By T.J. Buffenbarger
(July 13, 2024) — After an entertaining “home game” just 40 minutes from my front door, here are my takeaways from the finale of the Great Lakes Classic Supermodified Weekend at Berlin Raceway.
• Throughout the past couple of seasons car count has been an issue to the point where the International Super Modified Association and Midwest Supermodified Series became a single entity. So far away from Oswego the series struggled to get more than 14 cars to show up for an event.
Berlin managed to have 20 cars attempt to race Friday and18 cars on Saturday despite a couple of large crashes on opening night.
I walked around the pit area asking race teams why this event seems to buck the low car count trend. A variety of different reasons were cited such as Berlin’s immaculate facility, the event being two days, and the purse for the program were all cited among other different things.
There was one answer that was universal among all the race teams.
They appreciate the way Berlin Raceway’s management treated them.
All the race teams went out of their way to compliment the staff at Berlin. From the hustle the track does throughout the year to follow up with race teams to make the long trip to Marne, Michigan, general manager Jeff Striegle personally going around to all the teams thanking the for making the trip.
Striegle and his staff don’t get enough credit in my opinion for making this event work. They could put on another large late model race with far less work involved, but instead they put in the effort all year to make this supermodified race not only work but give it a big event feel. Even the winner of the Great Lakes Classic appears on a banner on the grandstands along with all of Berlin’s big late model race winners.
The treatment allows the event to transcend the messy politics that facture the supermodified division and hinder its growth. It’s a great weekend to celebrate the division where everyone from fans to competitors are just happy to be there.
The fans at Berlin are all in on this event as well, drawing large crowds both nights despite having major pavement and dirt late model racing taking place in the state over the past week.
The event also pays homage to the formative years Berlin Raceway where supermodifieds were the top class throughout the 60’s until stock car racing took over as the featured weekly class.
The two-day ISMA/MSS program at Berlin Raceway has all the makings of becoming one of the crown jewel events of Supermodified racing. The placement two weeks before the Sandusky Speedway’s Hy-Miler Nationals is perfect to lead into next week’s race at Oswego makes for a major month of supermodified racing. Hopefully the event continues to be the week before the Kings Royal so I can include it in my July schedule for years to come.
• Mike McVetta appears to have found speed at just the right time. With the Hy-Miler Classic at Sandusky Speedway coming in two weeks and next weekend a makeup feature at Oswego Speedway, McVetta appears to have long distance speed in his car.
Throughout the 60-laps a Berlin it appeared McVetta was toying with veteran driver Otto Sitterly. It was a sign of the continued maturation of McVetta’s transition from sprint cars to supermodifieds that he was able to take advantage of the longer distance and pressure Sitterly into making a mistake.
The task will grow more daunting in two weeks with 100-laps as the distance around Sandusky’s paperclip shaped half-mile oval, but I think the speed McVetta has will translate to the longer distance.
• If you tend to be more of a midget or sprint car fan, taking in the Great Lakes Classic Supermodified Weekend at Berlin Raceway is a perfect deviation to mix up your racing schedule.
Nothing smells or sounds like a supermodified race. The scent of the hot tires, thumping sound of the big block engines, an intense smell of the racing fuel being burned are much more sensory than a sprint car race, even on pavement.
I liken supermodified racing to Silver Crown racing on steroids. The longer race distance plays out similarly to a silver crown event, and much like Silver Crown the cars at a Supermodified race are the stars of the program, only in a different way.
From their radical offset look, multi-element wins on air shocks, each one being hand fabricated with great care makes them the most unique short track racing car on the planet.
That level of fabrication and care also lends itself to more respectful racing between the competitors. Everyone out on the track has to go to work in the morning, and none of them want to be fabricating for weeks on end to overcome crash damage.
It had been a decade since I had taken a supermodified race at Berlin, and I’m glad I made the decision to not wait another year to end that dry spell.