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Oswego Supermodifieds a Legacy of Speed at the Steel Palace · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Brake Fix's History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part
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  by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the
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  Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of
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  Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.
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  The Oswego Speedway located in Oswego, New York was built in 1951
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  when original owners Harry George and William Caruso converted the one-Time
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  Wine Creek horse track into a three eighth mile dirt auto racing facility.
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  The track was paid during 1952 and remained a three eighth mile
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  until 1961 when it was enlarged to its current five eighth mile size.
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  The Oswego Speedway has been a continuously run weekly racetrack
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  since it opened in August of 1951.
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  Dick O'Brien, former public relations and track manager at Oswego Speedway, kicked
• 0:48
  off this IMRRC Center conversation about the history of supermodified racing,
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  where he spent 40 years in motorsports and spoke to the early history of the
• 0:56
  track and how it has significantly involved this discipline of racing.
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  Following his presentation, drivers from Oswego's over 70 year
• 1:04
  history were invited on stage.
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  Bentley Warren, Warren Conium, Eddie and Brandon Bellinger, Allison Slode,
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  the only woman to win a super modified feature, nine time champion Otto
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  Siderly, Dave Danzer, and car owner and promoter John Nicotra answered a wide
• 1:19
  variety of questions posed to them by the voice of Oswego Speedway, Roy Sova.
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  Enjoy this fun and insightful view on how Oswego and Super Modified Racing has been
• 1:29
  a major influence in their racing careers.
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  Welcome to the center conversation.
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  Oswego Super Modifieds, a legacy of speed at the Steel Palace.
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  We've got some outstanding Hall of Fame drivers, future Hall of Fame
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  drivers here at the International Motor Racing Research Center.
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  And to start our program I'm going to call on Dick O'Brien, long time
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  track manager at the Oswego Speedway, who was involved in the change from
• 1:55
  the Modifieds to Supermodifieds and the growth of the Supers.
• 1:57
  Dick?
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  I think we're going to have a great afternoon for
• 2:01
  Supermodified racing right here.
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  We've got a lot of great drivers, owners, a lot of people that donated to the sport.
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  I'd like a special thanks to the Purdy family for, uh, Bringing their iconic
• 2:13
  race car here and making things happen.
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  But what I want to talk about initially is what happened before the
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  Supers got there and the changeover into the Super Modified Division.
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  And Harry, Bill, and George Caruso always loved auto racing.
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  In the late 40s, they bought a modified stock car.
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  They raced it, Sandy Creek and Vernon tracks.
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  Dante Rapone was their driver.
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  The car wasn't very fast.
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  Being the sportsman that they were, they went out to Chicago to Andy
• 2:51
  Granatelli and bought a motor from him of STP fame, put it in their race car.
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  It still wasn't very fast.
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  So, the next step, they went out and bought the Long Dorman.
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  Vine Creek Racetrack, which was located on the site of the Oswego Speedway.
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  And they were going to clean up the dirt track and use it for a practice track,
• 3:16
  so that Dante could pick up the pace, maybe, and be a little more competitive.
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  Well, this was a period, post war, racetracks were popping
• 3:25
  up all over the country.
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  And then he says, We're, we're sort of messing with maybe
• 3:30
  the wrong end of the deal.
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  Let's build a racetrack.
• 3:33
  So they built Oswego Speedway.
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  It opened in 51.
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  It's a half mile dirt track.
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  They ran seven races that year.
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  Charlie Berry of Salve won the initial race of her run at Oswego.
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  One of the winners that year was John Terese Sr.
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  And his son, John Jr., and Eric now own Oswego Speedway.
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  They ran seven races there.
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  They opened up in 52 with a half mile dirt track, rough, bumpy, dusty.
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  They were sailing dust all over Sweden.
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  Didn't like it.
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  They shut the place down after four weeks.
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  Paved, reopened in August, is a half mile racetrack.
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  The next thing, we had the three brothers, Harry was upstairs,
• 4:22
  overseeing the tower and the finances.
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  Bill was good inspecting the cars.
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  He was good with tubing and welding, and he was our inspector.
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  And George Sr.
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  ran the concession stand.
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  And he's the man responsible for bringing those world famous Hoffman
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  hot dogs to Oswego Speedway.
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  So things rolled along during the 50s.
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  And in 57, two things happened.
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  They added a second division.
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  These were for flathead motor stock cars.
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  They were called B's.
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  And then the overheads that had been running, they were the A cars.
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  And they were the big hitters.
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  You know, Swifty, Irish Jack, Ellinger, Bliss.
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  The A's got a bigger purse than the B's.
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  They were a faster car.
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  Their motors were a little more expensive.
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  At the end of that year, the Carossos decided to run a big race.
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  They had some cars there.
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  They had a decent turnout of fans.
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  So they ran a 100 lap international class.
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  Irish Jack Murphy won it, won 1, 000.
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  So things moved along.
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  In 1961, that was a very, very important year in the history of the racetrack.
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  First of all, the track was enlarged to its present 5 inch mile size.
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  So the racing got a little faster.
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  They were having some problems with the B's.
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  The B's had more cars than the A's, and they wanted equal cars.
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  The Caruso brothers talked it over, and they didn't feel that, you know,
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  the A's were drawing the people, and they went back and forth.
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  And finally one night, they struck.
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  So the B's came down and blocked the racetrack.
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  You couldn't run any races.
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  The Carusos asked the police to come, and they opened the gate, and they
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  asked all the B's to leave the property.
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  And to my knowledge, I don't believe there's ever been a flathead
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  race at Oswego since that day.
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  They also had a deal for Nolan Swift, who was the top dog with the 10 pins.
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  He built a two frame modified for the 61 season.
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  By the rules of the day, that was an illegal car.
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  And it kept going back and forth.
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  You know, he kept demanding, you know, let me run, let me do it.
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  So at the end of the year, as a compromise, they said they could run
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  it in the And the classic race had been building since 57, it now is the
• 6:49
  biggest asphalt modified race around.
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  And it was billed as an open competition modified race.
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  So what happened, cars came from Michigan and Canada, these were
• 7:04
  super modifieds, but they came under this open competition rule.
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  The crucials were in a tight spot.
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  You had a pit full of modifieds, and you had a few supers.
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  What are you going to do?
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  You had a big crowd.
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  Finally, I guess, it came down to Harry.
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  And Harry said, I like these supers.
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  Everybody's got modifieds.
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  Around Oswego, Fulton, Utica, Spencer, Lancaster, Shaverlock, Albany,
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  Saratoga, all had pavement modifieds.
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  Harry liked these supers.
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  It was different.
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  He says, let them run.
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  It wasn't popular.
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  They dominated.
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  Bennett, Lloydy John got a Trump role.
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  Bennett wins the race.
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  A lot of crumbling fans.
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  So, in 62, he opened the rules up.
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  He says, We're going to run Supers.
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  Well, that sounded good.
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  The Michigan cars come in.
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  There were no local cars.
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  Other than Swifty, he's the only guy that could stay on the lead lap.
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  But, Harry, Put money into the purse and he said some of you local guys go
• 8:11
  out and build some cars or get some cars Guys are taking the bodies off the cars.
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  Jimmy Champlain was there had an old 10 pins car He took the body
• 8:19
  off in 62 and started his career.
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  He wasn't very good, but obviously he picked up the pace a few years later.
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  And he turned out to be the man out there for many, many years.
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  But he kept putting money into the purse, and now you've got a
• 8:32
  situation where the field is building.
• 8:35
  We've got a really good weekly show.
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  The next thing you know, the, uh, switch to supers was basically complete.
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  It took a while.
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  When it took money, he had a little motto.
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  Money brings cars.
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  Cars bring people.
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  And he used that.
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  Even though the crowds weren't that big, once he kept getting
• 8:58
  these cars, we went from a local modified truck to a regional truck.
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  Guys started coming in.
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  Todd Gibson.
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  Norm Becker came in from Canada.
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  Bentley Warren comes in from New England.
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  The people liked that mixture.
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  Of the out of town invaders.
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  Versus the local guys trying to pick up the pace.
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  I've been there an awful long time.
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  I was there 40 years at the racetrack.
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  I think the most important decision in the history of the Cerrico Speedway
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  happened in 1961 when they went against the grain while they basically
• 9:34
  threw the modified rulebook out the window and they brought in the supers.
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  But, they followed it up with money and made that class
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  develop at the Cerrico Speedway.
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  I got one other quick story and then I got to stay out of the way.
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  Everybody wants to keep things moving.
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  You know, they were running in the 60s, Saturday night.
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  Superzone.
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  3H, 2 semis, Patsy, 45 lab, A main.
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  I was working up there then, in the early 60s, 64, 65.
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  I used to talk to Harry, I said, Harry, we got to run a race.
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  We got to do something a little different.
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  The classics coming along.
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  And he says, well, what would we run?
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  He says, well, We could run USAC sprint cars.
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  They had Indy type drivers, Rutherford, Branson, Plusky, Omsers, were all
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  running sprint cars back then.
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  He wasn't too excited about that, mainly because they
• 10:27
  never ran in upstate New York.
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  He never saw a USAC sprint car race.
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  I did.
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  I used to go from Reading and go here and there to the races.
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  And then I said, you know, if we ran a race, I think I could get Mario
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  Andretti up here in a sprint car.
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  And I did.
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  To an old guard Italian, like the Caruso family, having a
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  Mario dread on their racetrack.
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  That was a big deal.
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  He said, Dick, if you can get a dread over on the race.
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  So I says, okay.
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  So I went down the line on to a USAC Champ car race.
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  I went up to Mario, introduced myself.
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  I said, we're running a big hundred lap race in August.
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  I said, we'd really like to have you up there.
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  He said, I'd love to.
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  I got a really fast.
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  Wally Muskox was my owner, and he's, he's good.
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  He said, I gotta have some travel money though.
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  I said, well what do you gotta have?
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  He said, a thousand dollars.
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  Well, 1966, a thousand dollars was a lot of money.
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  I buzzed right over to the pay phone, called Harry up.
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  I said, Harry, I can get Andretti to come to the suite on Mars.
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  It's gonna take a thousand bucks.
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  He thought for a minute, he says, make the deal.
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  We're ready to go.
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  So I went back, shook his hand, we're ready to go.
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  No contract, no paperwork, just a one on one, shake the hand, there we go.
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  August comes, we're upstairs, Harry and I, we're looking off the
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  tower roof, along the lines of the concession stand, it's a beautiful day.
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  We're going to sell out the Trump grants.
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  I get a call from Danny Bartlett, Pitt signing, he said, There's
• 12:02
  that drainage down here.
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  He won't sign in until he gets his money.
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  I said to Harry, I said, Harry, I'll run down, I'll get him signed in and
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  get him inside and he'll be ready to go.
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  Harry said, no, I'll bring him up here, I'll give him the money.
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  I want to meet Mario Andretti.
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  So I bring him upstairs, I bring him upstairs, Harry Caruso,
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  Mario Andretti, shake hands.
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  Next thing I know, They're talking in Italian.
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  Where they're from, where they did, you know, the whole deal.
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  Ten or fifteen minutes.
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  Back and forth in Italian.
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  I have no idea what they're talking about.
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  Then I get a call from the bitch.
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  It's Wally Muskowski.
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  He says, get in dirty over here.
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  We're ready to warm up.
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  They only give you two warm up sections for the sprints.
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  I gotta have him over here.
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  So I told Harry, Harry, he's gotta have his money.
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  So Harry always carried a big lot of bills.
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  That's it.
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  Pulls him out, big thick rubber band around him.
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  Takes the rubber band up and it flips open.
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  There's a stack of ones.
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  Takes down to the bottom part.
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  And there's all the hundreds.
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  And drives like this.
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  There he peels off ten 100 bills.
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  He was in his driver's seat.
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  Takes them, pulls them up.
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  Puts it in the separate pocket.
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  Closes it.
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  Goes down.
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  Sets fast time.
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  Wins the 100 lap race.
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  We got him back the next year.
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  In 67.
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  In 67.
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  And he, uh, had the leader card.
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  Sprinter with a big Ford 4 cam motor.
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  Dominated.
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  Twin 50s.
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  Wins them both.
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  He's got his twin brother Aldo there.
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  And they raced for the first time in USAC competition together.
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  Aldo wasn't very good.
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  Sorry.
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  But Mario put on the show again.
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  So we ended up the deal.
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  Mario Andretti's career record at Oswego was unbeaten.
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  Three feature wins out of three.
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  We were, at that time, the top super modified track in the country.
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  And having IndyCar drivers and people like Andretti there elevated our
• 14:20
  status as one of the top pavement short tracks in the country.
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  That's it, folks.
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  The early years of the SWCCO speech.
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  One other person I want to recognize is one of the former track owners and
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  one of the sons of one of the original owners, Romy Caruso, who's back here.
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  Now the main part of the show.
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  I'm going to introduce all of the people who are down here on our page.
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  I'm going to introduce them in alphabetical order by their first name.
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  Which is also ladies first.
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  Ladies and gentlemen, Allison Sloan.
• 15:05
  Bethany Warren.
• 15:17
  Brandon Bellinger.
• 15:22
  Dave Dancer.
• 15:28
  Eddie Bunyan, 83.
• 15:34
  John Acotra.
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  Arnold
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  Sidderly.
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  And Warren Coneyan.
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  Just to run down a few things.
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  We've got, uh, Eddie Belminger with two track championships.
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  Brandon with one.
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  Arnold Sidderly with nine.
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  Eddie Belminger with two.
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  Warren Coneyan, he had two.
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  And of course, Bentley had six.
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  Classic wins, Dave Dantzler with one, Otto Sidderly with five, Eddie
• 16:10
  Bellinger with five, Bentley Warren with six, and Warren Coney with two.
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  So we've got some high powered people up here.
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  What we're going to do is we're going to ask questions.
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  Uh, we've got two microphones, they'll pass them around as we ask questions of
• 16:22
  the individuals up here on the stage.
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  And I want to start out with Bentley.
• 16:27
  Bentley, you won your first ever Classic in 1969 in the Purdy Deuce.
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  What do you remember most about that race?
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  Winning it.
• 16:38
  Okay, Allison, next question for you.
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  No, go ahead, Ben.
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  It was certainly a unique opportunity for you, the iconic
• 16:46
  number two, to take it to the win.
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  And then, of course, next year you left the ride, Warren and Cody took it over
• 16:52
  and went to USAC racing for a while.
• 16:54
  Yeah, so what?
• 16:58
  Batman can be like this, he can also be a nice guy.
• 17:03
  Alright, Warren, Pauline, what are you next?
• 17:07
  That's a hard act to follow.
• 17:10
  Well, you gotta be able to say one or two words.
• 17:12
  We're good.
• 17:13
  Warren, when you drove the Ferdie Goose, it started out as a Small
• 17:17
  block car and you talked to the Purdy crew and, and Howard Purdy and
• 17:22
  had it converted into a big block.
• 17:23
  Why did you do that?
• 17:24
  Well, I told him the first night I drove the car the week previous
• 17:27
  to the classic, told him this car's a little short on power.
• 17:31
  And he said, no kidding, it's a four by four.
• 17:34
  I said, well, all the cars I've driven are four by fours, and
• 17:36
  they had more snot than that.
• 17:38
  So he went home and, uh, made a couple changes.
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  He put a big box in it.
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  Came back and, uh, surprised me the week later with a big blockhead.
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  What difference does it make?
• 17:49
  Power?
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  Well, it didn't have a heck of a lot more power than the 4x4.
• 17:53
  Like, a good 4x4 is a pretty good motor.
• 17:55
  Anyways, it did the job.
• 17:57
  Interesting, since it got the pretty goose, it almost never ran a full season.
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  It had under 100 total feature races at the Oswego Speedway.
• 18:06
  And the average feature finish for that car was a 5.
• 18:10
  8.
• 18:11
  Eddie Bellinger.
• 18:12
  You were the first driver, and I think the only one, who made
• 18:16
  a pit stop and won the classic.
• 18:19
  A lot of other drivers have tried it before you and after you,
• 18:22
  but you made it work that year.
• 18:23
  I know it was a plan you had going in.
• 18:25
  Why did you decide to do it that way?
• 18:27
  The tires weren't really holding up all that great.
• 18:29
  We just kind of felt like, We just had to do something to get a chance going.
• 18:33
  And did you practice the pit stop?
• 18:35
  Oh, the boys did.
• 18:35
  I didn't.
• 18:38
  So they're still doing the work for you now?
• 18:39
  All I had to do was pull it and stop.
• 18:41
  Get it out of gear.
• 18:43
  Get it back in gear.
• 18:45
  Alright, Brandon.
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  Your grandfather was a track champion three times at the Oswego Speedway.
• 18:51
  Your father's been a track champion.
• 18:53
  You won the track championship a couple of years ago.
• 18:56
  First ever two generation family to win.
• 18:58
  First ever three generation family to be track champions.
• 19:01
  What does that mean to you?
• 19:03
  As a competitor or as a person?
• 19:05
  It was definitely a pretty special win.
• 19:06
  I feel like getting a swiggle, even winning a heat race is hard.
• 19:08
  But much less, you know, if you can do anything beyond that.
• 19:10
  I mean, winning a feature is hard.
• 19:12
  And to have the opportunity and to be able to deliver one in a
• 19:15
  championship is pretty special.
• 19:16
  You've got the classic win as well.
• 19:18
  Your grandfather never won a classic.
• 19:20
  I don't have a classic win yet, but I'm going to change it this year.
• 19:22
  Oh, that's right.
• 19:23
  That's right.
• 19:24
  That's right.
• 19:26
  That's right.
• 19:27
  That's right.
• 19:28
  Alright, Alison Sloan, in last year's classic.
• 19:31
  They're the first woman who ever won features at the Oswego Speedway.
• 19:35
  I know you yourself consider yourself a race car driver, but in the history of
• 19:40
  supermodifieds at Oswego, there have only been three women who have ever competed.
• 19:44
  Sheila Hayes, who was quit a few years ago, probably before you were born.
• 19:47
  Jen Chesbrough, and now you.
• 19:49
  When you get into a car, what do you think?
• 19:52
  I mean, does that ever enter in your mind at all?
• 19:54
  No, being a woman is not something I consider on the racetrack.
• 19:58
  How did you get started?
• 20:00
  I know you started in, what, TQs?
• 20:02
  I started at quarter midgets when I was seven, and I raced locally until I
• 20:05
  was sixteen, and then I jumped into a three quarter midget with Lou Ciccone.
• 20:08
  It was Lou Ciccone.
• 20:16
  He wanted to get out of his ISMA Supermodified, and he reached
• 20:20
  out and said, You want a track championship in a TQ with the ATQMRA?
• 20:25
  You know, he's like, here's your next step, buy my car, and
• 20:28
  that's kind of where we headed.
• 20:30
  Dave Danzer, you come from a long racing family at the Oswego Speedway.
• 20:34
  They've been there practically from the beginning.
• 20:37
  Through all those years, they had never won a feature.
• 20:40
  until you started driving.
• 20:42
  What did that mean to you, to be able to put your family's name up
• 20:46
  a little bit higher at the track?
• 20:48
  A lot.
• 20:48
  I mean, I remember going back in the day, and we didn't even make the show.
• 20:52
  It was huge, and, uh, I remember showing up at Classic Weekend a lot
• 20:55
  of times and counting cars, thinking, yeah, they ain't gonna make the race.
• 20:58
  Moved to the next steps, been pretty nice.
• 21:00
  Hopefully we can continue to move up more.
• 21:03
  It's just been a lot of work and a lot of effort in the graduate program.
• 21:06
  Now Otto, you got your start on the dirt.
• 21:09
  You had a pretty good career going on the dirt.
• 21:11
  You moved over to the small block super modifieds at the Oswego Speedway.
• 21:15
  What got you to make that move?
• 21:17
  Probably going to the track in 1990 the first time.
• 21:20
  I'm watching, my high school buddy sat next to me and we drank Miller
• 21:25
  Genuine Draft, so we used to say this guy was one of our picks, and Bentley
• 21:31
  was the other pick, and just watching the cars, you know, um, the speed,
• 21:36
  the noise, the thrill, the feel in the grandstands, so yeah, I was racing
• 21:41
  probably a stock car on dirt then.
• 21:43
  You know, I think I got to a point where I had to make a decision.
• 21:46
  I was going to move out of the stock car class and go into a
• 21:49
  modified type class, and the limited super modifieds came about.
• 21:53
  So for somebody on the outside, I, you know, so many kids.
• 21:57
  That race.
• 21:58
  Super modifieds now are third generation, second generation.
• 22:02
  I had no roots.
• 22:03
  I was a, basically a relative.
• 22:05
  Nobody I, I think it was just something that I looked at and
• 22:08
  said, that's attainable to race.
• 22:10
  A small black, super modified.
• 22:12
  So that's sort of probably what brought me There was a limited
• 22:15
  super modified back then.
• 22:16
  And then you moved into the supermarket buys, which again was a pretty good step.
• 22:21
  You owned your own car for a while, had a lot of success in it.
• 22:24
  Yeah, I ran part years with the small block.
• 22:27
  I really didn't have the funds, so I crashed it.
• 22:30
  I basically was out of business, temporarily, until I could
• 22:33
  patch something together.
• 22:35
  And, you know, after we won a few races, and I had a car that was a
• 22:39
  commodity, I sold it and did well.
• 22:41
  And all the equipment, and really I didn't have to put a lot of
• 22:45
  money with it to buy out a team.
• 22:48
  I bought Jeff West's backup car.
• 22:50
  It was the entire operation.
• 22:52
  You can't buy an engine.
• 22:53
  today for what I bought that whole entire outfit for.
• 22:56
  It was not even 20, 000.
• 22:58
  I actually talked to Eddie about his, and they were along the same
• 23:01
  lines, but there was a lot of equipment that came with Westy's car.
• 23:04
  So yeah, then we ran, you know, Rookie of the Year in 2000.
• 23:08
  I won a couple of races here and there.
• 23:09
  I ran really consistent, and then when the Hawk car came along, and I bought a used,
• 23:14
  needless to say that was the right move.
• 23:16
  I won a lot of races that last year, and basically at
• 23:19
  that point I was out of money.
• 23:20
  So, uh, pretty much I decided I was going to be finished.
• 23:24
  And then he hit it.
• 23:25
  One phone call.
• 23:28
  And it's been an interesting 18 years.
• 23:32
  John, I remember you and I talking on the roof at the Oswego Speedway before
• 23:37
  you got your deal together with Otto.
• 23:39
  And we talked about it as being a good choice for you to go in that direction.
• 23:42
  But what made it your final choice to pick Otto?
• 23:45
  The whole plan was to get a car ready for Davy Hamilton, if he ever
• 23:48
  recovered from his serious injuries.
• 23:50
  And I had talked to quite a few different guys.
• 23:53
  I was friends with Muldoon, and you know, I talked to Otto, and I
• 23:56
  talked to this one and that one.
• 23:57
  And honestly, Muldoon called me one time, and he goes, Otto's your guy.
• 24:02
  Because, you know, I was even thinking Muldoon, Timmy Snyder, I didn't know.
• 24:05
  You know, I was so green.
• 24:07
  But I knew Otto, and Doug Caruso introduced me to Otto, and I watched him.
• 24:12
  I could see that he was the real deal.
• 24:15
  Went that way, and uh, I took Muldoon's advice, and it turned out
• 24:19
  exactly what I would have hoped for.
• 24:21
  Alright, Dave Ganser, we talked about your family history and everything,
• 24:26
  and being the first driver in your family to take a car to Victory Lane.
• 24:30
  When you first switched to the super modified, your very first
• 24:34
  time on the track, it was not a real pleasant experience.
• 24:38
  I think you got two laps in.
• 24:39
  I think I got about 40 that day, but I think I had 41
• 24:43
  on the trip to the hospital.
• 24:44
  But, uh, yeah, that was, uh, throttle hung up, and that was actually,
• 24:49
  I think, that was a Furlong car.
• 24:50
  That's the one he won all the classics with.
• 24:52
  So that one's a write off.
• 24:54
  Yeah, that's how I started.
• 24:55
  Then I went back to the small blocks.
• 24:57
  That was the interesting thing.
• 24:58
  A lot of people didn't think you would go back to small blocks and
• 25:01
  take the year off, but you did.
• 25:03
  You went back to small blocks, put another supermodified together,
• 25:05
  and came out the following year.
• 25:07
  Yeah, I went back, and then I started talking to Hawksby, and we
• 25:10
  started putting something together.
• 25:12
  We spent all winter long, and he really took me under his wing, and I just
• 25:16
  really fine tuned that thing we did together, and every rookie year we
• 25:19
  came out swinging, we were really good.
• 25:21
  John, you were saying?
• 25:22
  When, uh, he got the hum thrall and crashed that super first time
• 25:26
  out, I was coming through the walk through gate, and he was coming out.
• 25:29
  And I felt so bad for him.
• 25:31
  It bothers me right now, but he had tears in his eyes.
• 25:33
  You know, he's put a lot of work and effort into becoming the
• 25:36
  Dave Dantzler we all know today.
• 25:38
  He started in a bad way.
• 25:41
  Well, you know, the whole family over the years has done a tremendous job
• 25:44
  of putting race cars on the track and having some good drivers, having some
• 25:48
  mediocre drivers on the track, and now they got one of the best in Dave.
• 25:51
  It was a bit of a classic last year.
• 25:54
  Well, let's go back to your first feature, Winner on the Squiggle.
• 25:57
  I remember talking to you after the race, and you said in the interview
• 26:00
  at the track, that all you had to do was concentrate on hitting your marks.
• 26:05
  You had the lead, you just had to hit your marks.
• 26:07
  Yeah, so consistency has been one of my strong points.
• 26:10
  It's out on the racetrack, especially at Oswego, and it's pulling off the corner
• 26:15
  in the exact same spot and entering the corner in the exact same spot every
• 26:18
  time, one and two and three and four.
• 26:20
  It worked out for me.
• 26:21
  The classic last year, you were running in second late in the race.
• 26:26
  At one point it looked like you may be able to make a pass.
• 26:30
  I think a yellow flag came off maybe?
• 26:32
  And that kind of ended your day in terms of winning the race.
• 26:34
  Yeah, to be honest the entire race I was just focused on getting around Dave.
• 26:38
  And when, uh, Barnsey came around both of us at one point.
• 26:43
  I was like, eh, we're just going to let him run off and, you know,
• 26:46
  we'll catch him later in the race.
• 26:47
  I don't know about you, Dave, but I had no idea that he ran out of fuel.
• 26:51
  So I was so concerned about catching him, that I had no idea going into one, we had
• 26:56
  both passed Farnsley running out of fuel.
• 26:58
  And in the meantime, you ended up with a podium finish, finishing second.
• 27:01
  Right, right.
• 27:02
  Great race.
• 27:03
  Now Dave, in that race, that was a very hot day.
• 27:07
  And I know a lot of drivers suffered a little bit of heat exhaustion.
• 27:10
  When you get out of your car, you look a little bit tired.
• 27:12
  Did that affect you in the race at all?
• 27:14
  No, uh, usually once you're in the mode, you get palm effects and you're probably
• 27:18
  going to be fine for a little bit until you realize what the hell happened.
• 27:22
  I just got out of the car, I just thought I threw it away.
• 27:25
  There you go, you see Barnes you're driving out of your life, it's
• 27:27
  kind of like I just needed to free the car up just a little bit and
• 27:31
  you got what you got in that race.
• 27:32
  I mean, you can't really change what you got and with the way the cars
• 27:36
  are right now is where you start is where you're going to finish.
• 27:39
  Our goal was to put the thing on the front row and kind of
• 27:41
  hopefully stay there all day.
• 27:43
  Well, luckily I didn't lead all 200 because I had a couple people
• 27:46
  tell me they were probably going to kill me that night if I did.
• 27:48
  So, luckily Barnsley went around and I had no idea he ran out of fuel.
• 27:53
  I thought that was Jack Patrick, so I thought it was between me and Allison
• 27:57
  for second and I had no idea I won the race until Chuck came across
• 28:00
  the radio and said pull outside.
• 28:02
  Now, we've got three of the four drivers from Eddie B and 83, which Chance started
• 28:12
  just as soon as you, well, pretty much as soon as you passed through the lead.
• 28:15
  If you don't remember the race, or if you haven't seen it, Eddie B and 83,
• 28:19
  the last lap and a half of the race, Doug Hagerhund was winning first.
• 28:24
  Bentley Warren was running second.
• 28:25
  Warren Coney was running third.
• 28:27
  Eddie Bellinger was running fourth.
• 28:29
  Before they came down to the white flag, Eddie was able to
• 28:32
  get by Warren to take over third.
• 28:35
  And then this is where the action really started, coming out of the second turn.
• 28:39
  Now I had started to say, Around lap 195, that Havron was running out of fuel.
• 28:45
  At which point, Doug Caruso said to me, Roy, this is a dog race, you're not
• 28:49
  going to make it exciting by doing that.
• 28:51
  Doug Havron was running out of fuel.
• 28:54
  Warren, you were running third at the time, Eddie got
• 28:57
  by you, how did that happen?
• 28:59
  I was right close to the back end of Bentley.
• 29:02
  And when Dougie ran out of fuel, It's sort of freight train, and I
• 29:07
  got right up close to Bentley, and I couldn't get out and go around him.
• 29:12
  Eddie was back far enough that he got a good run.
• 29:15
  And I couldn't get by them until I let out of the throttle.
• 29:18
  Now I think you told me at one point, other than that in the race
• 29:21
  itself, you felt otherwise you had a chance to win in that feature.
• 29:25
  Yeah, well, you almost go there, but I think you're not ready.
• 29:30
  Bentley, you were running in the number two spot, going into that white flag lap.
• 29:35
  Doug had been running out of fuel.
• 29:36
  He was bogging down particularly bad, coming out of turn two.
• 29:40
  You came off the second corner right behind Doug, and he almost
• 29:44
  stopped, and you ran into the back end of him, which caused you a
• 29:48
  couple of positions, and that's when Eddie and Warren both got by you.
• 29:52
  I didn't want to pass Dougie because he won the thing twice in a row.
• 29:55
  And they were just taking me as an invitational driver.
• 29:59
  And the car was running beautifully.
• 30:01
  Ed said, pass it, pass it.
• 30:03
  And I, I didn't answer back.
• 30:05
  I don't know if he had two way radios or not.
• 30:06
  I didn't say anything.
• 30:08
  I just followed him.
• 30:10
  And I said, he's going to win.
• 30:11
  And when he bought, I hit him, and that's when Eddie and Warren
• 30:14
  and all of them got Eddie B in 83.
• 30:17
  It was a hell of a win for him, and I was very, very happy for him, and
• 30:20
  I think I drank half of his beer.
• 30:24
  But I've done that a lot of times, you know.
• 30:28
  Now, going into that race, about halfway through it, I thought, you thought your
• 30:31
  car was running pretty badly, and you had even given it thought to dropping out.
• 30:34
  Yeah, I was just an average car, in fact, I had a real bad front end shake, so I
• 30:39
  couldn't really go in the turn crate bar.
• 30:41
  One time I actually thought about pulling in, and I thought, well,
• 30:43
  I'm not going that bad, I'll just stay here and get what I can get.
• 30:46
  And so that's basically all I was doing the whole race, was just hoping to get
• 30:49
  what I could get, and it just got more than I thought it was going to get.
• 30:52
  When did you realize Doug was running out of fuel?
• 30:54
  Well, you know, we were at a little bit of distance in there.
• 30:57
  I actually could see him kind of really slowing down in the turn.
• 31:01
  And like Bentley said, he conked out and they kind of hit.
• 31:04
  And it opened up a hole.
• 31:06
  I just happened to be there.
• 31:07
  It was his luck.
• 31:08
  I was on Doug's crew that day and uh, he was running out with 10 to go.
• 31:12
  We knew it.
• 31:12
  But we knew it with 10 to go, he was in trouble.
• 31:16
  And then whatever these guys ended up doing, that's, that's,
• 31:19
  that's for the history books.
• 31:21
  When we talk about classic wins, Otto, Bentley's got 6, you've got 5.
• 31:25
  I don't know.
• 31:27
  I know you've had a couple of shots and at the end, you know, you've had car problems
• 31:30
  or something, but is six doable for you?
• 31:33
  I would think so, yeah.
• 31:35
  One said that every time you go to the track, any of these
• 31:38
  guys would say the same thing.
• 31:39
  If you didn't think you had a shot at winning, you wouldn't go, so.
• 31:42
  We have a good car, for sure.
• 31:44
  We'll see what happens, you know, there's a long time between now and the end
• 31:47
  of the summer, but just a little side note, everybody's got their stories.
• 31:50
  You can talk about all the races you've won, and you've done this and that.
• 31:54
  There's some races that I didn't win, that I can't even shake the memory.
• 31:58
  And one of them is the 2015 Classic.
• 32:01
  I had a car that was driving itself, it was, It's just a little tight all
• 32:05
  day, and I mean it was just on rails, anybody could have drove this thing,
• 32:08
  and it got out front, and it just had a nice, almost a little too much of a
• 32:13
  push to it, and I came around a lapper, I think it was four or five laps to go.
• 32:19
  Nine laps to go.
• 32:20
  And he was still pushing.
• 32:23
  So, and I, and I, it was Brian Silvis, who's a friend of mine.
• 32:26
  I helped him along when he was, you know, first starting.
• 32:29
  And, um, you know, I think he got a land flag.
• 32:31
  But, it was two or three laps in a row.
• 32:33
  And he really just didn't move.
• 32:35
  And he was right sort of where I needed to be.
• 32:38
  My car was tight enough that.
• 32:40
  I had to be careful, and I had a guy signaling me, you know, that I
• 32:43
  had a nice lead, but I still didn't want to just sit there that long.
• 32:46
  So I went down into one, and this car never slipped a rear wheel all day.
• 32:50
  And I went to the outside, and then all of a sudden it just like, stepped,
• 32:54
  and I turned to the right to catch it, and it did the slowest, longest slide
• 32:59
  sideways from, you know, the exit of one all the way over to the exit of two.
• 33:05
  And I sat there smiling.
• 33:06
  As the leader, not many laps to go.
• 33:08
  I have to track ahead.
• 33:10
  So if you think that something like that doesn't weigh on you,
• 33:13
  the wins don't mean anything.
• 33:16
  Whenever I think of that year, because we gave the championship away too.
• 33:19
  We won six regular races that season, and lost the championship by two.
• 33:24
  Three and a half points.
• 33:25
  So those are some memories that I have that don't go away . Now Brandon, you
• 33:31
  got your first feature with a couple of years ago, your first track championship.
• 33:35
  You're still working on an international classic.
• 33:37
  When you started the oh two, the first car that had the, the tail
• 33:41
  wing they're using now, how did that come that you were going to do it?
• 33:44
  And what did you think about it at the time?
• 33:46
  To be honest, I think it was a surprise.
• 33:48
  There was kind of two generations of super modifieds at the track at the time.
• 33:52
  Some cars had more engine offset, other cars didn't.
• 33:54
  You know, the ones with more offset, they were able to get a lot of air
• 33:57
  to their tail, which we had an older generation car that we couldn't get that.
• 34:00
  So I feel like we were competitive, but just lacked a little bit, it seemed like.
• 34:03
  So, I think that's why we got picked.
• 34:05
  It's just, we were a competitive car that we could compare to the newer generation
• 34:09
  of the Hawksby cars at the time.
• 34:11
  And see how, uh, that tail wing compared to the rest, and
• 34:13
  it was, it was an experiment.
• 34:15
  I think the way they set it up was, wherever we finished, like, everyone else
• 34:17
  got moved up a spot, we got paid money, and, and, I don't really, the first night
• 34:21
  we went to try it was a Friday practice.
• 34:24
  We got one time on the track, and someone had an engine problem and oiled up the
• 34:27
  track really bad, so, like, I couldn't even really get up to speed after that.
• 34:31
  So, I think they decided, like, well, we want to try it again the next day.
• 34:34
  It was kind of an in the moment decision.
• 34:36
  We were game to try it.
• 34:38
  I guess the rest is history now.
• 34:39
  Now that's what we all run, so.
• 34:41
  But there's a little change to it this year, isn't there?
• 34:43
  Yeah, there's a little bit of an angle change.
• 34:44
  Definitely going to take away some downforce.
• 34:46
  I think all of us are probably looking forward to getting to
• 34:48
  the track and seeing exactly what you've got to adjust on your car.
• 34:51
  And, uh, how much it's going to change, you know, what it fits up.
• 34:54
  It's going to slow them down a lot.
• 34:55
  Maybe, maybe it only slows them down with, won't be that much with new tires, and
• 34:59
  it's more of a slow down with old tires.
• 35:00
  Right now, Allison, Otto was just talking about it, that there's always the one that
• 35:04
  gets away, or the couple that get away.
• 35:06
  Before you won your first feature, you lost a couple, when you had
• 35:10
  a great race car, but didn't make it to the checkered flag.
• 35:12
  Now I'm going super modified.
• 35:14
  It took me a little bit of time, not as much as I thought,
• 35:18
  originally, to get used to the car.
• 35:19
  Because I was used to the Isma wing, and the downforce, and
• 35:22
  You know, going a lot faster.
• 35:23
  I remember Otto and Johnny both telling me, like, Hey, you can't drive this
• 35:28
  like an Isma Super into the corner.
• 35:30
  And I said, yeah, okay.
• 35:32
  And I, and I went in the first corner, I was like, oh shit.
• 35:34
  Yeah, I can't, I can't drive it like that.
• 35:37
  So, it did take me a little bit of, you know, learning
• 35:39
  curve, but I tried to listen.
• 35:42
  You know, it doesn't, doesn't often work out that way.
• 35:44
  But, you know, I've been very fortunate to race with both these guys, so.
• 35:47
  Thank you for that.
• 35:48
  Bentley, you won your last classic driving a Jeff West car in 1998, I believe.
• 35:54
  It was kind of a last minute deal to get in the car.
• 35:56
  Nobody expected you to win, maybe not even you.
• 35:59
  And all of a sudden you're in victory lane with your sixth classic.
• 36:03
  Well, Jeff gave me, you know, we always say everybody gives you a great
• 36:07
  car, he gave me a really good car.
• 36:09
  It was set up for him, and he liked a tighter car than I liked, or a looser car.
• 36:14
  And I remember taking the front wing off it because it was too loose for me.
• 36:19
  And he did a whole bunch of stuff, changed shocks and everything, and I just rode
• 36:22
  up there on a coin like I called, he'd asked me to drive earlier and I wasn't
• 36:26
  going to, and then I called him back and said yeah, I'll drive if you want to.
• 36:29
  He said, no, I already got somebody driving.
• 36:31
  I said, okay, well no problem, I'll just stay home and ride my motorcycle.
• 36:35
  So then he called me back, he said, well if you want to
• 36:37
  come up and drive it, you can.
• 36:38
  So I jumped on my motorcycle, I threw my fire suit in the thick middle of
• 36:42
  this trailer, and rode my motorcycle up.
• 36:45
  And we, I drove, I drove the car.
• 36:47
  It's just kind of a Funny win, cause I think Mike Muldoon lost a rear end,
• 36:52
  Eddie Shaysky was winning, came around for the green flag, with about 10 to go.
• 36:58
  I remember I straddled the oil, a line of oil, in the middle of it, and uh, it
• 37:02
  was clean, but it still had the speedy dry down, and I straddled it, and uh,
• 37:07
  Eddie Shea's car went through it, and he got a little bit sideways and just
• 37:11
  gave me enough bite that I could win, and then, uh, then I think Dave Hamilton
• 37:15
  was coming up on me, and I could hear him, so I, my car became very wide.
• 37:22
  Now, that race, you time traveled pretty well.
• 37:25
  When did you think, I gotta shut the windows.
• 37:28
  I, I told Jeff after practice.
• 37:31
  When I went up with the full fuel load, the car felt awesome.
• 37:34
  I said, we got a good chance, we got a good car.
• 37:36
  We can really probably win this race with a little bit of classic luck.
• 37:40
  And we had the classic luck.
• 37:42
  John?
• 37:43
  So Davey ended up second that day at the classic, right?
• 37:46
  The sheet panel was all dented on Bentley's car.
• 37:49
  He had gotten some kind of tangle and looked like a junk rolling around there.
• 37:53
  And, uh, Davey comes in after the race, he goes, God, who the hell's in that
• 37:57
  black car with all the damaged bodywork?
• 38:00
  I go, oh, you mean the winner?
• 38:01
  Yeah, that was Batman.
• 38:06
  Oh, no wonder he was riding.
• 38:08
  No wonder that car got wide.
• 38:10
  He got a spark.
• 38:13
  Eddie, when you got started racing, you know, I understand your dad
• 38:16
  had been racing at the track for a while, was a three time champion.
• 38:20
  As I recall, he didn't know you went out and bought a Todd Gibson car.
• 38:23
  Yeah.
• 38:24
  No, actually he didn't.
• 38:26
  Of course, you know, I grew up my whole life around the speedway.
• 38:30
  My dad never really, you know, he wasn't the type of guy to just
• 38:33
  go buy cars and all that stuff.
• 38:35
  If I wanted one, it was going to be up to me.
• 38:37
  I had saved up a little money, borrowed 500 bucks from one of my buddies, and
• 38:41
  I put 500 bucks on a credit card, and I had some cash, and I called Todd up.
• 38:46
  Made a deal on the phone.
• 38:48
  I paid an extra 400 bucks for that old single axle trailer he had.
• 38:52
  I was working for my dad at the time.
• 38:53
  Well, my dad got to work that morning.
• 38:55
  He was got there before I did.
• 38:57
  And Tom Gibson was sitting in the yard waiting.
• 38:59
  Dad comes out, he goes, what are you doing here?
• 39:02
  He goes, well, your son just bought this car.
• 39:07
  I think all he said was, hmm.
• 39:12
  Now, Warren, you drove for a number of different owners over the
• 39:16
  course of your career at the track.
• 39:17
  We mentioned earlier you were in the, uh, the Purdy Deuce,
• 39:20
  got a feature win in that car.
• 39:22
  You drove it for one year, and then the next year, you switched.
• 39:25
  You went to somebody else.
• 39:26
  Why was that?
• 39:27
  Howard wasn't going to run a full schedule, and I wanted
• 39:29
  to run a full schedule.
• 39:31
  That's why, you know, we changed rides.
• 39:33
  Who was the best in order you had?
• 39:35
  That's not a good question.
• 39:38
  They think it is.
• 39:39
  I, I, you know, I drove for so many great people.
• 39:42
  A lot of Rutledge dates.
• 39:46
  You name them.
• 39:47
  I drove for a lot of good people.
• 39:49
  Came out of it with a lot of great friends.
• 39:52
  What more can you ask for?
• 39:53
  And you drove 25 years and then pretty much just walked away.
• 39:57
  Yeah.
• 39:59
  It was not too many races after your last classic win.
• 40:02
  Yeah.
• 40:02
  It was the classic win when I retired.
• 40:06
  That year I got driver of the year.
• 40:08
  You know, they had the banquet at the end of the year.
• 40:10
  I got driver of the year and a few accolades.
• 40:15
  And I'm thinking all the time, you know, Ryan, my son, wants to start racing karts.
• 40:20
  I thought, you know what, a fella doesn't get a chance
• 40:23
  most times to go out and race.
• 40:25
  With Classic Wynn.
• 40:27
  I got up to say a few words at the banquet.
• 40:30
  My wife had gone to the washroom.
• 40:32
  And I was supposed to drive the following year with Joe.
• 40:36
  And, uh, That's Joe McGarry.
• 40:37
  Yeah.
• 40:38
  I just got up and all of a sudden the words came out of my mouth.
• 40:42
  That was my last race.
• 40:44
  And my wife was standing at the back of the hall, came
• 40:47
  down, I sat down at the table.
• 40:49
  She said, so now what do we do on Saturday nights?
• 40:53
  And I believe your response was, go to the window and throw 500 out.
• 40:57
  Yeah.
• 40:58
  Yeah, that was, uh, that was about it.
• 41:00
  And I don't regret a minute of it.
• 41:03
  A lot of drivers retire and then come back and run a race or a couple of
• 41:07
  races and start racing over again.
• 41:08
  You've never done that.
• 41:10
  No, I did drive a race, well, not a race, an event up at Cayuga Speedway
• 41:17
  when Brad Littke had bought the track and they had a bunch of old race cars.
• 41:21
  I had a buddy of mine, well, Al Webster owned Gary Witter's car.
• 41:26
  Al Webster bought an old Teddy Hogan car.
• 41:29
  And I don't know whether you remember Teddy Hogan, but he
• 41:32
  did ride a Swiggo years ago.
• 41:34
  But anyway, he bought this old Teddy Hogan car, and he asked me
• 41:37
  if I would drive it in this race.
• 41:41
  So I said, well, yeah.
• 41:42
  Then Brian looked at it, and I always looked at race cars that Brian was
• 41:45
  going to drive, and I'd say, no, Brian, you're not getting in that race car.
• 41:49
  And Brian went over and looked at it, and he says, Dad, I wouldn't.
• 41:52
  So I said, that'll be fine.
• 41:53
  It's just, you know, warm up sort of thing.
• 41:56
  A buddy of mine, his name is Bernie Redick, had built a brand new Jimmy
• 42:00
  Howard car, exact replica of Jimmy Howard's, for Howie Standall to drive.
• 42:04
  So Standall wanted to race, we get out there, we start racing, going
• 42:08
  faster, and this car, this Hogan car, that I'm driving, is going down the
• 42:12
  straightaway, and it's like from one wall to the other, and I'm just saying,
• 42:16
  please, throw the checkered flag.
• 42:18
  It's like I was getting nervous.
• 42:21
  They threw the checkered flag and went to pull in the pits,
• 42:24
  and the pitman arm fell off.
• 42:27
  So, I'm in the pits, and I said, Al, the nut for the pitman arm came
• 42:32
  off, and the pitman arm fell off.
• 42:34
  And he said, oh, well, he says, uh, I'll see if I can find another nut.
• 42:37
  And I said, no, the one behind the wheel's done.
• 42:41
  I'm going up there in the tower to drink beer.
• 42:46
  It's just another Warren Coney of not story.
• 42:51
  I'm pretty sure, might have been a classic.
• 42:54
  I can't remember, he'll verify this.
• 42:55
  The caution's off, he's in front of me.
• 42:59
  And all of a sudden, this wheel duck comes off and lands right in my lap.
• 43:02
  What the hell?
• 43:04
  Where the hell did that come from?
• 43:05
  I'm hoping it's not mine.
• 43:06
  Well, pretty soon, about a minute later, his left rear, I believe it was, was
• 43:10
  flying so that it was his, it was his.
• 43:13
  Luckily, we're under caution.
• 43:17
  Alright, Dave Dancer, you had a, uh, pretty decent year last year.
• 43:22
  Winning the Classic, and then going out to Vegas and winning
• 43:25
  the East West Shootout, 5, 000.
• 43:27
  What made you decide to go and do that race?
• 43:30
  I talk to Doug Kells every once in a while, and he kind of got in my ear,
• 43:34
  and I got a little one coming in June, so I just found out, and I go, Hey,
• 43:38
  I don't really want to stop racing, I just want to go do something wild.
• 43:41
  I talked to my father, I said, Hey, let's go to Vegas and try to run with it.
• 43:44
  He looked into it as well, and we started getting the car ready.
• 43:48
  I've heard the story.
• 43:49
  I don't know if you can verify it or not.
• 43:51
  Early on in the race, you lost your radio and it was down on the floor.
• 43:55
  And you turned in some pretty erratic laps while you were trying to get it back.
• 43:59
  Yeah, I was swerving all over the place.
• 44:01
  I was afraid to tug on it.
• 44:02
  I usually clip a radio over on my left side, and usually it's tight in your belt.
• 44:06
  As soon as I did, it fell, and then I got caught underneath the fuel filter.
• 44:09
  So, it took me about 8 laps to get that thing out of here, but, I was up against
• 44:13
  the wall, I was in the, I looked drunk, I'll be honest, it was, it was pretty
• 44:17
  bad, it was, it was some pretty bad 8 laps, and, then on the restart, I said,
• 44:21
  alright, time to get focused, and, I just buried the top, just kept that thing
• 44:25
  longed up, and strode around everybody.
• 44:27
  Now, there's going to be a rerun of that race this year in California.
• 44:32
  And there's also going to be a kind of an east west shootout at
• 44:36
  Carraway Speedway in North Carolina.
• 44:38
  You can go to either of those.
• 44:40
  As of right now, we're gonna hit them both.
• 44:41
  Good.
• 44:42
  Brandon, what about you?
• 44:43
  You gonna hit some out of town shows?
• 44:45
  Yeah, I'm sure we'll probably hit a few this year.
• 44:47
  We don't have, like, an exact schedule or anything.
• 44:49
  We're probably just moment decisions, almost like how Dave
• 44:52
  was for the Las Vegas race.
• 44:53
  You know, if the car's in good shape and it's an opportunity
• 44:56
  to go, you know, it's something we'll probably consider taking it.
• 44:59
  For some reason our car is all smashed up.
• 45:01
  Well that complicates things to make another race.
• 45:04
  You're making that decision based on Dave's success last year?
• 45:07
  There's a few people that have actually done it now.
• 45:08
  I mean, Ableton had success with their car going to, you know, some ISMA races.
• 45:12
  Dave had success with his going to ISMA races.
• 45:14
  And even for ourselves, you know, we went to Evans Mills last year.
• 45:17
  Kind of solve some of our heating issues that we've had with the top wing.
• 45:20
  And we didn't win the race, but it was a pretty good run.
• 45:23
  And I think there's a lot of room for improvement.
• 45:24
  So it definitely gets you motivated to take your car and do some more racing
• 45:27
  with it, you know, with different rules and different organizations.
• 45:30
  Allison, on your rollcage, it says Chick.
• 45:35
  Where'd that come from?
• 45:36
  It's been my dad's nickname for me since I was a kid.
• 45:39
  And Johnny, uh, adopted it as well, so.
• 45:42
  There's two people in this world that can call me Chick, it's Johnny and my dad.
• 45:46
  Now, I know there's some question about what your plans are for this year.
• 45:51
  I've been told before that Johnny and Otto want a downside, so they
• 45:54
  officially did it this year, and, and shook my car off to Canada.
• 45:58
  They want to focus on running ISMA and the Wing Shows and everything that
• 46:01
  Johnny's put together, so I'll take a backseat to that, to the champ, right?
• 46:05
  And he can, uh, go win some races for the team, and, um, I'm gonna enjoy
• 46:10
  a little bit of the shore this year, and getting to travel not to Oswego.
• 46:15
  I'll hit the track every once in a while, but I'm looking
• 46:18
  forward to having the summer off.
• 46:19
  Okay, but I don't see this as an end.
• 46:21
  You never know, Roy.
• 46:22
  You never know.
• 46:24
  Bentley.
• 46:25
  Now here, here's another story I heard that maybe only you know the true answer.
• 46:29
  When you first got into racing, you were building your first race car,
• 46:32
  modified or something like that, and you weren't a very good welder at the time.
• 46:36
  And you finish welding something, and we're working underneath it,
• 46:39
  and it fell down and knocked out.
• 46:41
  I was working on a farm in Essex, Mass., 14 years old, and riding my
• 46:46
  bicycle after work, which we got done milking cows and stuff, around 3.
• 46:50
  30.
• 46:50
  So I'd walk to Danvers, which is about 15 to 20 miles away, and I
• 46:54
  was welding the roll bys and bumpers and all that stuff on my car.
• 46:57
  Long story short, a guy welded a wheel for me, offset wheel, I was wicked proud.
• 47:02
  Put a Buick tire on it, it was a blown out tire, but I put a patch in it, and
• 47:06
  I looked like a real big time racer.
• 47:08
  Went out and practiced, and I blew the right front tire in the cab, went off
• 47:12
  the bank, and Hit the telephone pole.
• 47:15
  My back bumper fell off and went under the car.
• 47:18
  The right front wheel of the guy welded stayed on, the front bumper stayed
• 47:22
  on, and a rope out on the back of the roll cage hit me in the head, shoved
• 47:27
  my head through the uh, shifter lever.
• 47:29
  They counted me out to the hospital at 14.
• 47:32
  Before they got to the hospital, the nurses were all P.
• 47:34
  O.
• 47:34
  's because What the hell is this kid doing driving a race car?
• 47:39
  They made me sit that wheel like a stuck pig.
• 47:42
  But that was my first race car.
• 47:46
  Alright, now Otto, you've had, as I said earlier on, you've had a
• 47:50
  tremendous career at Oswego, nine track championships, an all time record,
• 47:54
  and of course your five classic wins.
• 47:56
  You haven't raced full time at Oswego the last couple of years, you've done some
• 47:59
  ISMA, MSS races, you've got a title there.
• 48:01
  What's your plans for Nothing was written in concrete.
• 48:06
  This guy's got the five race series.
• 48:08
  The first two races are his races.
• 48:10
  So we'll be there, oh, the opener, with the car we call, now, Betty.
• 48:13
  It's, it's blue.
• 48:15
  That was Joe Moriarty's old car.
• 48:16
  Great car, that's the car that Al ran last, the last two
• 48:19
  seasons that he ran for us.
• 48:21
  And then the next week is the ISMA show.
• 48:23
  That's gonna go his, his race.
• 48:25
  And then really, if opening night goes good, we could be there the third
• 48:29
  night, with the small wing again.
• 48:31
  See what happens from there.
• 48:32
  I'm not going to say that it's impossible that we couldn't run
• 48:34
  every race, but I don't know that.
• 48:37
  I was talking to John a couple of months ago or so.
• 48:40
  You had the lead going into the ESMU final, didn't you, this year?
• 48:44
  Uh, last year, yeah.
• 48:45
  Yeah, last year.
• 48:45
  Yeah, we had, uh, we had the point lead the last two shows.
• 48:50
  Oh, so many things.
• 48:51
  So many thoughts because, you know, like if you have one
• 48:54
  super modified, that is so nice.
• 48:57
  If you crash it really bad, maybe you're handy, maybe you can fix
• 49:00
  it, maybe you can put it back together, spare parts, what have.
• 49:03
  If you have three, that's like, is it really nice?
• 49:06
  Is it three times as nice?
• 49:08
  It's probably not.
• 49:09
  It's three times the work.
• 49:11
  set up for a race car times three.
• 49:14
  There's so much to that.
• 49:16
  I know it's very unfortunate to have the equipment that we have but sometimes I
• 49:21
  feel like it also maybe holds me back.
• 49:24
  Having the workload and the responsibility of not just physically taking care
• 49:28
  of it, thinking about all of it.
• 49:30
  You know, like Brendan was saying, you know, they're looking forward to
• 49:33
  putting a wing on their Oswego car.
• 49:35
  You know, you look at like the A bolts.
• 49:37
  One car and you can massage that car and you can learn it and get
• 49:42
  better and better and better with it.
• 49:43
  So, um, we acquired another car late in the season.
• 49:46
  We sort of thought we wanted an engine because we've had some
• 49:49
  restart problems with our wing car.
• 49:52
  And we ended up with a whole other package.
• 49:54
  So, great car, great equipment, but that's the one concern I have at this point.
• 49:59
  I'm 56 years old, you know, I work a day job, and I come home
• 50:03
  and I work an entire another job.
• 50:05
  And you're also down a couple of people that would crew with you.
• 50:08
  Yeah, yeah, we've got, you know, there was a guy named Fish, he's retired, he's 83
• 50:12
  years old, he just doesn't want to do it.
• 50:13
  Wiedemeyer, same thing.
• 50:15
  Older, Tinney, older.
• 50:17
  They're just not around anymore, so guys that were in the shop that, I don't know
• 50:20
  how old, but these guys were workers.
• 50:23
  You know, uh, this fish and, and weed and those guys were really hard workers.
• 50:28
  They didn't, they weren't really a mechanic, but it's repetition.
• 50:31
  Week after week you pick that car in the air and you peel the body.
• 50:34
  They learned what to look for and cleaning, cleaning is super modified.
• 50:38
  You would think it rides around on a pavement track.
• 50:41
  It's just as dirty as any dirt car, in a different aspect, in a different way.
• 50:45
  So, the maintenance program, really, to have a car run every lap of every race,
• 50:50
  and we've had seasons that we've literally finished every lap of every race.
• 50:55
  Now, Warren.
• 50:56
  Through your career, you mostly ran for other tribes.
• 51:00
  So you didn't have to go through what Otto went through with the
• 51:02
  constant maintenance of a car.
• 51:04
  I built my own cars in the start.
• 51:07
  And I really didn't enjoy that.
• 51:10
  I didn't, you know, I didn't like working on it, but I was capable.
• 51:14
  I found it a lot better to show off my helmet and my bag and
• 51:18
  get my percentage off the top.
• 51:21
  That was pretty nice.
• 51:23
  And, you know, my time was my own.
• 51:25
  Now I worked on Ryan's race cars, never excited about it,
• 51:29
  but you do it for your kid.
• 51:31
  I mean, a lot of guys really get a lot out of it though.
• 51:34
  You know, I know a lot of drivers that really enjoy working on the race car.
• 51:37
  I mean, I know my son, he really enjoys working on his race cars, not me.
• 51:44
  Eddie, you have been behind the wheel of the two seat Supermodified.
• 51:49
  In real terms, it's a real race car, it's just an extended Supermodified.
• 51:54
  Things differ to put a person in the back seat.
• 51:56
  But I remember that I think the first time we did the Ride with a Legend series, down
• 52:01
  by the start finish line, and you're on the track, and I hear this loud squeal
• 52:06
  of tires, Which finally stops, and I ran down and I said to you, Eddie, what broke?
• 52:12
  You said, just me.
• 52:14
  Okay, I'll tell you that, that scared the crap out of me.
• 52:18
  The guy behind me, you thought he just won a million dollars, he was so thrilled.
• 52:22
  He said, you going to do it again?
• 52:25
  I said, no, not today.
• 52:29
  John, Otto was talking about the series, the challenge series,
• 52:33
  that has started, you know, you've had great success with it.
• 52:36
  Honestly.
• 52:39
  How did you get started with that?
• 52:40
  You know, a bunch of the fans and car owners got together and things were
• 52:44
  kind of MSS had their series, Oswego had their schedule, ISMA had their schedule.
• 52:50
  Nobody was really breaking down the doors, you know, with an abundance of cars, so
• 52:55
  Uh, you know, I got some owners and fans together and we put some sponsorship
• 52:59
  together to help out the Speedways, you know, subsidize some of the purses and
• 53:03
  the point funds and stuff like that.
• 53:05
  That's really how, just trying to help pay.
• 53:08
  Speedways can only do so much.
• 53:10
  In today's world, you know, everyone has so many things that
• 53:13
  they can do on a Saturday night.
• 53:15
  Crowds might not be, well they're certainly not what they were years ago.
• 53:19
  It's where Harry Crusoe generated money, but in today's world, you gotta
• 53:23
  try to find the money somewhere else.
• 53:25
  Or, like Dick O'Brien said, money can bring cars, a car can bring people.
• 53:30
  You gotta have the money in the cars first.
• 53:32
  Well, you've, you've come up with some unique ways to get money, like
• 53:36
  Business is paying to sponsor the draw.
• 53:39
  Yeah, A.
• 53:39
  B.
• 53:40
  Hamilton actually gave me that idea, and I'm thinking, you're crazy.
• 53:43
  Well, then I tried implementing it, and it was pretty successful.
• 53:47
  You know, you take in 30, 000, you pay out 5, 000, and it
• 53:51
  keeps 25, 000 for the points.
• 53:52
  You know, each guy pays like 500 a night.
• 53:55
  to be a pill sponsor.
• 53:56
  Right.
• 53:56
  And if their driver wins they win a thousand.
• 53:59
  So, you know, it gives the sponsor a little something to root for and involve
• 54:05
  them and they know they're helping.
• 54:06
  And I mean, let's face it, you know, that's what we all want to do
• 54:09
  is help keep supers alive and the tracks alive and you got to try new
• 54:13
  stuff and that's how it started.
• 54:15
  This will be our third year.
• 54:16
  I think it's been very successful but I feel like we're only on second base.
• 54:21
  Well, it certainly helped bringing ISNA and MSS together,
• 54:25
  where they were way apart.
• 54:26
  Well, that had to happen.
• 54:28
  That had to happen.
• 54:30
  And with, uh, the scheduling is the most important thing.
• 54:32
  After that is money.
• 54:34
  Once you get to scheduling, everybody working together, and putting
• 54:37
  money up, then you know, you kinda gotta let us take its course.
• 54:41
  Like I was saying a minute ago, I feel like we're on second base.
• 54:44
  I need that one big corporate sponsor to get us home.
• 54:49
  We're looking, looking, looking, but so far, you know, no check.
• 54:54
  Bentley.
• 54:55
  Going back to the two seat super modified, you were one in the first
• 54:58
  group that did a ride with the legends.
• 55:02
  And we auctioned you off to the highest bidder.
• 55:05
  And it came down to, uh, Chris Hagerty and Bernie Finnegan.
• 55:10
  And the bid was 650 by Chris.
• 55:13
  Bernie apparently misread what's going on and lost the last call on it,
• 55:17
  so Chris was going to get the ride.
• 55:19
  Now, you went over to Chris and said, if Bernie also paid 650 Do
• 55:25
  you mind if I give him a ride too?
• 55:27
  And Chris said yes, as long as I go first.
• 55:30
  It was just a great idea, a great thing for you to do that day.
• 55:33
  Well, I just wanted to help the fund.
• 55:36
  I think it was a cancer fund, wasn't it?
• 55:37
  Something like that?
• 55:38
  Yeah, yeah.
• 55:39
  You know, it's a passion that I think all of us drivers and everybody
• 55:42
  in the room has a passion for.
• 55:44
  Helping things like that, and I just thought if we could help.
• 55:47
  I do it, and uh, I did it, and it worked out well, and we had fun.
• 55:51
  I don't even think I came off the track when I was supposed to at one time.
• 55:53
  I think, I think you guys were throwing the checkered flag, then you threw
• 55:57
  the red flag, then somebody ran out in the middle of the track and said,
• 56:00
  What the hell is this guy doing?
• 56:04
  Did you like that part?
• 56:05
  Yeah, it was, it was fun.
• 56:06
  It was a race car.
• 56:07
  I remember the last Super Motorcycle you were in, the number 15.
• 56:13
  The Napa car, and it was really kind of a boat anchor, you
• 56:16
  weren't going anywhere with it.
• 56:17
  And I said to you, Bentley, you can use the two seater, it's faster.
• 56:23
  I probably grieved you.
• 56:23
  I know the other 15 car was a good car, but it just wasn't
• 56:27
  fit for me for some reason.
• 56:29
  They changed it, tried to make it better, but it just didn't work for me.
• 56:32
  I said, wow, I must be all done that I got in a couple of other cars and won again.
• 56:35
  So I said, well, maybe I'm not.
• 56:37
  So I was, I was happy to have a chance to drive something else after that.
• 56:42
  Now, Otto, going back to you and maintenance and everything like that,
• 56:46
  working a full time job, a lot of people really don't understand what
• 56:51
  goes into maintaining a quality race car and putting it on the track.
• 56:56
  See, it's more than just getting in the car and driving it.
• 56:59
  Yeah, yeah, a lot of work.
• 57:01
  Your last question too, yeah, we were leading the ISMA points.
• 57:04
  Right.
• 57:05
  And we decided, we tested it at Evans Mills the week before the race.
• 57:09
  Took our ISMA car and the new John McKinley car.
• 57:13
  Ran them both basically back to back.
• 57:15
  I didn't really fit properly in the out of threshold, we called
• 57:18
  it the out of threshold car.
• 57:19
  It felt like the car was really, it had a really nice feel, and the engine, it
• 57:23
  was really what we've been looking for.
• 57:25
  We opted all of us.
• 57:27
  It was unanimous to go with that car.
• 57:30
  And ironically, probably a 3 part broke fuel injection nozzle.
• 57:36
  It's like an long extension during the race.
• 57:38
  It may have been busted and been floating on top of the intake valve.
• 57:42
  Somebody broke in the red flag, came out, they cleaned the track up
• 57:45
  and we were fifth at the time that the car felt really, really good.
• 57:49
  I think, you know, a hundred laps.
• 57:50
  If there's only maybe 15 or 20 laps in.
• 57:53
  But we really just need it to be around the top ten somewhere
• 57:56
  to finish the point deal.
• 57:57
  And when they went to push the car on the restart It may have gone from
• 58:01
  here to that paper and it locked up.
• 58:03
  And that was it.
• 58:04
  So, ironically, all this maintenance you're talking about, it wasn't our car.
• 58:09
  It was somebody else's work and it broke.
• 58:11
  It took us out of contention.
• 58:13
  Well, John told me that was the first time you were ever in the lead in points going
• 58:17
  into the last race and didn't take it.
• 58:20
  Eddie, talking about race cars and maintenance, was it Trevor
• 58:24
  who drove the other super?
• 58:26
  Uh, Jared.
• 58:26
  He had just a horrendous crash on the front street.
• 58:32
  And I know you spent many, many, many hours trying to find out
• 58:36
  what had happened to that car.
• 58:38
  Well, we actually kind of just kind of stumbled onto it.
• 58:40
  We didn't really know at first, but I started looking at it.
• 58:42
  Basically what happened was, it was kind of a high man's fault, but it was
• 58:45
  a little bit my fault too, because I, I had a washer, just a safety washer,
• 58:50
  over a, you know, in behind the I mean, just in case it ever pulled apart.
• 58:54
  And then my washer was a little bit too small, so the
• 58:56
  I man actually came right off.
• 58:58
  You know, so I'm sure that's what happened, because Nothing was even
• 59:01
  back right there where that came apart.
• 59:03
  Has he ever thought about racing again?
• 59:05
  Ah, I'm sure he probably would if I said, There you want to go, but
• 59:08
  you know we don't have the cameras.
• 59:09
  I need the crew.
• 59:12
  He's our guy right here.
• 59:13
  So, my kids are my crew.
• 59:16
  Back to Dave, you know, talking about things that happened like
• 59:19
  that, with your stuck throttle.
• 59:21
  It's just one of those things that you can't go into a race and say this
• 59:26
  may break because you think it's all set before you ever get in the race
• 59:29
  car and when you get in the car you think it's going to have some trouble.
• 59:32
  Yeah we were trying to get the car around for like three days
• 59:35
  it ended up being a mag issue.
• 59:37
  So the entire time we got those injections, so we kept screwing with
• 59:40
  an arm and the arm stripped and my father had an arm sitting on the wall
• 59:45
  and goes, Hey, this will work and he put it on and lasted for a little bit.
• 59:48
  It came loose.
• 59:49
  So you learn your lesson pretty fast with these things.
• 59:51
  So every time I go out the back gate, I always.
• 59:54
  Give us some throttle, and first thing I check, make sure that throttle comes back.
• 59:57
  Well, Allison, you haven't been in, I don't think any
• 1:00:01
  real serious crashes at Oswego.
• 1:00:02
  Have you been in any bad crashes?
• 1:00:04
  One?
• 1:00:05
  John says you've been in one.
• 1:00:06
  Yeah, you know, one that basically totaled the car.
• 1:00:08
  That was me driving ahead of myself, actually.
• 1:00:12
  We were going into turn one in the start of a heat race on, you know,
• 1:00:16
  like a July afternoon, and And I was worried about making it to the corner
• 1:00:21
  first, and wasn't paying attention to the two cars that were in front of me.
• 1:00:25
  And I clipped Joe Gosek's left rear with my right front, which ultimately broke
• 1:00:32
  the whole front end on me, and I shot off into the My husband likes to joke
• 1:00:38
  that he's never seen a race car accident take out so many appliances within the
• 1:00:44
  house because it took out the dishwasher and the laundry machine and the snacking
• 1:00:49
  container all in, uh, all in one swipe.
• 1:00:52
  So, uh, I was pretty sore after that.
• 1:00:55
  Put my head down and get to the shop and, you know, fix what I broke,
• 1:00:58
  because it was 100 percent my fault.
• 1:01:00
  Did you ever think about giving up after that?
• 1:01:02
  Absolutely not.
• 1:01:03
  No, never in consideration.
• 1:01:05
  It was more How quickly can I work in the shop and let the guys to run
• 1:01:10
  parts and pick up body panels and do my piece of it so that Otto can put
• 1:01:14
  the car back together in the shop?
• 1:01:16
  So, in all fairness, it was her fault, but the week prior to that was a wing
• 1:01:21
  show and she ran the car with a wing.
• 1:01:24
  And what did she say about her first time when we told her you
• 1:01:27
  can't go in the corner that way?
• 1:01:29
  So she just ran the week before with that car with a wing
• 1:01:32
  and it's entirely different.
• 1:01:34
  And she went out and was the first lap of the heat race.
• 1:01:36
  And she just was an athlete.
• 1:01:38
  So, I mean, she still was sort of a little bit, it was the very
• 1:01:42
  next race that that happened.
• 1:01:43
  So, chalk it all up to experience.
• 1:01:46
  Warren, I know we've talked about you retiring and never really thought about
• 1:01:49
  going back, but when you look at some of the cars today, the way they have
• 1:01:53
  evolved, have you ever thought about just getting to try one to see what it was like
• 1:01:57
  compared to the ones you drove before?
• 1:01:59
  No, not really.
• 1:02:00
  I mean, Ryan said that car that he had, he says, Take it
• 1:02:04
  out, Dad, see what you think.
• 1:02:05
  But no, you know, when you quit, you quit.
• 1:02:08
  Back when I drove that car of McGarry's, that's when they were starting to evolve.
• 1:02:14
  Like, Muldoon was a better car.
• 1:02:16
  A lot of them had more downforce.
• 1:02:19
  I just thought, you know, now you're done.
• 1:02:22
  I don't think you ever go back.
• 1:02:24
  Well, I just meant to not race again, but just, just to drive it, just to see.
• 1:02:28
  No.
• 1:02:29
  That's fair.
• 1:02:30
  What about you, Eddie?
• 1:02:31
  No.
• 1:02:32
  Ever, ever thought about getting back out just to drive your own, your own car?
• 1:02:36
  Every time, Brady, he couldn't get to the racetrack.
• 1:02:39
  He was living out of state at the time.
• 1:02:40
  We had just put the mower together, so I just wanted to
• 1:02:42
  run it to make sure it was okay.
• 1:02:44
  So I went out there, of course he's on the phone going, Jesus
• 1:02:47
  Christ, he's going on kind of slow.
• 1:02:49
  You know, and then I, when I came in I said, You know what?
• 1:02:51
  I remember why I quit.
• 1:02:55
  Just a cab of that.
• 1:02:57
  We were racing, my son was racing a modified, up at Flamborough Speedway.
• 1:03:02
  And it was raining and everything else.
• 1:03:04
  Junior Hanley, I'm sure you've heard of him, was there giving us a hand.
• 1:03:08
  He's very sociable.
• 1:03:10
  Ryan was off somewhere and the cars were ready to go up the track.
• 1:03:15
  My wife says, uh, Warren, you better move the car up.
• 1:03:18
  It's in line.
• 1:03:19
  They're in line to go up to the track.
• 1:03:21
  And it was a big race.
• 1:03:23
  So I said, well, Ryan can move it.
• 1:03:26
  She says, no, you got to move it.
• 1:03:27
  So I said, all right, put my leg up to get in the car, rip the ass out of my pants.
• 1:03:35
  I said, I'll never get in another race car again.
• 1:03:37
  I started going to Dave.
• 1:03:42
  Obviously, I said, you had some success in the Small Block Super
• 1:03:45
  Modifieds and moved into the Supers.
• 1:03:48
  Were you surprised?
• 1:03:49
  That's your success in the Supers?
• 1:03:51
  Yeah, because everybody tells me I was the worst SPS driver of all time.
• 1:03:56
  Hopefully I'm not like Bruce.
• 1:04:02
  Our SPS you know, the Super career, you put yourself around good people.
• 1:04:07
  Like Furlong and Hawkspeak.
• 1:04:09
  They took me underneath their wing and they guided me all the way.
• 1:04:11
  I mean, I was going over there some nights where I'd go out and run top five.
• 1:04:15
  And I'd go over to Greg's track and put the thing on.
• 1:04:18
  It was great.
• 1:04:18
  Or the tape, and he'd sit there and yell at me for 45 minutes.
• 1:04:22
  Then he'd put his lead race on, where he goes from 18th to 1st, and
• 1:04:26
  he'd start screaming in my face.
• 1:04:28
  I'm like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore.
• 1:04:30
  Cause he was just so out of control, but he was an awesome coach to have.
• 1:04:34
  And now he's got, uh, Taylor Hodgkin on his way.
• 1:04:36
  Yeah, he has helped not only you, but a number of other drivers,
• 1:04:39
  and he does it kind of quietly.
• 1:04:40
  He doesn't make any big deal about it.
• 1:04:42
  No, he's humble at times, but when he wants to get his point across,
• 1:04:45
  he'll definitely get his point across.
• 1:04:47
  Well, I've seen him in that mood.
• 1:04:49
  He talked me through my first win, and, uh, it was a whole road blew up with
• 1:04:53
  like two laps to go when I was leading.
• 1:04:55
  And, so it was a red flag, and Kozak comes rolling up next to
• 1:04:58
  me and gives me a little wave.
• 1:05:00
  And that just got in my head, and Greg comes out and starts.
• 1:05:03
  Just hit your marks, that's, that's a big thing.
• 1:05:05
  Try not to overreact and be smooth with the throttle, don't light them
• 1:05:08
  up, and, and just hit your marks.
• 1:05:10
  I think Joey Payne took out Otto that night, so it made things a little easier.
• 1:05:14
  It just, it just worked out.
• 1:05:17
  When you had the car, you got your first feature win.
• 1:05:20
  I know your dad, Craig, you know, as I said, family has been
• 1:05:23
  involved in racing all the time.
• 1:05:25
  He was, let's just say, very emotional with you in Victory Lane.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah, I mean, he He started in 86.
• 1:05:33
  He traded, uh, he traded a boat for a race car.
• 1:05:36
  All them years going in there, and, you know, I think they
• 1:05:39
  had maybe two top fives.
• 1:05:40
  So our rookie year, we came out, we were really fast.
• 1:05:43
  There was like three weeks where I should have won.
• 1:05:45
  And just, we kept having mistakes, and we just didn't think it was gonna happen.
• 1:05:48
  It was just a lot of relief.
• 1:05:50
  To have all these years, to put all your time and effort into everything, and
• 1:05:53
  finally you've come out on the good end.
• 1:05:55
  And you've won a couple dozen since then.
• 1:05:57
  Fourteen.
• 1:05:58
  Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Brandon, same thing with you about winning your first feature in a Super Modified.
• 1:06:04
  You haven't driven anything else before that, right?
• 1:06:07
  No, just the Super.
• 1:06:08
  Like any other driver on the stage, you probably lost a couple of
• 1:06:11
  races before you won your first.
• 1:06:14
  Yeah, actually I think the, the week before my first win,
• 1:06:16
  we had a, a real good going.
• 1:06:18
  It was actually a, I think it was the first time they did retro night.
• 1:06:21
  I was actually racing Maldoon too, ironically enough, and we were
• 1:06:24
  both going for the lead and, uh, we made contact and kind of Ben,
• 1:06:27
  our up, so I didn't go very good.
• 1:06:29
  After that, ended up not finishing good.
• 1:06:31
  We ended up winning the bumping week, I think it was.
• 1:06:33
  And, and it was, it was definitely, it's a feeling of relief.
• 1:06:36
  Like there was a period for me, like when I first started, it was kind of the, the
• 1:06:39
  older, uh, like Shoveled Hill Super and.
• 1:06:42
  We had some pretty good runs towards the end of the year.
• 1:06:45
  We did some investment racing and built our own car, and when we built our own
• 1:06:48
  car, it was kind of a struggle, like, we just, we weren't even working on
• 1:06:50
  handling problems sometimes, we had so many other problems, and, you know, not
• 1:06:53
  a lot of great finishes, and certainly, like, to get your first win, especially,
• 1:06:57
  like, for me, I saw my dad win a million races, it's like, Jesus, I'm
• 1:07:00
  at the back of the field, I gotta, you know, I should, I gotta do better, so.
• 1:07:04
  So when you do finally get going good and get your first win, I mean, it's feeling
• 1:07:07
  relief, excitement, all of the above.
• 1:07:09
  Allison, the same question that we talked earlier about, you
• 1:07:12
  lose some before you win some.
• 1:07:13
  Once you win, you win your first.
• 1:07:16
  It's a tremendous confidence builder.
• 1:07:18
  Yeah, it was.
• 1:07:18
  I had really big shoes to follow with Otto, so I didn't
• 1:07:22
  want to disappoint the team.
• 1:07:24
  You know, I kind of, on a whim the year before, we were getting out of
• 1:07:28
  ISMA racing and my dad and I didn't really want to put in the time and
• 1:07:31
  the effort to work on a car anymore and travel as much as we were doing.
• 1:07:34
  So, we saw that, um, I guess Schulich jumped out of Johnny's second car.
• 1:07:40
  I had never spoken a word to Otto or Johnny before my dad made the
• 1:07:44
  phone call after the Classic one year and said, Hey, heard you
• 1:07:47
  have an opening, can we come run?
• 1:07:49
  And I'm sure, I don't know what Johnny was thinking, but obviously it worked out, so.
• 1:07:54
  I had really big shoes to follow and I was just happy that I
• 1:07:57
  could prove myself in that sense.
• 1:08:00
  Wait, 1971 I think, or 70, I think you went USAC racing.
• 1:08:06
  And you had a crash that put you out of racing for about a year.
• 1:08:09
  I was running a sprint car.
• 1:08:11
  It was just kind of a bad wreck I had.
• 1:08:12
  And I ended up in the hospital for a while.
• 1:08:15
  And actually Mary Purdy saved my foot.
• 1:08:17
  Because she was a nurse or a technician in the hospital.
• 1:08:20
  And she was in the hospital when I was in the emergency room.
• 1:08:23
  And they were going to chop it off and she said, No, wait a while.
• 1:08:27
  And I said the same thing and uh, Ended up with a doctor in Toledo, Ohio.
• 1:08:32
  Fixed me up pretty good.
• 1:08:33
  That's why.
• 1:08:34
  I could drive again, and I could ski again, and I could do all kinds of
• 1:08:37
  stuff, so I had to thank Mary Ferdie and Howard Ferdie, and I just wanted
• 1:08:42
  to say one thing about people talking about early driving, and the first time
• 1:08:47
  I drove Howard Ferdie's car, it was such a, it was a thrill, a huge, huge thrill.
• 1:08:52
  And I had huge shoes to fill, like a lot of people hear from
• 1:08:55
  Brandon, trying to fill his father's shoes and stuff like that.
• 1:08:59
  And I was trying to fill, uh, Otto's shoes.
• 1:09:02
  And I was trying to fill Ronnie and Lex's shoes, which were impossible to fill.
• 1:09:06
  But the first time I drove the car, I was in practice.
• 1:09:09
  The green flag wasn't out yet, and I was so nervous.
• 1:09:12
  That my throttles go up, up, up, up, up like that.
• 1:09:15
  And, and finally we threw the green flag for the practice.
• 1:09:19
  I thought I was going to break a drive shaft or a U
• 1:09:21
  joint or something in the car.
• 1:09:23
  It was just such a wonderful car to drive.
• 1:09:25
  Alright, Otto, since you're holding the microphone, I'll ask this question.
• 1:09:28
  This is Dan Belinsky.
• 1:09:29
  Is there any race that you can recall that was just a lot of fun?
• 1:09:33
  You enjoyed that race more than any other race you've been in?
• 1:09:36
  Oh, boy.
• 1:09:37
  Anytime you win, but usually, you know, all the work you put involved.
• 1:09:42
  The fun factor really is about an hour time window at the end of the
• 1:09:45
  night, when maybe you think you have the race won, and it happens.
• 1:09:50
  And then you and all your buddies are celebrating, and
• 1:09:53
  that might last about an hour.
• 1:09:55
  And then you work for a whole week to try to go back to get that hour.
• 1:09:59
  What about you, Eddie?
• 1:10:01
  Favorite places?
• 1:10:02
  Now, obviously, anything in 83 has got to be at the top of your list.
• 1:10:05
  Well, almost everywhere you went is just fine.
• 1:10:07
  I don't even know if you could Probably 83, watch this, because there
• 1:10:10
  was so many people that never left.
• 1:10:12
  There was like thousands of people, they never went home, they just stayed.
• 1:10:14
  It was just a weird situation.
• 1:10:16
  Just a minute ago you mentioned Dan Heletsky's name, you know, his dad
• 1:10:20
  built a lot of Superman back in the day.
• 1:10:22
  A lot of people know that.
• 1:10:24
  Warren Coney, going along with the same vein, what about you and the
• 1:10:27
  most exciting race you ever had, or the best way, the best feel you got?
• 1:10:32
  Every win is great.
• 1:10:34
  My first win in Oswego with The Rutledge car was great, of course,
• 1:10:39
  seeing the smile on their faces.
• 1:10:41
  The rear engine car, the Champlains, was probably the
• 1:10:44
  most fun I've had in a race car.
• 1:10:47
  I mean, I knew it was fast, you know, when I was warming it up.
• 1:10:52
  But just to get to drive for People like Champagne callin
• 1:10:57
  and askin you to drive it.
• 1:10:59
  Captain Gates, he came off a winning championship and puts me in his car.
• 1:11:04
  I drove for a lot of great people and I came out of racing
• 1:11:07
  with a lot of good friends.
• 1:11:09
  Friends sittin right here in this room today.
• 1:11:11
  Makes racing all worthwhile.
• 1:11:13
  What about the Champagne car?
• 1:11:15
  That race really ended the rear engine cars at Oswego.
• 1:11:18
  Had you not had the leak in it with 15 to go, it was, it was
• 1:11:21
  the obvious winner of the race.
• 1:11:23
  To watch you, it was an effortless race.
• 1:11:27
  You didn't seem like you were ever in trouble, that you were battling
• 1:11:30
  the car, ever had a problem with it?
• 1:11:32
  No, I mean that car would just go anywhere on the racetrack.
• 1:11:34
  You know, you get up in the dirt, near the fence, and the
• 1:11:37
  car's in the fence normally.
• 1:11:39
  That car would go anywhere.
• 1:11:40
  Hats off to Jimmy, he's teamed up a great piece.
• 1:11:43
  Do you think the car should, the rear engine cars totally
• 1:11:46
  should have been banned?
• 1:11:47
  To run rear engine cars with roadsters is probably tough.
• 1:11:51
  At that time, there wasn't a lot of people capable of building
• 1:11:55
  a car like that, I don't think.
• 1:11:58
  There's been a lot of rear engine cars that have been
• 1:11:59
  tried and just didn't finish.
• 1:12:03
  I would guess they probably came up with the right idea, probably going back,
• 1:12:08
  Roadster the Jimmy Champagne is the one that really made antiques out of most
• 1:12:13
  of the cars when he came up with the, you know, the radically offset Roadster.
• 1:12:18
  Well, then that's one of the reasons why the track decided to ban
• 1:12:21
  their rear engines at that point.
• 1:12:23
  Because the Champagne car had just revolutionized super modifieds.
• 1:12:27
  People were still trying to catch up with that, and now here's another one
• 1:12:30
  that they had to try to catch up to.
• 1:12:32
  And that was much more sophisticated.
• 1:12:34
  Well, like, Eddie and I used to joke, we had, what, 12 inch offset race
• 1:12:39
  cars, and all the guys would run 19s.
• 1:12:42
  Oh, wait, finish.
• 1:12:43
  You know, one or two or three in the future.
• 1:12:46
  We used to joke about having the best antique in the field.
• 1:12:50
  All right, Eddie.
• 1:12:51
  Every track has some good rivalries.
• 1:12:53
  Not every driver has a rivalry.
• 1:12:55
  But every track has some good rivalries.
• 1:12:58
  And at Oswego, you had a good rivalry with Steve Choi to the point where when the two
• 1:13:04
  seat super modified came out, I asked you to drive the car, and you said you would.
• 1:13:09
  And when I told Steve and Pat that you were going to drive
• 1:13:12
  the car, And Steve said to me, How did you get him to do that?
• 1:13:16
  I said, he likes me.
• 1:13:20
  This is true.
• 1:13:23
  Alright, but what about rivalries?
• 1:13:25
  I know you had one with Steve.
• 1:13:26
  Anybody else?
• 1:13:27
  I never really, you know what, I think we all have a weekly rivalry, but sooner
• 1:13:30
  or later, you know, we all get over it.
• 1:13:33
  Being mad at somebody forever is a lot of work.
• 1:13:37
  So, I don't, I don't really,
• 1:13:42
  Dave, anybody you'd like to beat on the racetrack?
• 1:13:44
  One person you want to finish ahead of?
• 1:13:46
  No matter if it's 10th or 15th or 1st.
• 1:13:49
  Otto.
• 1:13:51
  I mean, I think everybody down in Oswego looks to beat Otto.
• 1:13:54
  He doesn't race very quickly, but he's still the guy that
• 1:13:58
  you want to go in and beat.
• 1:13:59
  You look down, you don't turn one.
• 1:14:00
  That's the best in the business, in one.
• 1:14:02
  So, if you beat him at night, you're partying pretty good.
• 1:14:07
  Brandon, what about you?
• 1:14:09
  I don't know, I'd say every competitor really, I mean there's just, you know,
• 1:14:12
  even right now there's still a lot of fast cars, fast drivers, hard working teams.
• 1:14:16
  I mean, I don't know if I can single one person out that I want to make sure
• 1:14:19
  I beat because I, you know, I, kind of like other people have touched on
• 1:14:22
  earlier, when I go into the night I want to win the race and so there's,
• 1:14:25
  there's a field of cars that you're going to have to beat to do that, so.
• 1:14:28
  2024.
• 1:14:30
  You'll be racing on Oswego.
• 1:14:31
  What are your other plans?
• 1:14:32
  Well, definitely going to focus on Oswego.
• 1:14:34
  That's something, you know, we've done for years and we're
• 1:14:36
  going to do again this year.
• 1:14:37
  Running the last race at Evans Mills last year kind of gave us an opportunity to
• 1:14:41
  finally cure our, a heat problem that we've had in our car and the foot box
• 1:14:45
  just getting too hot and burning up.
• 1:14:47
  So I guess, having solved that and finishing a race with a wing on for
• 1:14:50
  once, I think it gives us, uh, A little more optimism to, to put the wing on
• 1:14:55
  a few times is, you know, as far as picking it out, It's kind of something
• 1:14:58
  like for us having one car just Sort of depends on how the week prior goes.
• 1:15:01
  If for some reason our car ends up all smashed up at Oswego,
• 1:15:04
  well, that complicates, uh, going to a wing race after that.
• 1:15:07
  So it's, for us it's easy to decide in the moment.
• 1:15:09
  We're last minute on everything anyway, so.
• 1:15:12
  Okay, gave the answer.
• 1:15:13
  Same question, what are your 2020 vote plans?
• 1:15:15
  We talked about, uh, you're probably going to go to California, maybe
• 1:15:18
  Carraway, and the Oswego Speedway.
• 1:15:20
  Is that about it?
• 1:15:21
  Yeah, I plan on running a full Swiggle schedule, the
• 1:15:24
  Swiggle Wing and the Yzma Wing.
• 1:15:26
  I'd really like to maybe hit the high miler and maybe run lead too, uh,
• 1:15:31
  transport as many Super Shows as we can.
• 1:15:33
  So that's, that's the plan right now.
• 1:15:35
  Okay, I hope plans are a little flexible, but you're gonna be on
• 1:15:39
  Swiggle at least for the first two shows, you're on Yzma, MSS.
• 1:15:42
  Yeah, if we were successful the first two weeks, then we would probably try to go.
• 1:15:46
  So, maybe we, Johnny says, stub our toe kind of thing.
• 1:15:49
  Going to Berlin and all those places with work, with travel, with, with help.
• 1:15:55
  Really tough thing.
• 1:15:55
  We've done it the last two, three years in a row.
• 1:15:59
  So it's, we want to race, but it's just, you know, work commitments, all that.
• 1:16:04
  We're going to just have to take it week by week.
• 1:16:06
  I'm not going to rule out one in every race that we did run,
• 1:16:09
  but, you know, we'll have to see.
• 1:16:11
  And the high miler, Sandusky, will be there?
• 1:16:14
  Yeah, I think so.
• 1:16:14
  Okay.
• 1:16:15
  That's about it.
• 1:16:16
  I'm going to start with Allison, and come across one by one.
• 1:16:20
  Just any last thoughts on Supermodified Racing here today, anything?
• 1:16:24
  You asked earlier about a really fun race.
• 1:16:26
  It wasn't a race that I won, but it's a race that I raced Otto
• 1:16:30
  against in an ISMA Super at Oswego.
• 1:16:33
  The best part of it was hearing the entire crowd boo him after I got out of
• 1:16:40
  the race, because they thought that he was jumping the start, and I actually
• 1:16:43
  had, I had a stumble in my motor and it ended up being a fuel pick up issue, which
• 1:16:47
  the crowd didn't know that at the time.
• 1:16:49
  They just had thought Otto was kinda being Otto.
• 1:16:52
  And, um, it was really, we had a really great time after that race.
• 1:16:56
  Busting balls and having a good time and, uh, that's just something that's
• 1:17:00
  always stuck in my mind with racing.
• 1:17:04
  I've had a hell of a lot of fun, met a lot of friends, and I did all, all
• 1:17:09
  my businesses came from learning stuff that I learned on Race Guys, all my
• 1:17:14
  friends, and it's just been a wonderful career, knowing all these people that
• 1:17:17
  do it all, embracing me and everybody.
• 1:17:20
  I can't ask for anything more.
• 1:17:21
  Okay, don't give the mic away yet.
• 1:17:23
  Alright, Brandon, last thoughts from you.
• 1:17:26
  I'd like to ask, uh, Bentley and Warren pointed my question.
• 1:17:28
  So, for me growing up, watching my dad race, like, he made no mistakes at all.
• 1:17:32
  It was perfect.
• 1:17:34
  So, I guess, from another guy's perspective, there's two
• 1:17:37
  guys that race against him.
• 1:17:38
  Do you have any dirt that you can give me?
• 1:17:39
  Like, um, How do you tell him?
• 1:17:42
  What was that move?
• 1:17:43
  What was he thinking?
• 1:17:44
  Eddie was very, very clean.
• 1:17:46
  A good racer.
• 1:17:47
  And I enjoyed This is what you always say when you retire.
• 1:17:51
  Everyone's like 1980 something.
• 1:17:53
  I say, what an asshole he was.
• 1:17:56
  No, he was always a good guy.
• 1:17:57
  I actually everything I had to race with was wonderful.
• 1:18:00
  You had your heated moments.
• 1:18:02
  Of the day, and I'm sure Andy had some with me, because I remember him talking to
• 1:18:06
  me in funny ways, different ways, but uh, No, we, we, we had our racing instruments,
• 1:18:11
  because we both, like Brandon says, and, and Allison says, Everybody wants to win.
• 1:18:15
  You go there with one thing in mind.
• 1:18:17
  You want to pass the car in front of you, and if there's another car in
• 1:18:20
  front of him, you want to pass him.
• 1:18:21
  And that's what you're trying to do, so you get PO'd and
• 1:18:23
  people that are in your way.
• 1:18:25
  Even though they're not in your way, they're going faster than you.
• 1:18:28
  That's how they're doing it.
• 1:18:29
  So that's about it.
• 1:18:31
  Dave, last thought before we end, did we do more?
• 1:18:33
  No, I was just wondering if more coin had any dirt, maybe two.
• 1:18:37
  Maybe that's the way to go.
• 1:18:38
  I bet he does.
• 1:18:41
  I bet he does.
• 1:18:44
  He's telling a story.
• 1:18:47
  Maybe you better.
• 1:18:49
  I'm telling a story.
• 1:18:53
  Because I'll tell the truth.
• 1:18:56
  Anyways, it was funny.
• 1:18:57
  Two different times.
• 1:18:58
  Well, here we are.
• 1:18:59
  We're up to queue.
• 1:19:00
  It was your fault.
• 1:19:02
  I'm running third, right?
• 1:19:04
  I'm running third.
• 1:19:05
  Well, at that time, back in those days, we always had a passive flag and everything.
• 1:19:08
  So here I am, third.
• 1:19:10
  The race is going on.
• 1:19:12
  Pass the flags out, there's some lap cars in front of me.
• 1:19:14
  So I figure, well, you know, they're for us.
• 1:19:16
  Well, little did I know, he's leading the race.
• 1:19:18
  And he's behind me.
• 1:19:21
  He's working a lap me, and I'm working a lap him.
• 1:19:24
  I didn't get a good look at him or whatever.
• 1:19:26
  So I come out and flip the front wheel and smash the shit.
• 1:19:28
  And then, I went down the track, and I was going to throw my helmet out.
• 1:19:38
  He's in the cruise lap.
• 1:19:39
  I didn't want to throw a 300 helmet at him.
• 1:19:43
  So I just threw my gloves for something to do.
• 1:19:47
  Bentley comes in after a race and says, Hey, you dropped your gloves.
• 1:19:56
  And then he comes over and puts his arm around me and says,
• 1:19:58
  Come on, let's go have a beer.
• 1:20:01
  Okay, Dave.
• 1:20:01
  Dave Gansel, last thoughts on today.
• 1:20:05
  You're racing anything.
• 1:20:06
  Glad it was a good turnout.
• 1:20:07
  I mean, I love the stories.
• 1:20:09
  I love all the history and stuff about racing, so this
• 1:20:12
  has been a pretty cool day.
• 1:20:13
  You know, it's been a dream to sit up here with these types of people up here.
• 1:20:16
  I mean, people I've looked up.
• 1:20:17
  I stayed up in Turn 4 for 20 years and just get to watch these guys
• 1:20:21
  race for all these years, especially.
• 1:20:23
  80s and 90s, so it's really cool.
• 1:20:25
  Any last thoughts from you?
• 1:20:27
  My whole life of Soygo Speedway was just no regrets.
• 1:20:30
  Great place to go.
• 1:20:31
  All my kids go to the race and we'll meet on Saturday night.
• 1:20:34
  That's always a good thing.
• 1:20:35
  You were with your dad.
• 1:20:37
  It was always nice to see your dad.
• 1:20:38
  And your dad was my favorite driver all the time.
• 1:20:40
  Three track championships.
• 1:20:43
  But he was with you in the pits all the time.
• 1:20:47
  You ask these guys about their favorite race, and of course it's
• 1:20:50
  not fun to come back from a wreck the previous week and win the next week.
• 1:20:55
  But we have been lucky enough to do that, I think, three times.
• 1:20:58
  Brandon mentioned it earlier with Joy, or Dave, he mentioned it.
• 1:21:02
  Joy Ping took out Otto, last race of the year.
• 1:21:05
  You know, we had run three cars for class a few times.
• 1:21:08
  Every time I've done it, I look at my buddy and I go, don't
• 1:21:11
  ever let me do this again.
• 1:21:12
  Right?
• 1:21:12
  Because it's a circus, right?
• 1:21:14
  Yeah.
• 1:21:14
  So, we were debating on whether to bring two or three for plastic in two weeks.
• 1:21:19
  When I went out on the wall, and it was kind of a dirty deal, I
• 1:21:23
  thought, I didn't tell all of them.
• 1:21:24
  I gathered all the troops, like, everybody take off work, we're going
• 1:21:27
  out, I want three cars here, right?
• 1:21:30
  I was mad, right?
• 1:21:32
  So, we get the three cars for plastic, and I happened to be walking through
• 1:21:35
  tech that day, I told the crew, I go, get ready for a lot of blue in here.
• 1:21:41
  All full of it, right?
• 1:21:42
  And that day we came in first and second in the Classic.
• 1:21:45
  And, uh, so to come back from that rack, and pull off, I think, I don't know if it
• 1:21:49
  was 11 or 12, but it was one of the 1 2 finishers that we had there at Classic.
• 1:21:54
  That was one of my favorite races, you know.
• 1:21:57
  Echoing a lot of these guys, I feel very fortunate.
• 1:22:00
  Been a lot of hard work, been a lot of fun.
• 1:22:03
  I'm very thankful for the career that I've had to this point, especially Swiggo.
• 1:22:08
  To go there as an outsider and become somebody, and leave a mark.
• 1:22:12
  It's been an accomplishment in racing.
• 1:22:14
  I'd like to say thanks to everybody for, uh, coming to this event.
• 1:22:19
  Thanks for being invited.
• 1:22:21
  Just great running against, uh, All these guys over the years and met a lot
• 1:22:25
  of super people over the years that are still my friends and Great to come away
• 1:22:30
  with racing come away from racing with a lot of good friends Let's hear it
• 1:22:34
  for Allison slow billy gore and Brandon Bellinger Dave Dancer Eddie Bellinger John
• 1:22:39
  Nicotra Otto Siddeley and Warren Codingham
• 1:22:53
  Make it to your favorite racetrack this year.
• 1:22:55
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• 1:23:01
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