May 17th, 1997

MIKE MULDOON WINS CRASH-FILLED OSWEGO OPENER

Oswego, NY - Mike Muldoon of Fulton, NY, powered his home-built supermodified into a cold victory lane Saturday night at Oswego for his first-ever opening day win. Muldoon's closest challenger was Fultonian Eddie Bellinger in an event marred by three red flag stops. "It feels great to win the first race this year," exclaimed Muldoon after his 11th career win, "The car was great. We had some bad luck last year and this feels really good."

The Coca-Cola-Syracuse Newspapers supermodified 50 started out on a bad note when Tim Gareau's 5 and the 72 of Greg Furlong collided on the green flag lap. A red was thrown in order to give safety crew members time to extricate Gareau from his badly damaged 5. Tim was not injured, but his car was out of competition as was Furlong's beautiful 72. Coming into the pits at the same time was 1996 track champion, Didero, who found engine problems in his 3. He returned to the race at the tail of the field, but his night was just starting its downhill slide at this point. Dave Heitzhaus was also in and also able to return.
Jumping off to finally lead the first lap of the week-delayed supermodified season was Eddie Bellinger who led Steve Gioia, Dan Soule, Howard Page and Todd Stowell around the track.
Lap 4 saw a yellow for Dave Mazzoni and another pitstop for the Matczak 3, whose crew was working frantically on the engine at every opportunity. Bellinger held the lead with Soule, Gioia and Muldoon dicing for second behind, until another yellow flew on lap 15 for a brief encounter between the 11 and the 12 of Andy Powell. Pitting for mechanical adjustments were Muldoon's teammate and rookie Dave Trytek, Howard Page and Jamie Letcher. All cars were able to resume racing.
On the restart of this slowdown, Muldoon, who had moved swiftly by Soule, shot around the leader Bellinger to take a lead he never gave up. As the race cleared the halfway mark, it was Muldoon, Bellinger, Soule, Gioia, Todd Stowell, Jeff West, Tim Snyder, Ken Bell, Bill Sharkey and Lou Cicconi, all maneuvering for top ten spots.
Lap 26 saw Dave Heitzhaus finally exit the track for good, ending his bad night in a shower of sparks.

The race which was moving so quickly on the cold, clear night, suddenly came to an abrupt halt as the clock ticked to 33. Three-abreast racing coming out of turn one just didn't work for Tim Snyder, Lou Cicconi and Ken Bell. It set up a massive traffic jam which found Shannon Groves pinched off up high, launching him up and over the 3 of Didero. Groves came to rest on his side against the wall. Going into the pits after the melee, either hooked or by their own volition, were Bell, Bill Sharkey, Jeff West, Snyder, Didero and Groves. Didero was the only one to restart.
After the lengthy cleanup, the race was trying to get restarted, when Todd Stowell, running fourth, caused another slowdown, but he was able to restart. Mike Muldoon waited patiently through this whole scenario to resume the race and the lead. But, although only fifteen laps remained, it must have seemed like an eternity.
First, with only three laps to go, Hal LaTulip's 56 slid down the front straight, spewing fluids all over the track. LaTulip kept it off the wall, but another long cleanup appeared. With over 50 caution laps already run, the supers took time to refuel while the cleanup ensued.
The drivers frantically tried to end this race, but completing lap 47 eluded them once more as on the green, Dave Trytek made a wild slide down the front straight, correcting his number 40 to continue on, but leaving Todd Stowell and Doug Didero to collide as all three were fighting for top eight spots. Both Stowell and Didero, who may have been in and out of the pits more in one night than he had been all last year, were pushed or towed in. Stowell's crew managed to change a tire and get back on track, to rejoin the slim field remaining. Didero did not return.

Mike Muldoon finally took the checkered after a long race, with Bellinger, Soule, supermodified rookie Lou Cicconi and Gioia, in the top five. "This car was great after only a couple races on it," said Muldoon, "The guys did a lot of work over the winter building Dave(Trytek) the new car and getting this one(the 50) ready. This car has only a couple races on it. Davey(Hamilton) ran it at Classic time and I ran it the week before. It's a little different to drive, but I think it's better than the original 50. I think there's a lot of speed left in it. "Dave finished seventh and I think I'm more proud of him than I am of myself. I think he's going to surprise some people this year. This team isn't just the drivers, it's the whole crew and they did a great job."
Eddie Bellinger and Dan Soule were both smiling after their top three performances. Bellinger indicated that he too felt the car could go faster and Soule was content to finish third with no power steering left. "We broke a rack in the heat," and my crew found out after the feature that the power steering was gone," laughed Soule, "Maybe I could have done better if I could have turned the car a little more."
Rounding out the top ten in the event were Stowell, rookie Dave Trytek, Andy Powell, Didero and Hal LaTulip.

In heat action, rookie Greg Furlong grabbed off his first-ever supermodified victory chasing down Steve Gioia for the win. Mike Muldoon and Doug Didero won the other two 12-lap prelims. In the second heat, Tom Bliss, back after a long hiatus, destroyed the West number 1 when he hit hard into the foam between 3 and 4.
SCS Installations Hard Charger award unofficially went to Muldoon, who started 12th and finished first. The Universal Joint Sales Up and Comer was "Liquid" Lou Cicconi, driving a supermodified this season for the Mucci Motorsports team as a rookie. Cicconi, of course, has won at Oswego in a midget.

Heat 1: Greg Furlong, Steve Gioia, Bill Sharkey, Shannon Groves, Bob Goutermout, Jamie Letcher, Tim Gareau, Dave Heitzhaus

Heat 2: Mike Muldoon, Ed Bellinger, Todd Stowell, Jeff West, Kenny Bell, Tim Snyder, Joe Hawksby Jr., Tom Bliss

Heat 3: Doug Didero, Howard Page, Dan Soule, Lou Cicconi, Andy Powell, Dave Trytek, Hal LaTulip, Dave Mazzoni