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Weedsport, NY - May 15, 2007 - By Ken Kuhlman, Motorsports Historian (*Ace Lane
photo attachment)
Garden State standout Billy Osmun has been selected as a 2007 inductee into the DIRT
MotorSports Hall of Fame. Induction ceremonies are scheduled for Sunday, May 27 on
the Cayuga County Fairgrounds and are held in conjunction with the Advance Auto
Parts Super DIRTcar Series event at the adjacent speedway.
It was Sunday and it was raining but that day the dirt track Modified stock car
racing world belonged to Bloomsbury, NJ's Billy Osmun. For him there was sunshine.
Osmun had just won the biggest event held in those ranks, the Schaefer International
100 at the New York State Fairgrounds "Moody Mile" in Syracuse back in 1974. Those
dark clouds billowing overhead couldn't darken the smile on his face.
This was certainly a glorious day for Billy Osmun, maybe the most significant in a
long and noteworthy career spanning over 25 years. And if the rain that shortened
that event by five laps had dampened the crowds at Super DIRT Week III, it certainly
had no effect on the spirit of victory. Many witnessing that superb performance that
day at Syracuse had watched Billy Osmun's career unfold and knew well that success
for him had come the hard way. They recalled when he was 21 years old and
"green"-with only four years of experience in drag racing-when he decided to give
stock car racing a try.
Billy O showed up one night at the Flemington, NJ Fair Speedway with his own
Modified creation. The car, as he now recalls, cost him $3,500 to build. He bought
the body, chassis and wheels from a friend and named it "The Barnyard Special."
Undaunted, off he went with his home-built race car and absolutely no idea of what
it was like to drive on dirt. Even today, Osmun recalls that first Flemington
performance as if it happened yesterday.
"I can still see that night," Osmun reminisced. "They had guardrails on the inside
and outside. All the time I felt like I was getting claustrophobia. I kept going
faster and faster and never realized I was running on the edge. Then, coming out of
turn two, I ended up taking a couple of cartwheels." It was apparently a lesson well
learned. After the first night, he seldom ever flipped another race car.
In the meantime, Billy Osmun turned into one of the premier dirt track racers in the
east, running up 19 and 20 win seasons with the John and Tony Norica backed no. 81
Black Horse Racing Team. These days jumping into a Modified and zipping around a
fast dirt track is hardly a way to get started. People have a tendency to look at
you funny as though you aren't playing with a full deck.
Even back in 1965 when Osmun took the plunge, it was considered a big step to begin
within the Modified ranks. Of course, Osmun didn't exactly go looking for advice on
how to do things the right way. In fact, when he began racing, he kept it hidden
from his parents. Or at least he tried to. "That was in the days before drivers wore
uniforms," Osmun recollects. "All we wore were T-shirts and dungarees and after that
first night wreck at Flemington I had belt burns down my back, on my neck, and
everywhere. It wasn't long before Mom and Dad found out."
And it wasn't long, either, before Billy Osmun began to show up at the front of the
pack. In fact, it was while he was still running "The Barnyard Special" that he
almost won his first feature. The key word is almost. A funny thing happened on the
way to victory lane.
It happened at the Don Jones promoted East Windsor, NJ Speedway. Osmun was leading
and quite obviously closing in on his first-ever feature race win. Imagine the
anticipation: corner after corner, lap after lap, the hard charging Osmun edged
nearer to his initial triumph. He blazed around the track one last time, with
victory in sight. Suddenly.there it was: the flag! The white flag. Today a sheepish
Osmun remembers, "I mistook the white flag for the checker, and I ended up finishing
second. You can bet that never happened again."
That evasive fist career win eventually came his way on September 12, 1969 at East
Windsor. Osmun would go on to record 27 career Modified victories at this historic
site to end up fifth on the all-time Modified winners list there. At the Flemington
Fair Speedway he even bettered the East Windsor mark by capturing 33 feature race
wins. The first one came on August 7, 1971 and from there he proceeded to finish
among the top-10 winners ever at Flemington. Add to these impressive tallies six
firsts at the spacious Bridgeport (NJ) Speedway and three wins at the famed Reading
(PA) Fairgrounds half-mile along with triumphs in the Syracuse Labor Day events. It
all sure marked a storied career.
Osmun also came within a whisker of adding yet another Super DIRT Week Schaefer 100
headliner at Syracuse, NY to this resume back in 1975. Making a late race pit stop
for fuel he executed an absolute remarkable comeback to finish inches behind
eventual winner, the late great Dick "Toby" Tobias.
Simply put, Billy Osmun developed a reputation of being a charger with the ability
to do well in anything he drove including a fifth-place finish in an asphalt
Modified at the Daytona (FL) Int'l Speedway and a win in a Midget race car. Such
noted race car owners as Jay Stong, Pete Chesson, John and Tony Norcia, Sonny
Dornberger, George Smith, Anthony and Ronnie Ferraiuolo among others would fully
attest to that as Osmun wheeled there race cars with much success.
Though he no longer drivers, Osmun says he still loves racing. When he's not
watching his son Willie race a small-block Modified he simply enjoys talking racing.
He knows very well what it's like to be a winner. He was a winner as a driver, and
there's a lot of the winner still left in the manner in which he carries himself
today: calm, confident and in charge of what he is doing.
Osmun always knew how to win a Modified stock car race. He hopes it carries over to
his son. But he knows there are some things that cannot be taught. Talent is one of
them. It is an individual thing. "I never really got psyched up before a race,"
Osmun recalled. "It's something that comes naturally. You just set a goal: winning.
Everything after that comes natural. Once you're out on the race track, you have no
friends. Winning is all there is."
In his day, there were few racers as tough on dirt racks in the New Jersey area as
Billy Osmun. That will definitely be recognized Memorial Day weekend this year as
the highly regarded DIRT organization inducts him into its Hall Of Fame.
One of the car owners that he experienced many an outstanding moment with, Tony
Ferraiuolo, himself also deservingly in DIRT's Hall Of Fame, summed it up best.
"Billy Osmun was a great driver and deserves everything good that comes his way.
Probably most will quickly recall the many exploits that Gary Balough had with our
team. To me, though, the two years Billy Osmun ran for me were some of my most
enjoyable times in the sport. It's a well justified honor for him, long overdue."
The DIRTcar Advance Auto Parts Modified Series is brought to fans across the
Northeast by several sponsors and partners, including series sponsors Advance Auto
Parts, Hoosier Racing Tire and Sunoco Race Fuels. Promotional partners include AMB
i.t., F.X. Caprara Car Companies and the University of Northwestern Ohio and the
contingency sponsors are Bert Transmission, Bicknell Racing Products, Bilstein
Shocks, Brodix Cylinder Heads, Integra Shocks, MSD Ignitions, Miller Electric
Manufacturing Company and Wrisco Industries.