Driver Ryan Watt celebrated heartily, including with friend Eric Kormann (pictured), after winning the Short Track Super Series’ (STSS) South Jersey Shootout. Watt had plenty of reasons to celebrate the win at Bridgeport Motorsports Park on July 28.
Reason No. 1: The race went nonstop for 50 laps. It required Watt to remain up on the wheel for 14 straight minutes.
Reason No. 2: He won the race by holding off a late charge from 2019 STSS North/South champion Matt Sheppard.
Reason No. 3: Watt mastered the 4/10-mile oval — the track’s fourth configuration and the only one he had not won on. The 4/10-mile debuted in 2020. Of his 79 career wins, 49 of them came at a track at Bridgeport, which also included ¼-mile, 5/8-mile, and 3/8-mile versions.
“We finished second six times on the new track,” Watt, of Boyertown, Pennsylvania, said. “I thought that win was never going to come. The new configuration has progressive banking — there is no other track around [this area] that is like it. Now that the drivers have mastered it, there are lot of slide jobs. The turns are wide enough to race four-wide. The fans benefit from seeing some pretty incredible racing.”
Watt began racing in 1997, steering a sportsman modified. He passes other tracks to regularly race at Bridgeport. That’s because his car owner, Ron Roberts, whom he has been driving for since 2009, hails from Wilmington, Delaware, which is near the track.
After the win, Ryan Watt left with his son, Logan, on a road trip to Terre Haute, Indiana, where the younger Watt competed in the USAC .25 Generation Next Tour event. Logan, 12, picked up a win. Logan also races a crate 602 sportsman. He won his first race with that last month at Big Diamond Speedway in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
“It’s a special time — going on the road with my son and seeing him race and win,” Watt said. “We’re enjoying every minute of it.”
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.
