. Or so we thought until tech inspection where Hires was found to have an illegal carburetor and was DQ’d. Cass was awarded the win. The track surface was being difficult with turns one and two showing no dust (maybe due to the fact that the grandstands in those corners kept the direct sunlight off) while turns three and four sent up clouds of dirt. It’s tough to keep a dirt surface consistent. The ARDC midgets were up next for their three qualifying heats for their nice 31 car field. During the midget heats both Steve Buckwalter and Eric Heydenreich got upside down with Heydenreich’s the worst of the two finishing his #11 for the evening while Buckwalter returned in his heat but not up to snuff. The modifieds had a nice field of 36 cars with Billy Pauch having troubles in his normal mount before switching to the Will Brown #1W for the rest of the evening. His son, Billy Jr., piloted his new ride the Noll #6N to the third heat victory while also winning an ARDC midget heat race in the Two Dog Racing #49. Consies followed for the sportsman, midgets and modifieds with all qualifying in the books by 9:03. A pit crew tire changing contest followed and it was not until 9:32 when we saw our second feature of the evening.

The super stocks had a difficult time getting started but when they finally settled down to racing after six cautions the racing was competitive. George Quinlan held off Todd Cray for the win with the checkered waving at 10:00. The ARDC midget feature was next up going green at 10:09. It was a very good race with some strong runs from the back of the field. First Steve Buckwalter charged from 19th into the top three until mechanical woes in the form of a broken throttle linkage had him pulling into the infield late in the event. Billy Pauch Jr. also motored from 17th starting spot to grab second at the end. Andy Martin who loves running the outside here won from the 8th starting hole over Pauch with 12th starting P.J. Gargiulo claiming 3rd with A.J. Ernesto 4th and Nick Wean up from 11th for 5th. This one checkered at 10:30. There seemed to be some confusion over the distance of the feature with the flagger giving the five to go on lap 20. It turned out the distance was to be 20 laps (as the ARDC announcer proclaimed the entire evening) and the race was restarted on a green, white, checker format. Since we felt the race was already over it would have been a shame if Martin had not won the race. There were still two features to go and luckily they ran the modified one next. It was pretty dusty during the modified feature but there was good racing especially in the battle up front. Dom Buffalino came out of the sixth hole to claim his second win of the year over strong running Jim Robertson who came from 7th with Tim Tanner Jr. advancing from 14th to 3rd at the finish over 15th starter, Rick Laubach, and Bill Paulmenn who started first. The checkered waved on this one at 10:54 with the sportsman still to go.

With a good 2 hour drive home we attempted to exit the jammmed parking lot and heard over the speaker that Ryan Forte won the sportsman feature before we pulled off the grounds. The racing was good but we have a problem with a program that lasts almost 5 hours. This is too long and something should be dropped when you have a special division in for the evening. I know you say we could have arrived later but not knowing how they run the preliminaries you want to be there so you don’t miss something say like the midget heats.