Derick Giwner

Yonkers Raceway | Photo by Derick Giwner

There are so many topics up for grabs this week. Let’s jump into my top two and I’ll hit a grab bag topic at the end. Yonkers Raceway starts two of the best series in the sport and in my opinion their marquee event. The USTA Board of Directors meeting just concluded and I got to witness firsthand some of the second-day festivities.

The life of a catch-driver often requires many stops along the way. Sometimes you have to leave home to find greener pastures in locations you never dreamed of driving. Once you set up shop, often enough you will find yourself driving doubleheaders or shuttling between multiple tracks on different days to pick up top drives. It pays well on the top end of the spectrum, but no one could argue that the hours can be long and exhausting.

There is no handicapping tool more powerful than watching the races. You can pour over past performances and charts all day long, but when it is all said and done, I feel naked if I haven’t seen the races from the previous week, especially at the Meadowlands.

I bet you did not know that I used to call harness races? From 1997 to 2004, I called races at Goshen Historic Track, Monticello Raceway, and the entire 1999 season at Bangor Raceway in Maine.