Bill Foley contributed to this report
OSWEGO, NY – “The plan is to hold Super Dirt Week at the Oswego Speedway,” said New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday afternoon.
Gov. Cuomo was in Oswego to announce a $10 million downtown revitalization award, but met with media after the announcement where he addressed Super Dirt Week as well as the nuclear plants’ status.
During the brief news session Cuomo was asked about Super Dirt Week and he said, “The plan is to hold Super Dirt Week at the Oswego Speedway.”
It was announced last year that Super DIRT Week would move from its long-time home at the NYS Fairgrounds to CNY Raceway Park that is currently being constructed in Hastings.
However, rumors speculated that the CNYRP would not be ready in time for the Super DIRT Week event in October after CNYRP officials announced that the AMA Pro Flat Track Series, scheduled for August 20, would be moved to Rolling Wheel Raceway Park in Elbridge.
According to the raceway’s website, officials said “unforeseen construction delays might leave the CNYRP facility not ready to host the event,” as the reason the AMA event scheduled for August had been moved to another raceway facility.
The governor indicated that the process of having Super Dirt Week at Central New York Raceway Park “didn’t work out” and that the race would continue this year at the Oswego Speedway.
A reporter asked if this would be a long-term site for the annual dirt track event, but Cuomo gave indications that Oswego would be the site for this year and did not commit to anything past this fall.
Though there was not in-depth discussion in regards to Super Dirt Week as the local media was also concerned about the more than 600 jobs that are at stake in regards to the local nuclear power plants.
Governor Cuomo said that New York State would “be giving Oswego Speedway finances to improve the track.”
The Governor also stressed, “We want to keep Super Dirt Week here (apparently meaning in Central New York).”
Cuomo answered the speculation at a press conference when he confirmed the 2016 Super DIRT Week would be held at Oswego Speedway, although he was unsure as to why the CNYRP location did not work out or whether the location change would be long-term.
“I don’t know the technical reasons why it didn’t work,” Cuomo said in regards to CNYRP hosting the event. “All I know is it didn’t work out with that operator but we do want to keep Super DIRT Week here and they’ve talked to Oswego Speedway who said they can host it. We are going to give them financing, so they can actually improve the track and we’ll keep Super DIRT Week here, which is the point of the entire exercise. We want that energy, that economic activity.”
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