With New Egypt Speedway shut down this season, Mike Toth decided to join his son, Joe, at Grandview Speedway. It seemed like a good move. Mike Toth won Saturday night’s feature, becoming the first Toth to reach sportsman victory lane.
“I looked at [Joe] and said, ‘Sorry, I beat you to the punch,’” Mike, of Hellertown, Pennsylvania, said. “Joe was happy. He couldn’t believe I won. We both raced at New Egypt in years past and Joe would always catch me and then fly past me.”
Mike, who lives 40 minutes away from Grandview, has run New Egypt since 1997, despite being an hour longer of a haul.
“I liked New Egypt — it fit my driving style,” Mike said. “The sportsman division was competitive and the track wasn’t hard on tires.”
When New Egypt shut down, Mike had several racing choices on the table.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Mike said. “Build a car to run the Short Track Super Series? Race with the Super DIRTcar Series? There were two weekly choices if we wanted competition — Lebanon Valley in New York or Grandview.
“When Joe decided where to race, he chose Grandview. He said, ‘I want to win at Grandview.’ The odd thing now is that I won first.”
The win didn’t come right away, though. His first two weeks, Mike tagged the wall. The third week, though, he out-dueled Johnny Fugelo to the finish line. The win reinvigorated Mike Toth, who has raced for three decades.
“I wanted to pack it in, and now I’m out there having fun, racing with my son,” Mike said. “I was the oldest racer by 10 years in the feature I won. Because I won, I’ll be handicapped and have to start in the back with Joe. It’s all good.
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.
