New Egypt Speedway Opening Night Notebook
New Egypt Speedway Opening Night Notebook
By: Pete MacDonald
32- 358 Modifieds, 26 Crate Modifieds, 10 Street Stocks, and 6 Rookie Sportsman filled the pits on Saturday.
Tommy Farrell took a wild spill going end over end in turn one, on lap one of the Modified feature. He would be able walk to the ambulance.
Delaware invader Brad Trice didn’t look too bad in only his second ever NES start. He redrew the outside pole and remained in the top five until a late race skirmish relegated him to a ninth place finish.
Speaking of Trice, it was nice to see two invaders from The First State invade NES on Saturday. The other being Shawn Ward, who broke something in the rear in hotlaps ending his night before it really got started.
Was nice to see third generation driver Billy Osmun making his debut in the Rookie Sportsman class. Billy is the grandson of former Flemington Speedway standout Billy Osmun and son of NES Modified contender Willie Osmun. Billy would qualify for Saturday’s feature via the consolation and end up 11th overall.
Neal Williams fresh off his Super DIRTcar win down in Florida was at NES on Saturday and had an eventful hot lap session on Saturday. One of the EVAC tubes, which helps create a little extra oil pressure, blew out and some oil made its way into the exhaust creating an impressive smoke show. Williams would rebound to finish second in his heat race and 14th in the feature with a broken shock.
Chris Esposito, a former Grandview weekly competitor, will be making NES his Saturday night stop in 2015. After qualifying through the consolation, Esposito would drive up to a fine ninth place finish come the end of the 30-Lap feature.
Jimmy Horton who is returning to NES weekly in 2015, in what I believe is the best weekly equipment he has had in a long time aboard the Lou Cicconi owned 43, was fastest in Thursday night’s practice session. Horton seemed to never settle into a rhythm on Saturday ending up 12th.
Neal Williams has his North East Wingless Sprint Car in attendance on Saturday to shake down. Carburetor problems plagued the car from the time it was unloaded. Between NES and Accord Speedways, roughly ten of the NEWS cars are in existence.
After the wet and cold weather that was clearly brutal on the North East and constant rain during the day on Friday, the track still was very, very wet underneath causing less than favorable conditions. After track management’s preliminary tests, they believed the surface would have held up otherwise they would have cancelled. I look at it as it’s early April, everything is still wet. Hopefully once things start to dry out the surface will be smoothed out.
NES is back in action this Saturday night featuring the 358 Modifieds, Sportsman, NERS 305 Sprint Cars along with the GSVSCC Vintage Cars. Hot laps will be at 5:15PM with racing at 6:00.
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