Utica-Rome Speedway hosts first official races in New York State since coronavirus pandemic began

Conquer Corona 30

Racing returned to uta- rospeedn leading the charge too - kicking off the 2020 racing season in the northeast with the - appropriately named conquer corona 30.

No fans in the grandstand due to the ongoing health crisis - but a somewhat historical night in vernon nonetheless.

It's the first official races in new york state following the start of the pandemic.

--- two divisions racing tonight - in the fourth of four qualifying heats for the sportsman division.

Top four cars make it to the feature event - but a lot of chaos.

On the first lap - a little contact heading into turn four and brian calabrese spins out.

--- just a couple laps later - mark yorker had actually flipped his car on turn three.

He got out ok - but had to get towed off course...see some damage there - he did not finish.

--- then right off the restart - the leader - jack speshock locks up.

He had to be towed off - tough break there.

--- right out of the next restart - mike grover spins out to bring out another caution.

He would straighten it out though.

--- finally after all that - it's kevin root holding on for the checkered flag to take heat four.

------- in the pro stock division - heat one of two to qualify...this one a pretty clean six-lap race.

Check this out though - tight two- car finish.

Turn one of the final lap - chad jeseo passes luke horning to take the lead.

Goes down to the final stretch where jeseo uses one last push to take the checkered flag for the heat.

--- he was one of 24 cars to qualify for the main event...the pro-stock conquer corona 30.

A wild start here...not even through a full lap - two cars get flats and have to head to pit road.

--- off the restart - one lap down - another flat sends andy graves off.

--- not even a full lap after that - it was jason morrison getting into it with the 14h on turn three and they both go for a spin but would continue.

--- after four caution flags in the first three laps - it would finally open up a bit.

Luke horning in the 2-h would go on to win it... so it's horning taking home the one-thousand dollar purse for the pro-stock division.

--- kevin root went on to win in the sportsman division --- and alan fink won the 200-dollar purse in the b-main race.

We caught up withte speedway where he said - it feels good to be back.

Bill shea: "we're really excited to be the first track in new york to do thi my fe worked wh a lady at thegovera lot time going bacand rth back and rth and shehelped t us t signature we nded from mr. cuomo.

We ju gotthat yl really excited about it.

I mean i'm happy about it, all our crew that works here is pretty happy about it and the drivers are happy about it.

The problem is we don't have the fans you know and we'd really like to have the fans here because there's a lot of folks that we see all the time and you know they become part of the racing family and we haven't seen them.

Hopefully in a few weeks we can do that."

As you saw people on the premises were required to wear masks - there was structured parking for crews requiring them to be 10 feet apart to adhere to the social distancing guidelines and a limited crew of four were allowed in the pit area.

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