By Lou Modestino

The NEMA Midgets and the NEMA Lites will be making one of their longest tows of the season to one of most challenging tracks on the circuit tonight. NEMA returns to the Oswego Speedway in central New York State to be part of the track’s Race of Champions Weekend.

The midgets share the card with the Small Block Super-Modified Championship 50 and RoC Sportsman 100 on day 1 of the 2 day race weekend. The Super-Modified championship race and the RoC Modified 200 is on Sunday. The Race of Champions event is the second oldest consecutively run auto race in the country. Only the Indy 500 has been run longer.

The 5/8 mile oval provides for some fast laps for NEMA. Seth Carlson set a blistering pace on the way to his impressive win last year. But the fastest lap was turned in by Greg Stoehr of Lakeville, turning a 17.116 for an average of over 131 miles per hour.

All of the top 5 finishers in last year’s NEMA feature were cranking out laps in the low 17’s. None were faster than Jim Miller’s record setting lap of 16.94 during their 2012 visit to Oswego. Miller was also the feature winner.

Many of the experienced drivers consider Oswego to be a “rhythm track.” If you can set a pace, get out of the groove and do your passing on the outside you can really gain some ground.

Among those that have followed that philosophy is six time champion Russ Stoehr of Bridgewater.. Russ is an 8 time winner there. Joey Payne is a two time midget winner and multi-time Super-Modified victor at the “Steel Palace.” Payne just completed a super fast weekend at the famed Oswego Classic.

Another driver that knows the quick way around Oswego is Richie Morrocco of Plainville. He got his first ever NEMA Lite win in his rookie season last year.

Other past Oswego podium finishers are also threats to end up in victory lane this week including Danny Cugini of Marshfield, Christian Briggs of Mattapoisett, Paul Bigelow in the Lites, as well as Bridgewater’s Bethany Stoehr, Lakeville’s Avery Stoehr and Ian Cummens in the midgets.

Add in any of the other 10 winners from this season and it’s anyone’s guess as to who will bring home the trophy.

Points are in consideration for this race as well. Oswego is the first of the three remaining races of season for the NEMA midgets and next to last event for the Lites. There are even bonus points awarded for this race considering the distance of travel to the venue.

Randy Cabral of Kingston now has a satisfying lead over Avery Stoehr by virtue of his win in the most recent race at Star Speedway. It was Cabral’s fourth of the season. The separation is 73 points.

Ryan Krachun was able to regain the Lites point lead after his first Lites victory at Star Speedway in Epping, NH. He sits a comfortable 82 points ahead of 4 time winner PJ Stergios. The standings are extremely tight from second to fourth.

Practice for cars of Oswego’s day 1 Race of Champions event is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. this afternoon with qualifying at 5 p.m.

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