m Camden Proud
OSWEGO, N.Y. (May 3, 2017) – A brand new addition is in the works for racing at Oswego Speedway and the particulars of this addition will be quite unique to ‘The Steel Palace’.
In a combined effort with Supermodified car builder John Colloca, track owners John and Eric Torrese have put plans in place over the past several months to develop a prototype 350 Supermodified for testing at the Steel Palace. This beautiful racer is now complete at Colloca’s Oswego shop.
350 Supers run weekly at facilities in New Hampshire, however, they have never seen racing action at Oswego. This is something the Torrese’s hope to change, and while track management has no intentions of doing away with neither the Novelis Supermodified nor the Pathfinder Bank SBS divisions, the speedway does hope to build a third class for the near future.
“We are pretty excited about this beautiful race car,” said track owner Eric Torrese. “Our goal behind this is not at all to poach or do away with the SBS class or the Supermodified class. Over the past two years I have seen at least six cars go east or west for racing and we feel as though those cars would have been valued additions to our field at Oswego, perhaps in the 350 Supermodified capacity. The intent with this idea is to continue to build our two divisions as well as build a third. We want to make our racing as exciting and action-packed as possible for the fans. We want the pits full and believe that taking the steps to begin an Oswego 350 class will allow us to maintain those two goals.”
350 Supermodifieds were last on the race track at Oswego in 2013 when a handful of New England region cars appeared for testing, running sub-18 second times. While the expectation is to see something similar with the Oswego-style 350 Super, there is a small difference between the two cars.
“This is a 350 Supermodified with a 602 crate engine that has cast iron heads,” said John Colloca. “There is a Chevy distributor in there. Very similar to what they run out east, almost the exact same thing, however their engine is a 604 and what we have in this car is a 602.”
2017 will be a gigantic test for this 350 Supermodified along with the speedway to see what comes of the in-depth track time for this freshly re-done machine. A handful of drivers are expected to get behind the wheel, one of them being Pat Lavery, who is quite familiar with this prototype car in particular.
“Our car that will see track time this year is a former Pat Lavery 22,” Torrese commented. “We intend to do tons of testing . I talked to Pat today about driving it. Without taking away too much from guys that are racing full-time, our plan is to get it out on the track as soon as possible and just start playing. There are some guys we have in mind.”
Torrese feels that this class of cars will eventually produce very equal, quality racing for all parties involved.
“You look at the cars and drivers that stopped running, perhaps because they felt they wouldn’t be running for a top ten finish with all the new evolution cars,” Torrese mentioned. “My belief is that with a front nose wing and the big rear wing we can glue these cars down. Even if it’s a much older car, with not too much sheet metal and equal motors we can really get these things racy. That is our goal.”
This season, it’s all about learning and seeing how this endeavor, which is brand new for everyone at Oswego Speedway, will shake out.
“2017 is going to be a learning experience,” Torrese stated. “I hope that by somewhere in July we hopefully have it figured out and from there make up a rulebook and go forward with this as a class in the future. There are cars sitting in garages not being touched right now that we think could be a part of a 350 Supermodified division at Oswego. We hope the fans like it, we hope people support it and hopefully everyone will be as excited as we are.”
Oswego Speedway will be back in action this Saturday, May 6 for the speedway’s annual open testing sessions. Main grandstand gates will be open and free to the public.
Official racing action at the Speedway begins on Saturday, May 13 featuring the speedway’s 67th consecutive Opening Day presented by Mitchell’s Speedway Press and highlighted by the Race of Champions Modified Richie Evans Memorial 61 as well as kick-off events for the Novelis Supermodifieds and Pathfinder Bank SBS.
For more information on Oswego Speedway be sure to visit www.oswegospeedway.com. You can also FOLLOW on Twitter @OswegoSpeedway and LIKE on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OswegoSpeedway.