It has been over 700 days since the checkered flag of the last Billy Whittaker Cars and Trux 200 concluded Super DIRT Week 48, the crown jewel event for the Super DIRTcar.
When Mat Williamson celebrated one of the most important wins of his career, not a single person on the grounds expected for the Oswego Speedway to lay dormant for the next year. The pandemic came in March, and it only took a few months for Super DIRT Week to be added to the list of events cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, two years after the last Super DIRT Week, the clay is back on the Steel Palace. Albany St. is closed, manufacturer’s row is going up and campers are rolling into the Oswego Speedway. Many are making the short drive north from Fulton, where the Outlaw 200 also returned for the first time since 2019, with Williamson taking the win.
Super DIRT Week is a relatively new event to the City of Oswego. In 2015, it was announced that the grandstand and mile-long speedway at the New York State Fair would be demolished. Super DIRT Week had been held at that location in Syracuse since its inception in 1972. With assistance from New York State and World Racing Group, the owners of the Super DIRTcar Series, set out to find a new home.
They originally found it in a place that seemed fitting. Glenn Donnelly, the founder of the Super DIRT Series that would eventually be purchased by World Racing Group in 2006, announced a new state-of-the-art racing facility that would open in 2016 in Central Square. It would feature a road course and a new half mile dirt oval that would host Super DIRT Week for years to come. However, for a variety of reasons that project did not come together. The property, near the present-day Brewerton Speedway, remains an empty lot. With not a lot of time on hand, the City of Oswego, Oswego Speedway and World Racing Group came to an agreement. The Oswego Speedway would host the storied event for 2016.
Originally, Oswego was a temporary fix. The Steel Palace was one of the only tracks in the area with the necessary camping areas and property to host such a massive event. However, it was announced that Oswego would continue to host the event into 2017 and beyond, leading up to the present day.
The 2016 event was not the smoothest running of the event, either. The clay laid down on the speedway came up, creating a rough surface that was extremely hard on cars. Multiple drivers suffered broken car frames in the main event. Campers got stuck in the camping lots due to unfortunately timed rain, which turned a once solid camping area into a mud pit.
Despite these early struggles, many felt that the event had found a new home for years to come. World Racing Group seems to have felt the same, as the event finishes out the final year of a three-year contract with the Speedway and the City of Oswego, with talks ongoing for a new Dirt Week deal.
Super DIRT Week has served as a breakthrough event for many racing stars over the years. Most recently, Stewart Friesen has been that standout star. A full-time driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, Friesen has won the event five times, most famously winning three of them consecutively. He won the last two races at the Fairgrounds in 2014 and 2015 and kicked off the Oswego era by winning in 2016.
Brett Hearn, a winner of six Super DIRT Weeks at the ‘Moody Mile,” made some NASCAR Xfinity Series starts in the ‘90s.
Tim McCreadie, son of Super Dirt Week winner ‘Barefoot’ Bob McCreadie, also made some Xfinity starts back in 2006 and 2007. The younger McCreadie now runs full-time on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, where he currently leads the 2021 points standings.
Mayor Billy Barlow, alongside World Racing Group CEO Brian Carter, announced on Wednesday Oct. 6 that Super DIRT Week will return in 2022 for the 50th edition of the historic event. The 2021 edition runs Oct 6-10, concluding on Sunday with the 49th running of the Billy Whittaker Cars and Trux 200.
Jarrad Wakefield | The Oswegonian
