DIRT: Petrosino Wins Enduro Season-Opener At Cayuga County Fair Speedway

By Gary M. Spaid, DIRT MotorSports PR

WEEDSPORT, N.Y. (April 10) – Bright, cloudless skies greeted the racers and fans on Sunday for the start of the 51st year of competitive auto racing at the Cayuga County Fair Speedway. So nice was the weather that the bright sunshine played havoc with the speedway causing heavy dust conditions at times during the open practice sessions.

On tap for the opener was practice for any and all racers along with a 100-lap Pick-N-Pull Enduro Championship. This would be the first of three planned Enduro Championships, augmenting the regular 4-cylinder Enduro division which starts weekly competition at the end of May. In the first special event, Tom Petrosino, from Auburn, NY, survived all 100 circuits to lap the entire field and take home the $1,000 first place money.

Forty Enduro cars and 50 race cars from six different classes were on hand, including those from the DIRT Modified, Sportsman, Pro Stock, Street Stock, Mini-Modified and Sprint Car divisions. Not all cars used their transponders yet those that did receive times for their laps.

Setting fast time of the day was DIRT MotorSports™ 'Elite 11' runner Gary Tomkins turning in a 16.556 second lap, 81.556 mph. Tomkins’ time came during the first practice session. Bob McCreadie set fast time in both the second and third practice sessions for the Modifieds, topping the second practice session with a lap of 18.828 second for a speed of 71.702 mph. Times fell off from the first session due to the slicker, dryer track conditions.

Other top DIRT Modified times were turned in by Alan Johnson, who steered the Thum Racing number 12T. Johnson turned in second fast time of the day with a 16.875 second lap, 80.000 mph. It was reported by Johnson that he would wheel the Thum big-block Modified each and every Sunday at Cayuga County. Also fast was Donnie Wetmore Jr. with a lap of 16.957, Jeff Brownell with a lap of 17.059 and Billy Dunn turning in a 17.206 second circuit.

In the Sportsman division Chris Higgins recorded the fastest lap with a 17.763 second effort in the first practice session. Only two of dozen Sportsman cars on hand were running transponders.

The start of the 100-lap Enduro spotlighted Mark Deland, from Auburn, NY and Bryan Randall from Waterloo, NY out front of the field that boasted 40 starters. Deland used his starting position to quickly jump into the lead with Fred Greule right on his rear bumper. Greule took the lead from Deland in a side-by-side battle on lap three although Deland fought back using lapped traffic to retake the front spot a lap later.

Greule was not long for the race, pitting within the next few laps. This pushed Greg Large from Auburn into second with Kelly Smith in third. Deland started to slow some on lap nine allowing Large to take the lead. Smith, who started to show his strength, passed Large for the lead two laps later on lap 11 and began to pull away from the rest of the field. Only Large seemed to be able to stay with Smith’s fast pace.

Large retook first on lap 16 with an inside move entering the third turn. Also on the charge was the number 32 driven by multi-time Enduro winner Greg DeChick. Deland gave up third to DeChick and quickly moved in on the leaders. Up front Smith pulled alongside of Large to regain the front spot on lap 19, making for five lead changes in just 20 laps.

Smith put his car on cruise control with DeChick running a solid second. On lap 33 hometown favorite Kirk Eckross from Weedsport was turned sideways exiting the fourth turn. Cars started to slam into the disabled Eckross machine forcing starter Dave Farney to throw the red flag. Caught up in this melee was second place runner DeChick as well as multi-time track Enduro winner Bill Werner.

When the field was given the green flag again it was Kelly Smith in first followed by Tom Petrosino and Wally Young from Penn Yan, NY. All looked well for Smith as he easily held off his closest competition until lap 47. At that time he made contact with the inside concrete wall in the first turn and came to a stop to put an abrupt halt to his afternoon agenda.

This put Petrosino into first-place and at this time only the leader and runner-up Young remained on the lead lap. Third-place runner Adam Keuer from Waterloo, who had started second to last in the field, was a lap down to the two leaders. Petrosino seemed to want to be the only car on the lead lap as he set out to lap Young.

On lap 70 Petrosino completed his mission passing Young to become the only car on the lead lap. Three laps later Young’s car seemed to slow dramatically while on lap 79 Keuer unlapped himself to Young and then passed him again to take second as lapped traffic remained heavy. Young turned his car pit-side on lap 83, out of the race for the time being.

Moving up from his last place starting spot, Josh St. Martin took over third and then passed Keuer for second. Up front, all Petrosino had to do was to stay out of trouble and keep plugging away as the laps clicked off.

The red flag flew for the second time in the event, this time on lap 87 as a number of cars piled up exiting the fourth turn. Caught up in this accident was third-place runner Keuer. Lenny Panagiotatos from Farmington was able to grab third following Keuer’s wreck.

Petrosino led the pack on the restart with just 13 laps remaining in the 100-lap affair. St. Martin held on to second but was unable to catch the high-flying leader with Petrosino taking his first checkered flag and pocketing the $1,000 first-place check. St. Martin picked up $300 for his second place finish while Panagiotatos held on to third and a $200 payday.

“I had to dodge a lot of debris today,” Petrosino commented to announcer Doug Elkins in victory lane. “I just have to thank everyone who helped me get here this year.”