~ By Tom Boggie

Well, seeing how Albany-Saratoga Speedway was rained out last Friday, I guess there won’t be a 4^th Turn column this week.

Yeah, right.

I’ve always got enough on the back burner to keep everyone amused.

Let’s start with the Don Davies Memorial NY Modifieds 76, to be held on Tuesday, June 25 at Albany-Saratoga. The Super DIRTcar Series race is already the most highly anticipated event on the SDS schedule, and is going to draw a ton of drivers who want to take part in the memorial race for Don, who passed away last August after a courageous battle with cancer.

Don and his wife JoAnn were two of the most respected journalists in the Northeast, and their “NY Modifieds” column in Area Auto Racing News was a must-read every week for decades.

The 76-lap SDS race will pay $7,600 to win, but will feature two checkered flags. The first will fall at the completion of lap 46, which will then create a 30-lap shootout. Bart DeRocha of Bart Contracting is putting up a $2,000 bonus to the leader of lap 46, and is also adding another $3,000 in bonus money that will be distributed to the top finishers prior to the invert, although the exact number of drivers earning part of that bonus money hasn’t been announced yet.

While the field is under caution following lap 46, either the top four, six or eight will be inverted prior to the start of the final 30 laps.

All 76 laps have been sponsored, and there are so many contingency prizes that I’m not sure how they’re going to keep track of all of them. Mark Krosky of “Krash Menders” has kicked in a number of bonuses, all aimed at drivers who have bad luck during the race. That includes a $250 bonus to the first driver who “Krashes”, and has to be towed to the pits and is out for the night.

The pro stocks and sportsman classes will also be part of the show, and both will be competing for $1,046 to win. Greenacres Landscaping is putting up the extra money for the 23-lap pro stock feature, and Cordova Plumbing is sponsoring the 26-lap sportsman feature.

The latest press release from JoAnn Davies also announced that if enough sportsman cars pull into the pits, two features may be run.

I don’t see why the sportsman wouldn’t have a huge field, somewhere in the 50s. In fact, adding the three classes together, I’ll predict there will be over 120 cars in the pits and a packed grandstand, a fitting tribute to one of the true icons in dirt track racing.

Oh, by the way, the sportsman feature will also be the second leg of the Capital District Racing Association series. Which brings us to the …

CDRA

The Capital District Racing Association is the brainchild of Rob Hazer, a jack of all trades who has worn many hats in the local dirt track arena. It’s a six-race series for sportsman, with two races each at Albany-Saratoga, Glen Ridge Motorsports Park and Lebanon Valley Speedway.

The first race of the series at Glen Ridge drew 21 cars, with Cody Ochs getting the win.

I have no problem with another dirt track racing series, but why does every one have to come up with a four-letter anagram? Let’s not confuse CDRA with CVRA, CRSA, DIRT, USNA, NDRA or even NODA.

What’s that I hear? Did someone ask what is NODA? You have to be a longtime fan and had to be paying close attention to know what this one is. How about a show of hands? Any takers? Going once, going twice …

Which brings us to …

TIM HARTMAN JR.

Yeah, I know. The only thing Hartman Jr. and the CDRA have in common is the sportsman division, but cut me some slack.

Hartman Jr. posted his sixth consecutive win of 2024 at Lebanon Valley last Saturday. He also won the last two races of 2023, giving him an eight-race winning streak, tying the track record for consecutive sportsman victories.

But there’s some gray area in this record. The last driver to win eight in a row was Barry Purdy in 1969 in what was then known as the limited sportsman class.

For those who weren’t around in 1969, sportsman was the name used for the primary class of cars, the coupes and coaches that were so prevalent in the Northeast. Most tracks also ran late models.

At Lebanon Valley in the mid-1960s, they were also running something called the “Special Class”. I haven’t been able to find a lot of information about that division, but Lew Boyd’s book, “Modifieds of the Valley” makes a reference to it in the section about 1968 that says, “Over the course of the last few years, the Special Class had continued to bulk up with qualifying heats and a nightly feature. Along the way, it was renamed the “Limited Sportsman Class.”

Many of the limited sportsman cars in 1969 were more late model than sportsman, including the one that Purdy drove. You can find a picture of that car on the Internet by calling up Lebanon Valley Classics.

When Claude Hoard was driving for Peanut Pierce in 1980, he won 13 features, including a string of seven in a row. I always thought that was the record, which would mean Hartman Jr. broke the record last weekend.

But Brian Bedell is the official record keeper at the Valley, and he has Purdy’s name at the top of the list. Oh, well. Wrong again.

AROUND THE TRACKS

Weather permitting (don’t you hate those words!), Albany-Saratoga is scheduled to run the third leg of the DiCarlo Auto Body 358 Shootout Friday night, along with its regular divisions.

Andy Bachetti hit a personal milestone last weekend when he won the feature at Accord on Friday, and then came back to sweep both the big block and small block features at Lebanon Valley on Saturday. He said that’s the first time in his career he’s pulled off a trifecta. His big block win at the Valley came in the annual JC Flach Memorial.

Joey Scarborough drove to his second win of the season at Devil’s Bowl on Saturday. The Bowl will be hosting the Slate Valley 50 on Sunday, a big block/small block race that pays $10,000 to win, and Stewart Friesen has already confirmed he’ll be racing.

Peter Britten came up with what is his biggest win so far in 2024 when he won the Nostalgia Night Big Series #1 at Orange County Speedway last weekend.

Weedsport was in action on Tuesday with the Ferris 50, which was won by Mat Williamson. Albany-Saratoga regular Jack Lehner finished fourth, his best finish ever at Weedsport, and Britten was fifth.

Hey, I’m tellin’ ya. Keep an eye on 14-year-old Brock Pinkerous, a former sportsman driver at Albany-Saratoga. He had two more top-10 finishes in the rain-plagued Hovis RUSH Late Model Flynn’s Tire/Gunter’s Honey Tour last weekend to maintain his lead in the point race, which will pay $20,000 to the champion at the end of the year. “Bam Bam” is scheduled to make his debut in a Super Late Model Friday night at Lernerville.