August 23rd, 1997

DESPITE RAIN DELAY 1997 OSWEGO CHAMPION MIKE MULDOON TAKES FIFTH OF SEASON

Oswego, NY - Mother Nature played her hand Saturday night, but was trumped as Oswego Speedway management held on to beat the rain showers. Four hours after rains fell at the track, racing resumed making it possible to decide some close point battles. Howard Page looked to be on his way to victory number two until in the late stages of the supermodified main, first Pat Abold, then Mike Muldoon took the point.

Muldoon sailed on to victory topping off the night for the new 1997 Oswego Speedway track champion. "All this just hasn't sunk in yet", said Muldoon as he thanked his crew, sponsors and engine builder Doug Holmes. "We're busy gearing up for Classic right now, that's why I ran the backup car. We want it ready for Davey Hamilton. The championship is Muldoon's first-ever at Oswego.

No supermodified preliminaries were run due to the weather and almost everyone in the pits were allowed into the feature.

Handicapping lined up Shannon Groves and Andy Powell in the front row for the Burke's Do-It Best Home Centers 45. Powell grabbed the lead, holding off rookie Bob Goutermout for nine laps until yellow fell for the 02 of Eddie Bellinger, whose motor expired, affecting Todd Stowell, Gene Gibson, Dave Mazzoni, Tim Gareau and Ken Bell.

Bell, Bellinger, Stowell, and Tim Gareau looked to be done at this juncture. Unfortunately, at the restart of this lap, as Andy Powell and Bob Goutermout battled for the lead spot off turn two, havoc broke out when Powell got sideways in front of the pack flying the red this time. Badly damaged cars included Steve Gioia's 9, Powell's 12, Soule's 32, Lou Cicconi's 98 and the 4 of Doug Didero. Able to restart from the mess were Mike Muldoon, and Gene Gibson. Gioia received some bumps and bruises, after being hit from all sides in the incident. Jamie Moore, in the Lair 17, came out in front of the pack just as the green flew, leaving him out front of the leaders. On this restart, Bob Goutermout saw his short lead taken by Howard Page in a move off turn four. Page, despite having Moore sitting in front of him, soon began to build up a healthy lead. Moore, who was a lap down, sat in between challengers Jeff West, Pat Abold, Goutermout,Dave Heitzhaus and Dave Trytek as Mike Muldoon picked his way up from the rear.

With fifteen to go, Page was still well out front as Moore still sat as a cushion in front of West, Abold and Goutermout, with West and Abold breaking past Moore shortly thereafter. Disaster almost struck on lap 32 when Moore's 17 had the rear end let go on the front straight, with luckily everyone getting around him.

This bunched Abold, West and Muldoon behind Page on the restart, but one lap later, West's 01 faded out of the action and headed pitside with yellow flying once more. Abold and Muldoon made a run at Page on the green and both got by with Abold at the point for a lap before the 00 of Joe Gosek came around off one. Abold held out one more lap, but Muldoon got by on lap 39, heading for his fifth win of the season. Abold, Page, Goutermout and Trytek were the top five. Abold, who had a disastrous fiery crash in the second Twin 35 the week before said, "This is much better than last week. We can't completely complain. This is the old red car I ran tonight. We're saving the other car, the one we won with last week. It was really good. We wanted to run this older one to get it ready. It's close now. We need to tighten it up a little bit. We want to run both in Classic. The long cautions near the end tonight cooled the tires down and they didn't come back, so second was good." Said Page after his third place, "This was a lot better than the last four weeks. I just couldn't get going on the restarts at the end. We needed a good finish and got it. We're real happy."

The Coca-Cola-Molson supermodified points standings finished up with Mike Muldoon the champion. He will pick up a $10,000 check Classic Sunday. The remainder of the top 20 sharing over $64,000 will be:
Doug Didero(1574)
Steve Gioia(1344)
Howard Page(1343)
Jeff West(1323)
Dan Soule(1317)
Dave Trytek(1158-Rookie of the Year)
Tim Snyder(1136)
Tim Gareau(1095)
Todd Stowell(1080)
Greg Furlong(1075)
Eddie Bellinger(1019)
Dave Heitzhaus(1010)
Ken Bell(1006)
Andy Powell(895)
Pat Abold(890)
Shannon Groves(884)
Bob Goutermout(878)
Joe Gosek(872)
Jamie Letcher(868)