FORESTVILLE - The night didn't work out as well as he wanted because he finished 18th and with a wrecked race car.
However, the winged super sportsmen's first visit to Big Diamond Speedway since 2007 last Friday night was still a homecoming for one driver.
Schuylkill County resident Joey Biasi had a short drive from his Mary D home to Big Diamond for last Friday's program.
No track hosting the touring division in 2014 is closer to Biasi's home than the Forestville oval, so he appreciated the short trip to race his No. B1 super sportsman - an open-wheeled car featuring a sprint car body, but with a self-starting engine and a narrower top wing than those used by most sprint cars.
The division used to have a home speedway, the former Silver Spring Speedway near Mechanicsburg from the 1970s to 1990s, and has been maintained as a touring group since Silver Spring's demise by that track's former owner, Alan Kreitzer.
However, Biasi said the real reason he and his father bought the car was his chance to race at a different track.
"We ran wingless last week and passed a whole bunch of cars," Biasi said about the preceding week's program at Path Valley Speedway in Spring Run, which is hosting a series of wingless super sportsman races this year.
"We got fifth. That's the reason we bought this - for the wingless racing. I drove this car for another guy. This car was up in New York. I drove it for him, and I saw Path Valley was doing wingless. I called him up and we made a sweet deal."
For the Big Diamond program, Biasi's crew attached the top wing, lettered to resemble the rest of the car and its title sponsor, Burns and Yost Competition Engines. That Tamaqua business supplies the power plant for Biasi's car.
That sponsorship - and Biasi's fans -produced a hometown feel to the touring division's visit to Big Diamond. During most of the night, Biasi was enjoying his return to a track where he had competed in a sportsman modified in the late 1990s.
Though the super sportsman appears much different, Biasi said the cars are more similar than they appear.
"This is like a cross between a modified and a sprint car," Biasi said. "Just weight. If you would jump from a modified to a sprint car, it's night and day. This would be like the midpoint, just the way it drives and the horsepower and all of that other stuff.
"Some guys can't ever get out of a modified and into a sprint car. I always wanted to be in a sprint car."
Seriously injured in a 2002 accident at Big Diamond when a driveline came through his sportsman and hurt an ankle, Biasi said he learned another Schuylkill County resident, Coaldale's John Surma, was driving a super sportsman at Silver Spring.
Contacting him, Biasi then drove Surma's car for several years.
Before Biasi, 33, and his father bought the current car, Biasi also competed in 305 sprints and the United Racing Company 360 sprint tour, adding to a resume which began as a child racing quarter-midgets and go-carts.
"Now I've got a baby and the funds got tighter," said Biasi, who is the father of a 17-month-old.
Those funds oddly include a quarter that he welded to the top of the rear bar of his super sportsman. That way, he says, he will never leave the track without money if the car is destroyed.
Biasi, who works as an industrial mechanic in Philadelphia, avoided destruction last Friday night, but his car did not emerge unscathed.
After he placed second to Halifax's Mike Enders in one of the division's three heat races, he was running among the top 10 when a car beside him moved left down the front stretch.
Biasi steered left to avoid him, but could not miss one of the tractor tires marking the inside berm. The collision tore off Biasi's left front wheel with a bar attached and flattened the left rear.
Once the car is repaired, Biasi will likely return to Path Valley and its wingless super sportsman series.
"Mind over matter," he said about his ability to muscle the No. B1 around Path Valley's tight 1/4-mile oval. "Running the modified has helped." Today's races
Where: Big Diamond Speedway, Forestville.
Schedule: Gates open, 5 p.m.; Warm-ups, 7:45 p.m. Races, 8:15 p.m.
Program: Ken's Tire Night for DIRTcar 358 modifieds, Jeremy Slifko Fabrication Services sportsmen, Savage 61 roadrunners
Spectator admission: $15 per adult, $13 per senior, active military and students with valid identifications, free for children ages 12 and under.