Throwing Dirt on “Super Dirt Week?” By Bob Marlow
In October, 1972, dirt-track stock car racing came to the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse for a year-end championship event, and this October, the 44th annual “Super Dirt Week” will take place there. For the last time.
That is, for the last time at the New York State Fairgrounds.

Considerable uncertainty surrounds the future of the event, due to the State of New York’s plans to overhaul the Fairgrounds and eliminate the one-mile oval in the process. Immediately following the 200-mile race for big-block Modifieds on Sunday, October 11, work is to begin to tear down the 16,000-seat grandstand. This is to be followed by construction on an equestrian center and an Ice Plex on the 72-acres of the 375-acre Fairgrounds now occupied by the race track.

From that 1972 race won by Zephyr Hills Florida resident Buzzie Reutimann, father of NASCAR driver David Reutimann, “Super Dirt Week” grew quickly to be a season-ending extravaganza to which “everyone” in Northeast dirt-track racing goes. The event spans nearly a full week, from the start of tech inspection on Tuesday through the last checkered flag on Sunday. The big-block Modifieds are the headline act, but their small-block brethren are on the card as well, as are other classes including the USAC Silver Crown cars.

Super Dirt Week has had a direct impact on dirt-track stock car racing in the region, most notably for a car nicknamed the “Batmobile.” In 1980, driver Gary Balough arrived with a black car that looked nothing like the modified stock cars of the day, sporting bodywork ostensibly from a Lincoln but built to have an aerodynamic advantage on the high-speed track. Balough demolished the track record and ran off with the race, and Modifieds have used purpose-built bodies ever since.


The impending loss of the Fairgrounds track has been considered by many to be a death knell for Super Dirt Week. However, public figures ranging from the World Racing Group’s CEO Brian Carter to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo have indicated otherwise. Carter, whose organization conducts Super Dirt Week, has said that as an incentive to keep the event in New York State the World Racing Group will receive State-sponsored promotional funds of $50,000 per year for the next five years. Cuomo has been quoted as saying that “Next year, race fans will be able to enjoy their favorite weekend of racing in a brand new facility.”

Excuse me, Governor, a brand new facility? This statement has fueled speculation that Super Dirt Week will resume in 2016 at Central New York Raceway Park, an ambitious project that as we write is only a tract of land on which trees have been cleared and dirt has been moved but no actual construction has yet begun. But Central New York Raceway Park is the brainchild of Glen Donnelly, who just happens to be the same guy who created the original Super Dirt Week in 1972.

Reportedly, Donnelly has secured a piece of State funding for his project, and Donnelly is a proven doer. Can he build a race track suitable for Super Dirt Week in one year’s time through a New York State winter?

It seems likely that Super Dirt Week will continue in some form, but what that form is to be remains unclear. More than four decades of history of the event at the New York State Fairgrounds is important to racing fans and to the racers themselves. Driver Brett Hearn, who has the greatest number of Super Dirt Week victories to his credit, has said that while Super Dirt Week can be moved somewhere else and be a success, “It won’t be the same.”

 

Analyze this folks:
Doesn't it sound like Cuomo is definitely out to first destroy the old track to BE SURE there will be no more racing there
and the building a tiny track somewhere else (if they get around to it by next year)?

Considerable uncertainty surrounds the future of the event, due to the State of New York’s plans to overhaul the Fairgrounds and eliminate the one-mile oval in the process. Immediately following the 200-mile race for big-block Modifieds on Sunday, October 11, work is to begin to tear down the 16,000-seat grandstand. This is to be followed by construction on an equestrian center and an Ice Plex on the 72-acres of the 375-acre Fairgrounds now occupied by the race track.

 

UPDATE: At a press conference on September 30, Governor Cuomo announced that the planned Central New York Raceway Park will become the new home of Super Dirt Week, stating that New York is investing $5 million toward the building of the facility.
“It’s a win-win-win,” Cuomo said. “We keep Dirt Week, we keep dirt racing, we have a new and larger race track, and we redevelop the Fairgrounds at the same time.”

By a “larger” race track, Cuomo was referring to the inclusion of a paved road course in addition to the dirt oval, the latter to be smaller than the one-mile oval at the New York State Fairgrounds.

Central New York Raceway Park, to be located just off I-81 north of Syracuse in Oswego County, is a private development but the economic benefits of Super Dirt Week and the additional events intended to be held there are why the state is working with the developers, led by Super Dirt Week founder Glenn Donnelly.

Plans for the 150-acre site call for a 2.2-mile road course and a half-mile dirt oval plus NASCAR-style garages, VIP suites, a restaurant, and video production studio and offices.
The $5 million dollar infusion of state money into the project will enable Donnelly to make adjustments to the plans so as to be better prepared for an event the size of Super Dirt Week, but the figure pales in comparison the $70 million the state is said to be putting in to the renovation of the old Fairgrounds.
Super Dirt Week draws, typically, upwards of 70,000 people and more than 300 race cars over a five day period each October. This year’s event, set for October 7 through 11, will be the last at the state-owned fairgrounds.

 

Analyze this folks,
Spending $5 million for the "new" smaller dirt track when they already have a dirt track that is operational.
Spending $70 million for an equestrian center and Ice Plex.

One year to get the current dirt track facility destroyed and built somewhere else during a New York winter.
after, after, after the equestrian center and Ice Plex is built.

Some racers in New York refer to Gov Cuomo as that "Lyin SOB Cuomo".