Wing Side Up
By Bob Gangwer
“All About “the O”
(Reprinted from the Wailing With Wing Side Up LIVE Internet Radio Show)
Oswego, NY 2/09/09…..I’m not sure how most of you feel, but I love Oswego Speedway and still believe in the Old Grey Girl. This track has a hold on me like non other and I can tell you I’ve been to many. At last count that’s 67 tracks in 14 different states and a good portion of all of those are tracks that I got to see supermodified racing at.
When I finally got my father to come here in 1985, it was everything I ever thought it would be. It was the biggest, most glorious place I’d ever set my eyes as far as short track racing goes. I walked through the main gate and nearly had tears in my eyes. I couldn’t believe the size, the splendor, the grandeur, and I hadn’t even seen a super show there yet.
After about 34 years I decided to leave my home state of IN and make the move to the Oswego. Funny thing is I wasn’t scared. Everyone talked about how the upstate economy was horrendous. Everyone said it was a bad move. Somehow, it was something that I knew I had to do. I wasn’t scared at all.
For many years most of the friends that I had came from Oswego Speedway and the supermodifieds. I really don’t think that I am the only one who ever had this phenomenon happen. I think many people have come to depend on the Lady in Grey to help nurture friendships and most of you listening I have to believe, have at one time or another worried about the state of Oswego Speedway mainly because of those friendships and how important they are.
I have come to believe that as a supermodified fan, you will never be a true fan until you make it to Oswego. I know because as much as I loved the supers before I ever came here, I fell deeper in love with them once I made the trek to the Mecca. I can’t really explain in words, and trust me I’ve tried dozens of times in many columns and stories, just what it is that this place does to a supermodified fan or even a fan that has never seen the supers. Once you set foot inside its cavernous areas, it gets inside of you and you will never be the same.
In the last 5-8 years there’s been a lot of talk about how things just aren’t the same at The O. People get down on the place and talk about her like she’s nothing more than a too bit trollup of her former self and that it’s not worth spending their money on. They say that she’d be better off gone and forgotten.
Sometimes, I can understand why people think that way. I know that I wasn’t here when there were 40 cars in the pits for a regular 45. I know that I didn’t get to see the great duels between The Pine, Swifty, and Hot Toddy. I hate the fact that I never got to hear Jack Burgess bellow his famous lines “and now let’s go racing with the first heat event.”
Times change and I have waxed eloquently about how much I long for the old days for as long as I’ve written. I also know, or have learned that “History is best remembered embellished.” We all long for ways to relive the glory years of our past and many times the present falls short of what we think we remember the past being.
I think we all remember why guys towed to Oswego Speedway to run in the first place? Guys like Dave Paul, Gordon and Nolan Johncock, Johnny Benson, Art Bennett, and Johnny Logan came to do battle at ‘The Big O’ because at one time it was the highest paying weekly track in the country. You couldn’t afford NOT to race at Oswego if you had a supermodified. There’s a lot of reasons as to why that has changed, enough probably for a whole other column, but suffice it to say, things just aren’t that way anymore.
I don’t have to be reminded the economy is in a slump, in fact I’m pretty sick of hearing about all the doom and gloom. So I know that things are tough all over, but I don’t think that’s the only reason the fans aren’t coming out. One of the reasons that I have heard for crowds being down are a lack of customer friendly service. I had a person tell me just the other day that he would need some real convincing if he were ever to come back to Oswego for a regular Saturday night show because of the way he was treated by some speedway personnel this past season. This person is in no way a ‘complainer’ or a negative person, but simply felt that he could have been treated better. His is not the only instance I have heard of where the old adage ‘service with a smile’ seemed to be an afterthought to the customer. I do believe that there are two sides to every story and I always suggest that people write the speedway to explain the situation so that they can then try to resolve it so that it doesn’t happen again.
I will say this though, whenever I go to a service oriented facility such as a race track, I expect to be greeted with a smile, have my questions answered in a patient friendly manner, and if I’m handing over cash for something, I certainly, at the very least, like to hear a simple thank you. I understand that taking tickets at the gate from a lot of intoxicated people can get pretty annoying, or answering the same question about a rain out 500 times in an hour can be very bothersome. I also know what it’s like to work food service and I have a pretty good handle on what its like to get rushed for hotdogs and fries in the stifling heat of a regular kitchen is, so kudos to the concession workers for doing it at Oswego in what is essentially a steel oven.
However, (you knew that was coming didn’t you?), to use another played out cliché; “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Everyone has an off day or night on the job and frustrations boil to the top from time to time. But if you are in the customer service business, you had better be willing to put that aside, deal with morons with a smile and thick skin, and give the customer the best experience he can have from the time he lays down his money to the moment he walks to his car. Especially if you are in the business of supermodified racing because we fans are probably the most demanding in all of short track racing.
People say that a big reason the car count is down is because it’s as if the teams now feel as though they are doing Oswego a favor by racing there for the purse that they do. I don’t know if that’s all true but when you compare today’s purses for what the guys were running for even 10 years ago, I think you will find there’s not been a substantial increase to keep up with the cost of fielding a super weekly. The purse has been adjusted somewhat at the top and now there’s talk of adding more money to the back end as well, but that could come because the car owners agreed to forego the point fund money and have it put into the weekly purse. It’s tough I know, the costs of doing business have gone up for sure and the fans are fickle. I know it’s different when you have a mortgage to pay and you only have so many weeks in a year to make the money so that you can stay afloat in the off season. Many times it’s a simple break even situation, but I still say that if you, or rather WE as supermodified fans put our heads together and come up with some constructive ideas that maybe we can help the Oswego Speedway. I say-“build it and they will come.”
To me the supermodified product has been diluted and I think that is part of the problem too. The track was built on an idea that it was going to run the coolest race car around at the time. A race car that still today has no short track equal should be the focus of the track and especially a weekend that was designed to highlight the car and the heroes that race them. Oswego was built on non-wing supermodified racing. It’s a very unique entity, I think when you have a niche you should blow it out of the water and promote it like nothing else. While I love winged supermodified racing and grew up on it, I don’t need to see as much of it as there is lately on the fast 5/8ths and I certainly don’t want to see anything other than the pageantry, intensity, and sheer nerve wracking excitement of SUPERMODIFIEDS on Classic Sunday. And from what I’m hearing, many other fans feel the same way, and so do most of the supermodified AND limited teams. It’s my opinion that when you run winged supermodifieds on Classic Weekend or the SBS on International Classic 200 Sunday, you are preaching to the choir. Find a way, and figure out a method to keep those fans that come for the other races there for the REAL headline event on Sunday. I’ve got some ideas and I’m sure you do too; maybe some people will listen with an open mind. This place was built on tradition and history, and while I don’t think we should rest on our laurels and not try new things, we damned sure need to remember where we came from so that we can see where we are going.
I don’t believe the same way a lot of people do that the powers that be want to see Oswego fail. That’s a ludicrous statement. Who in their right mind goes into business and pours their heart and soul into something, puts their families through hell then wants to lose all they’ve worked for?
Here’s the thing as I see it. I think it can be good again. I think that if enough people stop complaining and start remembering how cool things used to be and then start working together to get it back where it was before. I think that if we pull together and use our memories that we can come up with some pretty good ideas of how to get her back on track. I think we have too because I am a adamant believer that if Oswego Speedway is healthy, the DIVISION as a whole will be better off.
Each year I have lived here I get a pretty good feeling about going and putting some paint on the “Lady in Grey” and dressing her up for the new season. Some have said I’m a fool and that I’m only enabling the owners by giving them free labor when they really haven’t put much money of their own into the place. I say, ok maybe that’s somewhat true, but I like to think that I’m taking a vested interested in the place when I paint the same wall that Harry did 50 or more years ago. To me it’s kind of like voting. If you don’t vote you can’t bitch. Well for this instance, I am saying, “look I’m going to do what little I can to try to help because I know it’s a huge place and there’s a lot to be done with an ever shrinking workforce, so now when I make a suggestion, or have an idea, maybe someone will hear it a little more readily.” That doesn’t mean it gives me a right to just sit and complain, it just says I’m going to try to do what I can to keep it alive. I wish I’d see more of my friends from Oswego out there doing the same thing.
If that doesn’t work, I’ve suggested many times, as I’m sure some of you have, that maybe someone who is with a service group like the scouts or women’s club or 4H could get their group involved to pretty the ole girl up some. There’s many clubs that need to do community service projects to justify their existence. I wonder even if having said those words, ‘community service’, if that maybe you couldn’t even get some inmates out to the track, or some juveniles who have had a rough time respecting authority, and put them to work in some capacity. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But think of the good it can do not only for the track that would now have a cheap labor force, but for the inmates themselves who could then be mentored so that they could be a valuable asset to society, and the community that could now stop and look at a model example of a success story.
Sometimes even little things like picking up after yourself when you are done, and refraining from driving drunk after a race could help save the speedway. Nobody wants to see trash from the track flying about this beautiful city, especially other property owners near by who might not be race fans. And I shouldn’t have to say too much about the whole drunk driving issue.
What about supporting the sponsors that support the track? When you buy something or use a service of those that put money into the speedway, do you tell them or thank them for being a part of the track? In fact, are you doing your best to seek out the sponsors and use their products? Are you also suggesting to other potential sponsors that you may be more interested in using their services if they spent some of the money you would like to give them on the track that you love? In our harried lives we sometimes forget the simplest things that can go a long way into making our own leisure time last longer.
I don’t have my blinders on here folks, and I’m surely not looking at things through rose colored eyes. Things are tough and it’s easy to get down about the place we’ve all grown to love. I understand that you can only take so much before you want to throw in the towel. But I think as fans of Oswego Speedway we have just as much of a responsibility to help keep her alive as do the owners who need to treat the fans, teams, and sponsors with respect, and dignity while giving all of the above good value for their money.
Call me naïve, but I believe that we can all do this together. She’s a fighter, that lady up on the hill. She was built by a man with a big vision. Let’s work together for the DIVISION and give the place that has given us all many lasting and cherished friendships and memories an infusion of ideas and vision once again. Let’s make her the shining bastion of supermodified racing that she once was and let her beacon shine bright when the red neon lights up announcing to the world that Oswego Speedway is STILL “The Home of the Supermodifieds.”
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About Bobby G
