Champion Speedway
Owego, New York

US Open
September 3 and 4, 2011
By: East Coast Speedway Promotions

US Open Results/Recap

I just wanted to say how sorry we are that the US Open was not able to be completed Sunday. We fortunate enough to be able to run 29 races, including one full round of speedway before the rain took over. Our track staff tried like heck to keep the track going and safe. By the time the first round of speedway took place the rain was falling hard and although still entertaining, even the first speedway races that did get ran were not really very fair as the inside starting gates were a large disadvantage as the inside of the track was like ice. Many said that the radar showed a break coming soon so after round one we decided to wait for a bit to see if the rain would stop. It never really let up and only got worse as time went on. We tried beaming the track, Russ even bladed it with the grader and we got ready to race again, even had two riders, Gene Bonsignore and Lee Bailey I think, out there lined up ready to race but at this stage the track was really not suitable for safe racing. Thanks to Russ and Andy Crawford for working so hard on it! Although a couple guys with 22's on went out and were able to get around the track well, others on 19's went out to test the track and struggled. At that point we already had lost two d-1 riders who had to leave for work and a decision was made by myself to leave it in the hands of the riders who had to risk their rear ends on the track. A vote was held and only 6 of the remaining 18 riders were willing to continue. All agreed the best thing to do was to award the Championship based on Saturday nights results, it did not matter if Sundays one heat result was mixed in the results actually stood the same except for a couple ties. I know it was a huge bummer for the fans and we all felt really badly. Trust me, nobody wanted it to run worse than I did. I ended up with all the same expenses no matter if it went on or not so I took a beating on this one and have all year except the opening night event due to the weather. Now we are going to get killed on the flood as well. The bottom line is the track was just not safe enough for 4 riders side by side racing and that was the general feeling of the ones who had to go out there and do it. I apologize to all for the let down and hope everyone will understand we just can't control the weather and did the best we could. There were some great moments on Saturday...Adam Mittl's outside pass on Hedden in the first heat was awesome, Dukie Ermolenko's come from behind victory against McConnell was sweet, Jeremy Parsons had a nice outside pass on McBride I think, Buman had a come from behind win that was real good and Gene Bonsignore and Dave Meldrum had an epic side by side battle for 4 laps that Bonsignore won by inches. Stefan Laessig did great to win the Support Main and there was actually some great racing in the ATV program and the PW 50's swapped lead changes about 3 or 4 times in the final in their division, it was really cool. Congrats to Shawn McConnell who moved ahead of Gene Woods with his fourth US Open Title, he is one of the nicest guys in speedway and always impressive to watch. Check out his save where he rode over the back of Billy Hamill's bike last Wed at Industry on You Tube, it's unbelievable! It was great to see Steve Graham, Andy Schwarm, Steve Tennant, Duncan Luke, George Lazor, Norm Robinson, Fred LeGault, Kelvin Herrala and many others who traveled to be there. Special thanks to Steve "COBRA" Luxton, Jeff Hull and Larry Hedden who helped out a lot in the pits! Thanks so much to the following sponsors who helped out with heat sponsorships and especially my good friend Scott at Scott's headers and mufflers in CA who went above and beyond the call of duty as usual!... Jason Bonsignore

Andy Schwarm
Scotts Headers and Mufflers
Admar Supply
Tom and Georgia Robinson/The Robinson Family
Jeff Garlinghouse and Family
Mr. Garlinghouse and Family
RC Jones/SpeedwayBikes.Com
Sheera Myers
Rochester Speedway Fan
Paul Heffernan
Speedway Bikes 2
Dave Gallegos/Speedway USA

Overall Finish for Division 1
Shawn McConnell 20
Dukie Ermolenko 19
Mike Buman 18
Adam Mittl 17
Tommy Hedden 16
Tuff McBride 15
Casey Donholt 14
Jeremy Parsons 13
Keith Hawkins 12
Dave Clark 11
Gene Bonsignore 10
Dave Meldrum 9
Jesse Diem 8
Lee Bailey 7
Jeff Garlinghouse 6
Jerry Harman 5
John Lewis 4
Josh Carr 3
Tom Kern 2
Russ Cornell 1

Support Class US Open Final Result
Champion Stefan Laessig 5 points
2nd Zach Peters with 5, tie breakers were based off Saturdays Main event finish
3rd Ray Barondick 4 points
4th Ron Walker 4 points
5th Chuck Podany 4 points
6th Brian Bailey 2 points