History The End Of The Moody Mile (The Mile Oval at The N.Y.S. Fair Grouds)

A few of the vintage cars-

Buzzie Reutimann's Coupe-



Me with Buzzie-




Buzzie is still running and winning in U.M.P. modifieds!

 

Wes Moody's first 100 M.P.H. lap car-

 

Buzzie Reutimann's still races some Saturday nights at East Bay Raceway in Riverview, Florida.
If only tracks could talk what stories this track could tell. It's like a who's who of racing the people who have raced and won there.
It will never be the same with this track now history.
Just my opinion. Jimbo

 

I don't have car counts for all classes.

75 Big Blocks took time for 43 starting spots

100 Sportsman took time for 43 spots.

Some Sportsman were pitted out side turn one and had to drive behind the grandstand and enter the track through the turn four cross over gate!

I don't know how many 358 C.I.D Mods or Prostocks took time

 

So sad.

Glad you're able to attend. Take pictures please.

 

Thanks could not go we were racing all the satellite shows not enough hours in the day. GREAT pictures THANK YOU

 

This is a good story the told over the P.A.

When Wes Moody was going though turns 3 and 4 on the first 100 M.P.H. at Syracuse, he said it sounded like rocks were hitting the car.

It was N.A.S.C.A.R. asphalt champs Richie Evans and Maynard Troyer throwing ice cubes at the car.

I will post a few more photographs later.

 

It's going to be on the C.B.S. Sports Network 12/07/15

 

I brought home some of the clay for the track as did lots of others.

The Dick "Toby" Tobias car. After the race was over and most people left (late Sunday) this car made some laps.

Making it the last racecar on the track!



This car is too new for the H.A.M.B. but please forgive me because it is such a big part the history of Syracuse.

The Batmobile the 1980 winner

Kenny Weld built and Gary Balough driven

Most every one showed that year with a Gremlen body that year.

This car broke the track record by 1 sec.

 

This is a photo of all living winners of the Syracuse 200-




2015 Winner- Stewart Friensen

 

A good story my dad found-
The third turn at the Moody Mile: The final race, a father's last request, a hard goodbye


The Cousineau family and friends, on turn three Saturday night at the Moody Mile. Fred Cousineau - with his arms around his daughter, Daelyn - is in the foreground, left. Ron Cousineau Jr. is to the far right. Years ago, they scattered the ashes of their father, Ron Sr., on the dirt at the third turn. (Sean Kirst | [email protected])

Email
By Sean Kirst | [email protected]

Late Saturday night, and I had a mission in the infield at Super DIRT Week at the New York State Fairgrounds, the final nighttime gathering before today's Syracuse 200 - the last DIRT race ever, at the Moody Mile.

I'm thinking: The chances are, I won't find what I'm after.

The place was packed, parties rolling deep into the night: Singing. Shouting. Barking dogs. Laughing kids. Someone was setting off flying luminaries - candles carrying balloons - that ascended into the dark sky, and for an instant looked like stars before they vanished. Plenty of trailers were loaded up with Christmas lights, and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" thundered from big speakers.

Everywhere was the mingled scent - that racing perfume - of burning wood, charcoal and engines.

I came upon into the Stefanski brothers - Jim, Pete and Rob - with a couple of their buddies from Western New York, Shane Wendel and Roy Letcher. They paused to look upon the big dirt track, empty except for some trucks getting it ready for Sunday's big race and a couple of children who somehow got out there, on their bikes.

Pete's a veteran driver, a guy who's won Mr. Dirt honors, and he and his crew have been coming to Syracuse for years.

They took a walk late Saturday, to take it in one last time.

There's been racing on that oval for more than a century. Some of the greatest drivers, ever, have gone hard around the mile. In the buildup toward today's race, for the racing community, what it's been - and what is changing - had started to sink in.

"History," said Jim Stefanski.

The Cousineau family, Super DIRT Week, 1983: Bottom center, 'Big Ron' Cousineau Sr.; center middle, his wife Marcelline; top, middle, Fred Cousineau; to his left, his Uncle Pat.Submitted image | Fred Cousineau
"Daytona on dirt," Letcher said, waving an arm toward thousands upon thousands of racing fans - still awake, still laughing, still dancing, trying to hang onto the last ember of the last night.

I told them about my mission, this story I'd heard. The Stefanskis had no trouble believing it, but no, they said, they didn't know anything about it. A guy named Chris Burgess, a photographer, shared the tale with me, earlier in the week. He said he was near the third turn at the fairgrounds, many years ago. He started talking to a group of racing fans, and they told him they'd been coming to that exact spot for decades.

It meant so much to them, they said, that they'd scattered a friend's ashes on the turn, honoring his last request.

Burgess mentioned the account in a letter to the editor at The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com, which mourned the loss of the Moody Mile. To me, the tale said everything about the kind of passion racing fans feel for the track at Syracuse, which will be torn up by the state after today's Syracuse 200. Super DIRT Week will move to a new half-mile track, in Hastings.

Burgess didn't remember the names of those fans, and he couldn't be sure if what he'd heard was real or a legend, or if those folks would show up this year at the third turn. Still, I decided to give it a shot, and I went out there late Saturday. The Stefanskis and their friends wished me luck, and pointed me toward the turn.

On the way, I stopped and talked with Chris Croft, of Montour Falls. He'd brought his 7-year-old son, Patrick, to the fairgrounds. The kid's been joining his dad at Syracuse since he was a toddler. Patrick will be old enough to remember, forever, what he sees this year, and just how big the mile really was.

Derrick Marsh, one of Chris's best friends, hadn't gone to Super DIRT Week in a long time, but he showed up to meet his buddy and his son for today's race.

One last time, in Syracuse. They didn't want to miss it.

I thanked them, and went on to the third turn ....

Where I found another tale of fathers and sons.

Every chance that came along, I asked my question. I found my way to a couple of campfires, burning outside trailers, circles of men and women in no rush to see the dawn. Some had dogs, leashed to campers. Some wore light-up hats. Again and again they told me, no, they hadn't heard the story, and I'd almost given up on the whole deal when I came upon the cluster of people in a circle, close to the third turn.

They listened intently as I explained the quest that brought me there.

The guy you're asking about, said Fred Cousineau. That'd be my dad.

Fred, it turns out, was a rock drummer for many years around Syracuse, with Jeff Jones. He's also been a regular at the Moody Mile, he said, "since I was in my mom's belly." His grandfather, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, started the family ritual of coming to the races at the fairgrounds.

Racing brothers and their friends, on the last night before the last race at the Moody Mile: (left to right) Jim Stefanski, Pete Stefanski, Bob Stefanski, Shane Wendel and Roy Letcher.Sean Kirst | [email protected]
That tradition was carried on, with passion, by Fred's father, Ron Sr.. Fred said his parents had their first date at a race at the fairgrounds, and that some of his earliest and most powerful memories involve coming to the Labor Day race, which used to pack the grandstand. He can also remember waking up in theirinfield camp during Super DIRT week, then looking toward the campfire.

His dad would be there alone, utterly content, drinking a cup of coffee.

Now Fred understands, exactly.

"This is the only place where I get down on my hands and knees and kiss the ground when I come," Fred said. If there is a right spot on the planet for him, he said, this is it. That feeling is shared by his entire, sprawling clan. His cousin, Patrick Cousineau of Rochester, pulled off his shirt. In honor of the end of the Moody Mile, he'd had GPS coordinates tattooed on his chest:

Follow them, and they lead to the third turn.

An uncle, Pat Cousineau, drove to Syracuse from Florida, for this last race. Fred's 8-year-old daughter, Daelyn, was also there Saturday night, half-listening to all this talk by the grownups. She caught a frog in a little ditch by the third turn, and her dad told her gently to set it free: "Let the frog be a frog."

Ron Cousineau Jr., Fred's brother, joined the group at the fire, and everyone began talking wistfully about what Fred called "DIRT time," the way they've always existed when they camp in the infield in the sweet days before the big race: No schedule. No alarm clocks. No bedtime.

You wake up when you hear the engines, and you sleep when you sleep.

Their father, Ron Sr., loved the Moody Mile. He did some racing himself, although he never drove at the fairgrounds. Instead, he was always there to watch. His family rooted for such drivers as Barefoot Bob McCreadie and Jimmy Phelps - it seemed like fate when Phelps won Saturday's Salute to the Troops 150 - and some of the greatest memories of Fred's life involve being with his dad, at the fairgrounds.

But Ron Sr. ran into health problems, as a relatively young man. In 1992, when he was only 45, he died of heart disease. A few months later, on Memorial Day, Ron Jr. and Fred and their sister Renee drove to the fairgrounds with their mom, Marcelline Cousineau, and a few close friends and relatives. They honored a request their dad made before his death:

The Moody Mile late Saturday, on the eve of today's big race.Sean Kirst | [email protected]
They scattered his ashes on the dirt track, at turn three.

Around the circle, a few men quietly said they've heard the Cousineaus are hardly alone: They've heard stories of other fans who've honored similar wishes, at other parts of the track. But to Fred and his family, turn three is everything. They've always gotten there early Wednesday, at the start of DIRT week, to claim their spot. They drag out weather-beaten couches and chairs, because they believe it is the best place to watch the race.

"All risk and reward," Fred said. A great driver, in the lead, can "make the track very narrow" there - or use it as the place to stage one last furious shot at being first.

That's where his dad, for eternity, wanted to be.

Once the Moody Mile's gone, Super DIRT Week will move to a gleaming new complex in Hastings. Someone hung a sign above an American flag not far from the Cousineaus, a sign that read: "There's nothing super about a half-mile track." Other argue the decision makes sense, because there's racing at the fairgrounds just once a year, so I asked the Cousineaus for their feelings on the move.

Fred was silent, and then said simply:

"This is the fastest mile-long dirt track on Earth."

It is also the place, every October, where he goes to find his father.

"You come here," said Fred brother, Ron Jr., "and it can rain all day, and there's still racing the next day."

Or there was, until the next day became today.

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard


The following are my thoughts-

Funny, Ball and Stick Sports fans want bigger new more fancy stadiums even if it means losing the history.

Racers FIGHT to save their history!

 

We're Losing One Of America's Best Dirt Tracks And It's Heartbreaking
10,447
33

Ed Grabianowski
Filed to: SUPER DIRT WEEK10/13/15 10:20am




Stewart Friesen stepped onto the winner’s podium at the New York State Fairgrounds last Sunday, taking the checkered flag after 200 laps in a big block modified. He was the last person who ever would. They’re tearing down the mile track at Syracuse, and no one is happy about it.

There are only five mile-long dirt tracks that run auto races left in the U.S. All of them were originally built as horse tracks, and all of them are at state fairgrounds: DuQuoin, Indianapolis, Springfield, Sacramento (which hasn’t hosted an auto race in years), and Syracuse.




One-mile dirt tracks are a part of American racing history, many of them built in the 19th century and opened to auto racing when the demise of the board tracks during the Depression forced USAC to sanction dirt races. The stragglers in the midwest are still regular tour stops for ARCA and the USAC Silver Crown cars (who showed up Saturday at Syracuse and tore off hot laps on a wet track as if they’d grown up there), but the legacy of the dirt superspeedway has eroded completely in the northeast. Langhorne was paved over in ‘65 and closed in ‘71, the same year Nazareth shut down (Roger Penske paved it in 1987).

But Syracuse remained. In fact, racing promoter Glenn Donnelly ran the first Super DIRT Week in 1972 partly in response to Langhorne’s shuttering, which left northeast modifieds no major long-track event. He created a series of qualifier races at various short tracks throughout the season that fed into the Syracuse event, which evolved into a year-long points championship and sanctioning body called DIRT (Driver’s Independent Race Tracks).


It’s hard to explain the allure of Super DIRT Week. A lot of it is that mile long track, of course. There’s nowhere else to see those 850 horsepower engines unwind all the way. Nowhere else big enough to allow infield pit stops.

Last Wednesday I wandered out to the turn one fence to watch the big block modifieds roll out for practice for the last first time, and a guy standing next to me expressed it as well as anyone. His buddy remarked that they might move it to Glenn Donnelly’s new half-mile track near Brewerton, NY next year. “Half mile?” he scowled. “They’ll never get that Ooooooooo.”

There’s a tension whenever cars are on the track at Syracuse, a hum of energy like a circuit has been completed between the engines, the drivers, the announcers, and the fans. An on-track incident is heralded by shouts echoing along the concrete and steel and aluminum of the grandstand, then the announcer’s voice escalating in pitch, barely audible above the engine roar.

Someone points—maybe turn three, all but invisible behind a row of campers, or deep in turn one, just beyond the old pit exit point, and all heads turn in unison. Sometimes it’s just a car slowing with a flat tire. Sometimes it’s a scene of carnage, machines thrashing and destroying themselves in the dust, like this terrifying crash in 1987.


The back stretch is narrow and becomes convulsed with deep ruts and pits as the grueling race grinds on. The souvenir program usually includes a famous photo of modifieds going four wide there in the late 70s, captioned simply, “They said it couldn’t be done.” It can be done, but most of the time it ends up like this qualifying wreck from this year that sent the videographer running for cover. Amazingly, and thankfully, no one’s ever been killed at Super DIRT Week.


The track itself is so unique it makes everyone who races there an amateur. The most successful teams at Syracuse build cars just for this one race. None of the pit crews are used to doing hot pit stops mid-race, and a well-timed caution leads to utter chaos as cars slide into their pit stalls to be fueled by guys in cargo shorts and t-shirts. It was even worse before they instituted a pit road speed limit and moved the pit exit to the back stretch.

The horse track in Syracuse was built in 1826, and the first auto race was run in 1903. Tony Bettenhausen, Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, and Al Unser all ran there. They call it the Moody Mile, ostensibly in deference to Wes Moody, the first man to turn a lap with a 100 mph average speed (in 1970). But anyone who’s gone to the track every October knows what an appropriate name it is—the early October weather shifts from chill-inducing rain to glorious t-shirt weather, and the track morphs from a silky surface with tons of bite to a rutted, dusty disaster in a single afternoon.



The history of the big race is so rich I can only touch on it. The distance has changed from 100 laps to 188 (a loosely defined 300 kilometers) to 200. The original sponsor, Schaeffer Beer, only exists today as a hipster label put out by a giant beverage conglomerate. Buzzie Reutimann won the first two races, then Gary Balough had a string of victories in the late 70s. In 1980 Balough utterly dominated the event with “The Batmobile,” an aerodynamic freak that forced DIRT to rewrite the rulebook on body panels. In 1989 Alan Johnson won from last place—as I recall, he finished the consi in a dead heat with Dave Lape for the final qualifying position, and they were both allowed to start. The 90s were the Brett Hearn era. His unrivaled success (he won six races, three drivers have won four, no one won five) and association with national sponsors made him a natural villain. Brett the Jet became Brett the Corporate Jet, and he still gets lusty boos even today.



The race is hell on equipment and worse on drivers. When you look at photos of Super DIRT Week winners, you see a complex mix of human emotion; undeniable joy and unbelievable weariness.

Not every great moment at the Moody Mile was about the modifieds. This World of Outlaws sprint car duel between Steve Kinser and Jac Haudenschild stands in my mind as one of the greatest races ever driven. The highlights don’t do it justice.


The New York State Fairgrounds sprawl around the race track, a tangle of horse barns, ag buildings, and food vendors. There are reserved camping spots with official water and electrical hookups filling the infield and a few other areas, but there are tons of unreserved camping spots, campers forming little compounds in the backstretch parking area, trailers huddled around fire pits and beer kegs.

Others tuck their motorhomes in sheltered alcoves among the fair buildings wherever they can find space, then run extension cords and hoses to whatever outlets and spigots are available. I took this photo last Friday—those are electric cords running across the main entrance road and through a massive puddle.



That probably exemplifies the Super DIRT Week spirit more than anything, that sense of, “I can’t believe they let us do this.” It still feels like 1978 there, where everything’s a bit of a free-for-all. Super DIRT Week has an atmosphere of affable chaos. It can be a little loud, but there’s also a strong sense of banding together against the rain and cold, sharing war stories and racing gossip around the campfire.

Not that the place was perfect. When the track surface isn’t properly prepared, it became a one-lane parade where passing was nearly impossible. A few too many years were decided by fuel mileage. DIRT leased the fairgrounds from New York State, which meant they couldn’t make improvements to the physical site or control what the state did or didn’t do to it. New York’s stewardship ranged from benign neglect to what appeared to be outright hostility.



For all its flaws, race fans in the northeast can’t believe Super DIRT Week is going away. Sure, DIRT plans to put on a Super DIRT Week somewhere next year. The announced home is Glenn Donnelly’s new Central New York Raceway Park, an ambitious plan that includes a half-mile dirt oval and a sprawling road course that could host SCCA events.

But it seems unlikely that facility will be ready by next October, and not a single person I spoke to all weekend was excited about it. One proposed backup plan involves temporarily covering Oswego Speedway with dirt, which actually sounds pretty awesome.

The part that’s hard to swallow is why the historic Syracuse track is being destroyed. Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney apparently looked at the track and saw a place where people could put on “equestrian events” if only that damn race track wasn’t in the way. Governor Andrew Cuomo started funneling money into the county to build a new ampitheater, then tear down the race track to build... something. It’s the kind of vague plan that only means someone’s pockets are being lined, and the tangled web of kickbacks seems impenetrable.

It’s hard not to feel cynical when the governor, who’s never been anywhere near Super DIRT Week, decides to replace an event enjoyed by tens of thousands of mostly blue collar people every year with something that will be of interest to a handful of rich people, then says things like, “But the State Fair, in truth, reflects yesterday’s New York. It does not reflect today or tomorrow’s New York. Let’s reimagine the State Fair. Let’s invest in it, let’s be proud of it. Let’s get a private sector company to come in and partner with us and invest $50 million.”

If I sound bitter, I’m not the only one.

12

I went to my first Super DIRT Week in 1985. I’ve missed a handful over the years, maybe three or four, but for the most part I’ve sat in the same seats with my dad and brother, (who took most of the photos that accompany this article). It was an event we looked forward to. Around March we’d start talking about how we couldn’t wait for Super DIRT Week. By August my dad would be planning what food to bring and which side events we’d go to. It felt like it would always be there, like there’d always be a next year.

It’s entirely possible that some health problems in my family right now are sharpening the point a little too much—I get it, universe, “This, too, shall pass,” but I think your metaphor is a little on the nose, ok? People have an emotional connection to Super DIRT Week because of the bonds they form there with friends and family. Here’s a picture of me that first year, in ‘85.

3

Fans have had their ashes scattered on the track. My dad has said for years we should scatter his in turn one, a place that won’t exist in a few weeks. In my heart, that grandstand, certainly no architectural beauty, is deeply connected to my father and my brother, and I’m not the only one who feels that kind of connection. I’d assumed I’d keep going there for years to come, whatever else happened.

It’s just a stupid place, a circle of dirt and concrete.

All is impermanent. But I cried while writing this.

As Stewart Friesen climbed the winner’s podium Sunday night, we all filed toward the stairways that wind down from the upper rows. I watched person after person pause and turn to look at the track before they headed down the stairs for the last time, and more than a few blinked back tears.

Then I did the same thing. Looked down that long front stretch one more time. Looked out over turn one, the race-hardened dirt gleaming as the setting sun filtered through the grandstand. Then the flow of the crowd urged me forward, and we walked down into the twilight and left that place forever.



[Photos credit Joe Grabianowski]

Ed Grabianowski is an author and freelance writer. He’s worked as a contributing writer for io9, HowStuffWorks, and Sweethome, and his fiction has appeared in several publications. Ed took second place in David Wellington’s Fear Project.

 

Start of 1905 state fair race

 

As a northeast modified fan I saw many races at Lebanon Valley and Middletown, but never "The Mile"
I saw the track in '03 while there at a truck show and was in awe of the place, thinking about races I had only read about in Speed Sport News.
It's a damn shame what they are doing, I hope the "horsey crowd crap" falls on it's ass.

 

Super D.I.R.T week brought in 10.7 million dollars in five days.

The projected income of the ampitheater is 8.5 million in a year, at a cost of 50 million to New York State to tear down the track grandstand and build the arena

Even if the horse show falls apart the track and all its history will have all ready be lost!

 

C.B.S. Sports Network

Will be airing this years race

Thursday 12-17-15 8:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M.

 

@24 Dodge just posted this in another thread, as he said very sad.

 

Just Sad to drive by and NOT see the Grandstands.
Cuomo and Mahoney - remember them at Election time.

VR&C.

 

Robert, I am glad you chronicled this to inform others of this situation, however after watching it I am heartbroken and angry at what "progress" has done to another one of the many great pastimes we all grew up with.

Loved your post about tearing down the malls and building circle tracks and drag strips. ( privately owned ,with NO BULLSHIT or big money sponsors.)

 

Listen to the crowd it will make you want to puke.

The race fans who recorded it sound heartbroken

 

A lifetime of memories reduced to rubble in seconds so some greedy prick can make more money. You're right, I do want to puke!
I heard someone say in an interview " The worst part of getting old is remembering being young".
I guess everyone has their special times in life, but it sure sucks to watch things end like this.

 

I had know I idea how dumb we race fans were, glad this political science professor informed me.

 

Expo center, huh?

 

Scuttlebutt has it that the expo center may not happen, and that Gov. Cuomo and the N.Y.S. fair board wanted more room for mid-way and rides.
No respect for history or tradition.

 

I just found this video-

 

We still have the memories-

 

Wow - Thanks

 

Great post Thanks !!