All About Racing

By Ed & Betty Biittig

The 63rd running of the Eastern States 200 is in the books and Stewart Friesen of Sprakers, NY is now a four-time winner of the event held at the Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, NY. Joining Friesen on the podium for Sunday’s race was Matt Sheppard of Waterloo, NY and Anthony Perrego of Wallkill, NY.

Friesen started the event in the 40th position after running in the last chance qualifying event on Sunday morning. Friesen had not attempted to qualify in previous qualifying due to his NASCAR commitment in the Truck Series. Friesen finished in the runner up spot in his qualifying event and had to take the last place starting position as a past champion provisional.

Friesen also won the Thursday night Hard Clay Finale race that kicked off Eastern States Weekend and signaled the final round of the North Region STSS Modified event. Matt Sheppard finished second to Friesen in that event and secured the North Region championship title. Anthony Perrego was also on the podium in third for that event.

After practice and qualifying races on Friday, the Sportsman Eastern States 50 hit the track that night and Brian Krummel added another win to his Eastern States record. Dom Roselli and Tyler Peet celebrated with second and third place finishes.

Saturday brought the Eastern States 100 for 358-Modifieds and Mat Williamson of St. Cathrine’s, Ontario, Canada recorded his second win in the event. On the podium with Williamson was Matt Sheppard, second and Peter Britten, third.

Except for Sundays much of what we saw of the Eastern States Weekend (ESW) events was on DTD.TV but Sunday Ed made the trip to Middletown for a first hand look at the happenings on the final day of ESW.

Eastern States was not all the racing that ran this past weekend. Brookfield Speedway at the Madison County Fairgrounds ran the “Spooktacular Saturday” 602 Crate Sportsman event and David Hackett, Jr. of Baldwinsville took home the win and secured the 2024 divisional championship at the fairgrounds. Finishing second was Butchie Irwin and third was Todd Titus. Other winners at Brookfield were George Cushman, Pro Stocks, Kenny Gates was champion; Ali Scutt, 600 Modifieds; Sullivan Dickey, AllStar Slingshots and also champion; Addisyn Roger, Junior Slingshot winner and champion; Kamrin Krause, dual cam and Steve Burka, single cam Four Cylinder winners; Krause, dual cam champion and Hayleigh Gates, single cam champion.

This weekend the final event of the 2024 STSS season is set for Georgetown Speedway in Delaware. Friday and Saturday, November 1&2 the South Region Modified and Crate 602 Sportsman titles will be decided.

The weather is getting cooler and local racing is winding down. The next on the schedule will be the annual award banquets. We will give our readers a run down on those events as they happened.

Until next week please send all news and/or comments to biittig@yahoo.com