To win it, you must be in it, as Kelly Fleming discovered. She made the last-minute decision to compete in the 4 cylinders last Friday at Spirit Auto Center Speedway at Bridgeport Motorsports Park. That choice resulted in her first trip to victory lane.
“I had been wanting to run the quarter mile at Bridgeport, but my work schedule never lined up with a Friday day off,” Fleming, who works as an ER nurse said. “When it did, I told my husband, Kory, that I would like to give the quarter mile a try.”
She came into the track with humble expectations.
“I was looking to get some laps in and some seat time on a quarter mile,” said Fleming, of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. “I never thought I would win a feature, let alone at a track I never raced on.”
Fleming knew she’d have to compete against 4 cylinder hot shoe Joe Garey Sr.
“He is fast, races hard, but in the past he raced me clean,” Fleming said.
As it turned out, Fleming would battle Garey for the lead on a lap-23 restart in the 25-lap feature.
“I made the decision as we were coming around on the restart — I had to go for it if I wanted a chance to win,” said Fleming. “I made my move, and it worked out. Joe looked over and gave me a thumbs up after we crossed the finish line.”
In the pits, Garey ran up to Fleming.
“He congratulated me on my first win,” Fleming said. “He said he was happy for me [and] said he would only be happier if he had won the race himself.”
Kelly Fleming doesn’t regret taking advantage of a day off to race a new place. In fact, she’d encourages other racers to do so, too.
“If you can make it work, absolutely go to that track and race,” said Fleming. “You probably won’t regret it. It paid off for me.”
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.
