Eddie Strada took a wild tumble during the C-main for the 600s at Action Track USA in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
“Only the top two would transfer from the C-main, and I was right behind the leader after a green-white-checkered restart,” said Strada, from Lake Arrow, Pennsylvania. “That’s when a car blasted me from behind.”
The contact sent Strada flipping. Landenberg, Pennsylvania’s Preston Lattomus, with nowhere to go, ran into Strada.
Strada’s car landed upside-down. However, the incident did not injure him. Strada was strapped into a Kirkey full-containment seat, with a Simpson five-point harness and an Arai helmet. The track crew flipped Strada’s car over and he fired it up and kept going. Strada restarted at the tail of the field, with slim hope of moving back into the top two positions for the transfer. He was forced to use a provisional to start in the 26-car feature.
“We had some engine issues, a bent shock, and a bent frame tube,” Strada said. “It was hard for me to get up through the pack.”
Strada finished 18th in the feature on the 1/5-mile progressively-banked track he calls his Wednesday-night home. Alex Bright, of Collegeville, Pennsylvania, was the best among the 56 entrties on hand that evening, winning the 600 feature.
On Friday nights, Eddie Strada moves behind the wheel of a modified at Big Diamond Speedway in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. At that track he sees some of the same faces he does at Action Track USA, such as Billy Pauch Jr. and Tim Buckwalter. However, both venues offer their own groups of top-notch talent.
“[At Big Diamond,] we race against Craig Von Dohren, Jeff Strunk, and Duane Howard,” said Strada. “At Action Track USA, it’s Buckwalter, Pauch, Jr., and the Hartman brothers, Jay and Richie. Both places have tough competition.
“At Action Track USA, the kids coming up through the ranks are getting better. It’s hard to win a feature, let alone qualify — but, that’s why we race there.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
