Dom Roselli Jr. Takes Checkered Flag At Orange County Fair Speedway On Sunday In The Ron Goodrich Memorial
Story By: JOE PHILLIPS / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – The Hard Clay at Orange County Fair Speedway roared back to life for the Full Fender Nostalgia Night, sponsored by Steve Dodd Plumbing and Heating, located in Middletown NY.
A special highlight of the night was the “Traverse Family Memorial” street stock feature . Mike Traverse was a long time photographer at Orange County Fair Speedway, who sadly passed away at the start of 2025. Not only was Mike a photographer and writer for Race Pro Weekly, but was also a husband and father, as well as a friend to anyone who met him. Mike always had a special fondness for the street stockers, and did what he could to help them promote their teams.
Long time track announcer, Tim Pitts, said he has been at Orange County Fair Speedway for 40 plus years, and noted that he knew Mike Traverse for longer than that.
In a brief moment before hot laps, Pitts stated that “Mike was a guy that always wanted to help people and drivers by providing photos and other assistance.”
Pitts continued “Mike always could be relied upon for help”, such as providing photos for Tim’s vintage modified projects.
A special event for the street stock teams was the Mark Rutherford / Alan Dart Jr Memorial Street Stock Dash -for -Cash. The six lap race had an $1800 dollar purse! Jack Beaumont in car number 191, was the winner of the Dash and the nights street stock feature.
Dom Roselli Jr was the DIRTcar Modified feature winner for the 2nd time this year, after taking the win in the Ron Goodrich Memorial Modified feature. Alex Yankowski took the early lead but suffered a flat tire. Later, on a restart , Anthony Perrego in the Salerno #4 took the lead and also suffered a flat tire. At the finish, it was Roselli, with Ryan Godown in second and LJ Lombardo in 3rd.
Roselli stated in victory lane that he “must be asleep cause he could only dream of winning on mod feature at Orange County, and now he has won two of them.”
The stars of the Sportsman feature was Brian Krummel and Jared Labagh. Both started the event in 11 and 12th, respectively. Krummel quickly advanced to the front to take the lead, with Labagh steadily dogging him. Some late race cautions set up a green white checkered last lap. This took at least two attempts to get completed. Finally, on the last attempt, coming out of turn 4 for the green, Labagh pulled into 1st place , as Krummel suffered a driveshaft failure. Fans will remember last season, when Labagh won the Sportsman feature, but came up light on the scales, due to the loss of a rub rail on his car. Tonight’s win was certainly vindication for last year’s failure.
Various local businesses stepped up as lap sponsors for the DIRTcar Mods, Sportsmans and Street Stocks. All classes received a regular purse plus bonus money.
Prior to the racing program current and former Street Stock drivers were on hand signing autographs and retelling racing stories of days gone past. As in past Nostalgia nights, the speedway office provided beautiful posters for drivers to autograph for fans. Many drivers also provided photos of their current and former cars. Of special note was Carol Birchwale, Terry Zuidema – Sipley, and Katherine Keenan Tolf representing just a few of the many women race car drivers for Orange County.
The Next Big Series 2 race is on August 3, 2025. It was announced at tonight’s race that the Northeast Wingless Sprint cars will be added to the racing card for that event. This will make an exciting racing program even better for the fans.
After the August race, the next event is on September 7, and the track is silent until Eastern States Weekend in October. The summer is quickly flashing by, so please get out and enjoy the races at Orange County Fair Speedway and one of the many other local tracks.
