The Hot Ticket: Advance Ticket Sales Underway For ‘Hard Clay Open’ At Orange County Fair Speedway Starting Monday, Jan. 20; Pre-Sale Tickets Available At OCFS Office Or Via Phone Orders
MIDDLETOWN, NY – It has been dubbed the ‘hot ticket’ of the spring for dirt Modified racing.
And it will be on sale soon. Starting Monday, Jan. 20, advance tickets will go on sale for the ‘Hard Clay Open’ slated for Orange County Fair Speedway.
The inaugural running of the ‘Hard Clay Open’ at the Middletown, N.Y., facility – promoted by Brett Deyo of BD Motorsports Media LLC via an agreement with speedway operators Michael Gurda IV and Howard Commander – on Sunday, March 23 continues to grow. The event, which serves as the first on-track activity at Orange County in ’14, is slated to kick off the New York State Modified season and opens the 2014 Short Track Super Series Fueled By VP.
The ‘Hard Clay Open’ will be headlined by a 50-lap big-block/small-block Modified event paying a minimum of $5,000 to win. The strength of the purse is its balance through the field: second-place pays $4,000, with $1,000 reserved for the 10th-place finisher and $500 just to take the green flag. A base payout of $30,000 has been outlined for the first ‘Hard Clay Open’ Modified event. Crate 602 Sportsman run a 25-lap main event paying $1,000 to win in the lid-lifter of the Dig Safely New York GRIT Series.
Due to high off-season demand, advance tickets – for the first time in BD Motorsports Media history – will be offered beginning Jan. 20. Tickets can be purchased in-person at the Orange County Fair Speedway office – located at 239 Wisner Avenue Middletown, NY 10940 – Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Phone sales, utilizing a credit card, can be completed during the same business hours by calling 845.343.2573. Checks, made payable to Orange County Fair Speedway, can be mailed to the speedway office address above.
Admission for the ‘Hard Clay Open’ is $20 for Adults, $18 for Seniors and $2 for Kids 12 and under. Pit admission is $35, with no license required.
“The speedway office has been buzzing with phone calls,” event co-promoter Deyo said. “Kenny Sands (OCFS general manager) and Mike Gurda have been fielding daily inquiries about advance tickets from fans who want to make sure they have a seat for one of the most-anticipated events at Orange County in recent memory. Thanks to Orange County management and their office staff, advance tickets will go on sale Jan. 20.”
Modified registration for the ‘Hard Clay Open’ is underway, with early entries arriving at a brisk pace. Speedway regular Craig ‘Hollywood’ Mitchell of Wappingers Falls, N.Y., was the first to file an entry. Others throwing their name in the hat early on include Canandaigua (N.Y.) Motorsports Park regular Tim Currier of Auburn, N.Y.; ’13 OCFS champion Tim Hindley of Fair Oaks, N.Y.; I-88 (N.Y.) Speedway driver Brett Tonkin of Carbondale, Pa.; Fonda (N.Y.) and Albany-Saratoga (N.Y.) veteran Elmo Reckner of Ballston Lake, N.Y.; Accord (N.Y.) and Lebanon Valley (N.Y.) star Andy Bachetti of Sheffield, Mass.; and OCFS stalwart Bill Pascual of Mahopac, N.Y.
The pre-entry fee is $15. Entry forms are available online atwww.bdmotorsportsmedia.com andwww.orangecountyfairspeedway.net. All entries received prior to Feb. 1 will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gas card.
United Pump & Tank of Newburgh, N.Y., serves as a leading marketing partner of the ‘Hard Clay Open’ with East Coast Speed & Sport Shop/ECS Auto providing support, in addition to a long list of bonus, lap and special award sponsors.
Marketing opportunities for the ‘Hard Clay Open’ remain available. Lap sponsorships are on sale now at $20 minimum per lap (all lap money is distributed directly to the racers). To get involved, contact Brett Deyo at Deyo99H@aol.com or call 845.728.2781.
Big- and small-block combinations are legal for this unique event with staggered minimum weights. American Racer and Hoosier tires are both legal, as well. Accepted tire compounds have been outlined in the race rules/information.
For the first time in Orange County history, sail panels are permitted for the ‘Hard Clay Open’ Modified event. Sail panels must be no taller than 65 inches when measured from the ground and must mirror each other in size and shape side-for-side. A four-inch roof spoiler is permitted, as well. All other Orange County/DIRTcar body rules will be in effect. Complete race rules, weights and tire compounds can be found online atwww.bdmotorsportsmedia.com orwww.orangecountyfairspeedway.net.
For qualifying, drivers will draw for their starting positions upon entry to the speedway. Heat-race finishes utilizing staggered passing points will be calculated to set the redraw participants and qualified cars from 10-lap heat races. Consolations, 10 laps each, will set the remainder of the 28-car starting field via their order of finish. The heat-race finish/passing point combination will set the starting lineups for the consolations.
The passing points system, new to Modified racing but widely used in other forms of racing including Sprint Cars and the famed ‘Chili Bowl’ in Tulsa, Okla., aims to satisfy the desires of both racers and fans by easing the consequences of a poor draw for competitors and providing heat-race excitement for fans.
The ‘Hard Clay Open’ will be contested on a date that is conflict-free on the dirt Modified landscape. The Sunday afternoon lid-lifter should attract a cross-section of cars from the north, south, east and west. On Saturday of the weekend (March 22), New Egypt (N.J.) Speedway hosts an event, setting up a potential two-day swing south for traveling teams from Central New York and further north.
For competitors planning to chase points on the Short Track Super Series Fueled By VP, the ‘Hard Clay Open’ serves as the first of six points-paying events. Orange County is joined in the Short Track Super Series by Thunder Mountain (N.Y.), I-88 (N.Y., two events including the championship-deciding Alpine Building Supply Short Track SuperNationals in October), Accord (N.Y.) and Penn Can (Pa.). A point fund of more than $17,000 has been posted for competitors in addition to a long list of contingency awards and incentives.
Fans can be assured pit-area parking will be laid out carefully to keep larger haulers toward the center, with only smaller trucks and trailers in the corners to ensure maximum visibility. The show will be fast-paced to allow fans and racers ample travel time on a Sunday night.
The GRIT Series 602 Sportsman will draw for starting positions with a redraw of top qualifiers for the main event. Heats and consolations will be eight laps. GRIT Series rules will be in effect on this event. Visit www.gritracingseries.com for further information.
For the 2014 ‘Hard Clay Open’ event, pit gates open at 10 a.m. Grandstand gates open at 11 a.m. A drivers’ meeting will take place at 1 p.m., with hot laps at 1:30 p.m. and racing at 2 p.m. Fans can expect a pre-race autograph session/meet and greet in both the grandstand and drive-in areas.
The ‘Hard Clay Open’ will mark the second earliest Orange County opener since the speedway began hosting stock cars regularly in 1948, eclipsed only by March 18, 1984 when Larry Brolsma drove to victory.
For further ‘Hard Clay Open’ information, contact Brett Deyo of BD Motorsports Media at Deyo99H@aol.com or by phone at 845.728.2781. BD Motorsports Media is on the web atwww.bdmotorsportsmedia.com. “Like” BD Motorsports Media on Facebook.
Located at 239 Wisner Avenue Middletown, NY 10940 on the Orange County Fairgrounds, Orange County Fair Speedway is the oldest continuously operating dirt track in the United States. The first auto race was held at the speedway in 1919. The five-eighths-mile oval offers fully-covered and half-covered grandstands in addition to open bleacher seating on the frontstretch and turn one areas, with drive-in viewing on the backstretch. To learn more, contact the Orange County Fair Speedway office at 845.342.2573 or visitwww.orangecountyfairspeedway.net.
In the event of inclement weather, the rain date is tentatively slated for Friday, March 28.
The regular season at Orange County is slated to get underway with an open practice on March 29 and the official Season Opener on April 5.
Sources: BD Motorsports Media