4/22/23 Michael Giuliano Wins Orange County Rookie Feature, Balance of Program Postponed
April may bring May Flowers, but it sure can be frustrating for those involved in racing. This can be especially true to those of us in the Northeastern part of the United States.
After getting the season opening April 8th Hard Clay completed, the Orange County Fair Speedway points opener fell victim to rain on April 15th.
In the days leading up to the April 22nd event, rain was again in the forecast. After carefully studying the weather data, OCFS went ahead with an attempt to get the racing program in. With rain scheduled to begin around the 8 pm hour, plans were made to move the program off as quickly as possible in hopes of beating the anticipated rain.
And they almost pulled off the whole show.
As it turned out, the only feature event that was completed was the Rookie Sportsman feature which saw Michael Giuliano driving to victory in the Pat Giuliano Healy Brothers Chevy #51.
Giuliano got the jump on the start over Dillon Gannon and led the entire way to grab the win. Gannon finished 2nd, trailing by 1.7 seconds at the finish. Ryan Behrent advanced from 7th starting spot to finish 3rd. Randy Torres finished 4th with Leif Holmgren finishing 5th. Shawn Murphy was 6th, 14th starting Moose Shauger advanced to 7th, Fred Pavia 8th, Donnie Campbell 9th and Brock Miller 10th.
The next event on the track was the 358 Small Block Modified feature. With a heads up start from the heat race results, Anthony Perrego jumped out ahead of Dillon Steuer. A crash on the backstretch after one lap completed slowed the field. It was at that point that the rain began and quickly picked up in intensity with some lightning moving in.
And it was nearing 8 o'clock that the rains came, right about on schedule.
It was a good effort by OCFS officials to move the program along and to complete as much as they did.
In 358 heat action, Perrego won the first heat over Danny Creeden. Steuer took heat #2 over Billy VanInwegen. Tyler Jashembowski was very impressive with the 3rd heat win over Matt Shultz.
Sportsman heat wins went to Jared LaBagh, Drew Boniface, Dominic Roselli Jr. and Jeff Higham. Gary Edwards III and Tyler Johnston were the Sportsman consi winners.
Bob Sleight was the winner in the first Street Stock heat. Jimmy Maher, making a return to Street Stock competition, was the heat #2 winner. Maher has been a big winner and champion in the Street Stocks in the past and he looked as good as ever in Saturday's abbreviated program.
The car counts for Saturday saw 30 358 Small Block Modifieds, 44 Sportsman, 17 Street Stocks and 15 Rookie Sportsman.