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Officials Growing Weary Of Wet Weather At Canandaigua Speedway CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. (May 16) – Rain, rain go away ... at least from Canandaigua Speedway on Saturdays. The weatherman has so far shown little concern for Canandaigua's weekly racers and their loyal fans during the early season. With rain canceling three of the initial four shows at the historic Ontario County Fairgrounds oval in 2005, track general manager Jeff Farney has been left anything but high on dry for his weekend program. "The past few weeks have been very frustrating around here with rain hitting us for over a month now," Farney stated. "Last year was very similar as we lost almost every Saturday show in May. It seems like everybody's been battling the same elements around here so we've just got to keep our chin up and move on." Making yet another attempt after it's April 23 opener twice fell to rain, Canandaigua hosts the mighty DIRT Modifieds in a 35-lapper paying $2,000 to win. The Canandaigua Chrysler Dodge four-star card includes Paine Motorsports Sportsman, Big Mike's Auto Repair Pro Stock and Parts Plus Auto Stores Street Stocks action in the 7pm bill. With rain wiping out most weekends of racing since the April lid-lifter, Vic Coffey from Leicester, N.Y. has been the only DIRT Modified winner at Canandaigua. The 50-lap big-block triumph was Coffey's 11th career as put his no. 32c Sweeteners Plus/Bicknell mount in victory lane ahead of defending track champion Steve Paine, Justin Haers, Stewart Friesen and Ron Cartwright Jr. Just one Paine Motorsports Sportsman feature has also been logged and it was '03 division champion Paul Guererri scoring the 25-lap victory on the rescheduled May 7 opening day. Top-five runners Scott Schrader, Dan Wiesner, Eric Giguere and Gus Hulburt will each be looking to make their first trip to Canandaigua's winners circle. A full program of Big Mike's Auto Repair Pro Stocks and Parts Plus Auto Stores Street Stocks completes the action-packed show at the historic 'Land of Legends' oval. Like the Sportsman, the full-fender teams were also allowed just one feature race as rain limited their trackside activity. All-time Canandaigua Pro Stock winner Jipp Ortiz copped the opener followed by James Henry, Chad Homan, Darryl Hilkert and John Rutkowski. Blane Smith got the Street Stock title hunt underway taking his first checkered flag ahead of defending class champion Mike Welch, Nick Rizzo, Mike Minutolo and Mike Schultz. The month of oval-track activity concludes at Canandaigua Speedway on May 28 with the traditional Taney Family Memorial Day Weekend card highlighted by a special appearance by the Patriot Sprints. The special holiday program includes a 50-lap DIRT Modified main plus full shows for Sportsman, Pro Stock and Street Stock. Canandaigua Speedway is located on Townline Road just east of the city. Race time remains 7 p.m. with the pit gates unlocked at 4:30 p.m. and general admission gates swinging open at 5 p.m. Call the Jeff Farney at 315/730-1697 (weekdays) or 585/394-0961 (raceday) or log into canandaiguaspeedway.com on the internet for further information. The DIRT MotorSports™ Advance Auto Parts Modified Series is brought to fans across the Northeast by several sponsors and partners, including series sponsors Advance Auto Parts, Dynomax Performance Exhaust, Hoosier Racing Tire and Sunoco Race Fuels. Promotional Partners include Stacker 2®, AMB i.t., RACEceiver and Zippo Lighters and the contingency sponsors are DART Machinery, Bicknell Racing Products, Bilstein Shocks, MSD Ignitions and Wrisco Industries. |