Glen Ridge Opening Night Exciting, But Cut Short Due To Power Outage

Column By: LAURIE FALLIS / RPW – FULTONVILLE, NY – With the long cold winter, and even longer spring filled with snow, sleet, and rain, Mother nature was finally nice and gave us a beautiful day of racing Sunday at the Glen Ridge Motorsports Park.

With most of the night’s features completed. However, with five laps remaining, during the Pro Stock feature, officials had to cancel the rest of the evening. When they turned the lights on due to darkness, the pole in the second turn sparked and caused the generator to malfunction. It was thene that they decided to throw the checkers on the event as it was pass halfway.

Management was able to get the Modifieds on the track, but felt it would not be safe to start the feature.

There will be double features in two weeks for the Crate Modifieds. Next week will be a King of Dirt event at the Ridge.

When the fans left they were given free passes to get into the races on the double feature night due to the dust that was encountered in the stands. What an amazing gesture by the speedway as they are trying to do the best job possible for the fans and racers.

In the Crate Modifieds, 2016 Albany-Saratoga Speedway Modified champion Marc Johnson was on hand driving the 10d machine and took home heat number one. Joe Orlando won the 2nd heat.

With the process of heads up start, the feature lineup was determined on how you did in your heat race…until handicapping comes into play. That being said The shortened Pro Stock race had “Cousin” Luke starting on the pole in the feature and the race went green-to-checkers, with Luke bringing home the opening night victory.

Norm Loubier had a second place car until he spun in turns one and two. That brought out the caution which inevitably ended the race, giving the runner up spot to Justin Knight in the Todd Hoffman-owned machine. Third was Scott Lawrence, who was his Albany-Saratoga Street Stock.

Heat winners were Horning and Loubier.

Limited Sportsman took the green with the 9c of Josh Rozelle and Bill August leading the field into turn one wiht August taking the lead.

Caution came out on lap eight which bunched the cars back up and the 50 was showing he was the car to beat. Meanwhile, Kathy Bellen moved into second and tried to real in the the leader but it was all Bill August who would take the 20-lap win.

Bellen would bring home a strong second followed by Josh Rozelle, Greg Perron and 12-year-old Derreck McGrew Jr.

The 4-Cylinder division had a strong field of cars, bringing 14 cars to the track as they ran the 15 lap feature. PJ Bleau got out to the early lead and he pulled away. Meanwhile, sixth place runner Andy Graves was making his charge to the front. By lap six, Graves was knocking on the back door of Bleau. On the next circuit around, Graves was the leader.

With heavy lap traffic, Bleau would get by Graves once again as the 16 would take the lead, but only for a short time. Graves would get back by PJ and never look back, going on to win the main event.

“I just got back in town and we decided to go racing,” Graves said in victory lane. “We just pulled the race car out of the snow bank today. We ran out of gas in warmups and made a dash to get some and it was all worth it as we parked it in victory lane.”

Bleau settled for second. Steve Ryan was third. Fourth was Cole Lawton and finishing fifth was CJ Shelper, This race went green-to-checkers, Hats off to them all as they ran a great race. Bleau and Ryan were heat race winners.

Senior slingshots took the green as this race would also run there 10-lap feature without a yellow. Brett Putnam got out to an early lead. Setting his sights on the leader was the 621 of Tyler Vadney as he was all over the car of Putnam.

The cars made contact getting Putnam sideways but he hung on and was able to continue.

Vadney gave it one more try down low but it was Putnam holding on and taking the win. He also won the heat race.

Junior slingshots had Darryn Fallis and Garrett Poland take the green in the 10-lap feature event. Poland jumped out to the early lead as Fallis was running in second.

With a caution coming out on lap five, this gave the rookie driver Fallis the chance he needed. On the restart, “Dangerous Darryn” used the outside line to grab the number one spot and he never looked back, giving the third generation driver the victory. He also won his heat race.

Finishing second was was Pollard.

Glen Ridge Motorsports Park will be in action next Sunday night for the King of Dirt event and a full card of great racing action.

Until next week everyone, we’ll see you at the races. Be safe and God Bless our men and women that protect us every day.