~ By Tom Boggie

I’ll be honest with you. It’s going to be a rough week for The 4^th Turn. Albany-Saratoga Speedway rained out last Friday and because of nasty, old Hurricane Debby, the same thing could happen this week.

Reading The 4^th Turn this week is like watching a boring NASCAR race at Talladega. You really want to call move on to something else, but you don’t want to miss “the big one.”

Well, guess what. There’s no “big one” coming today. So if you want to go clean the cat box or throw out some of those slimy, date-expired cold cuts that are sitting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, be my guest.

If you plan on sticking around, I’ve got some old notes left that I haven’t touched yet.

They come from a conversation I had back in April, at the Albany-Saratoga tech day, with Rich Petersen. Yeah, that Rich Petersen, the head flagger at Malta who has created his own fan club.

Petersen and I have known each other for a long time. We’ve even hoisted a couple of beers together, especially during the old days at the Albany-Saratoga banquets, when we’d tell the bartender to put our refills “on Lyle’s tab.”

Petersen isn’t sure when he exactly found his way on to the flagstand at Malta. “It was somewhere around 1985, 1990,” he said. “I had been doing other jobs at the track, selling gas, working the pit gate. I worked with (former head flagger) Bob Blgelow for a while and then when he decided he didn’t want to come down from Vermont every week, I took over. And I’ve only missed a couple of nights ever since.

“C.J. (former Albany-Saratoga owner C.J. Richards) took me under his wing,” he added. “I’ve never had anything bad to say about anyone in the Richards family.”

In those days, the flagger had more authority. The pit steward had control of the pits and the flagger had control of the race track. There were no one-way radios or race directors. Flaggers had to make quick decisions, and stick with them when drivers got hostile after the races.

But today, with race directors calling the shots from the tower (you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Albany-Saratoga promoter Lyle DeVore slowly drag out his “Yellllow, yellllow, yellllow” call), flaggers have become virtually invisible, unless they make a mistake.

“I like it better (with the race director),” Petersen said. “I made a lot of enemies before.”

One of the other improvements that he was glad to see was the construction of the present flagstand, replacing the old one, that sat just a few feet above the concrete wall on the front straightaway,

“That old flag stand was definitely more exciting,” he said. “But I never had anything really dangerous happen.”

Petersen, who retired from his real job at Curtis Lumber a couple of years ago, isn’t sure how long he’s going to keep climbing up the stairs to his perch above the front straightaway. “I’m going to be 70 this year,” he said “I can’t keep doing this forever.”

But he’s stuck around for a good reason.

“I wouldn’t have stayed this long if I didn’t like doing it,” he said. “I’ve been lucky to flag for some really good people, guys like Brett Hearn and Kenny Tremont.”

After the 2023 season, he branched out a little bit. “I started working with Chris Jakubiak and his guys,” Petersen said. “I went to Charlotte with them. went to Florida, went to Port Royal. I’ve done more traveling in the last sixth months than I’ve done in my whole life.”

Asked exactly what he was doing for Jakubiak’s team, he smiled and said, “Consulting.”

There’s still just over a month remaining in the 2024 racing season, and whenever the weather cooperates, Petersen will be on his perch on Friday nights.

After that, who knows?

AROUND THE TRACKS

If you were around in the 1960s (Yeah, I know I’m dating myself here), you probably remember the comedy show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. One of the regular skits featured Arte Johnson portraying a cigarette-smoking German soldier named Wolfgang, who always used the tag line, “Verrrrry interesting.”

That phrase came to mind when I heard that DeVore had rescheduled last Friday’s rained-out John Grady Memorial Nostalgia night until Friday, Sept. 13 (which had been an open date on the Malta schedule.)

That date is also the second night of the Fonda 200 Weekend and features qualifying for both the modifieds and sportsman. With the 200 winner getting at least $50,000 to win, it’s important to get into the redraw through the heat races. It will be “verrrry interesting” to see how drivers pick and choose on Sept. 13.

Mike Mahaney continued his late summer resurgence last week, winning the 358 modified race at Devil’s Bowl on Saturday. That was Mahaney’s first win ever at the Bowl. The C.J. Richards Memorial was rained out on Sunday, and has been rescheduled for Sunday, Aug. 18.

Orange County Speedway hosted the Big Series Race #2 last Sunday, with Anthony Perrego finishing first and former Albany-Saratoga champion Peter Britten second.

Wow. Tim Hartman Jr. went a whole weekend without a win, but that’s only because both Albany-Saratoga and Lebanon Valley rained out. But his daughter, Brexley, made sure the Hartman Racing Team didn’t have a lost weekend, as she recorded the first go-kart win of her career Saturday morning at the Valley. Hey, Tim. I’d like to throw my hat into the ring to become her agent. Maybe we can put together a NIL deal with Dunkin’ Donuts.

Matt Sheppard had a couple of lucrative days earlier this week, winning both Summer Showdown on the Border at Mohawk International on Tuesday (that one paid $10,000 to win), as well as the Rumble on the Seaway at Cornwall Wednesday (he earned $10,500 for that win). On Tuesday, he passed Stewart Friesen on the final lap to get the win and on Wednesday, he drew the pole and led flag-to-flag, with Friesen again second.

Sheppard and Friesen have combined for 38 wins this season. Sheppard is 21-for-55 (a winning percentage of 38 percent) and Friesen is 17-for-42 (40 percent).

Two of Malta’s best also made the trip North. Mahaney finished 19^th on Tuesday and sixth on Wednesday, while Jack Lehner was 12^th on Tuesday and 16th on Wednesday.