For our first taste of New England Modified racing, we take in the action at Mahoning Valley Speedway. It is a small, by all accounts, race track with huge action...
To say this track is small is an understatement. It is under a 1/4 mile in the racing groove as stated by the man who revived and reinvented the track in 1987, Ward Crozier. And it looks it.
I first noticed the length, or lack thereof, when viewing the track from Google Earth, something I do before driving the motorhome to a venue so I can visualize it. It looks like a circle, not egg shaped or any form of oval, but round.
If there ever was a handling track, this is it and the cars that did well were the ones that handled well and stayed consistent. Horsepower had little to do with success here.
I ran into a late model driver who said he ran AMSOIL. We give away a free case of high quality AMSOIL to the winner of the feature division at each track, here the modifieds. But, I told him if he won, I would give him a free case too. Well dang if he didn't go out and win.
After he got done in victory lane, I toted over the case of oil and presented it to Austin Kochenash. This talented fifteen year old won nine races last year, so I should have known better. Oh well.
And this track has started a division for Northern dirt modifieds to give them a taste of asphalt racing. They must run their regular dirt tires and the racing is a hoot.