East Rutherford, NJ — With a tropical storm hovering around the Tri-State area, racing still went on as scheduled at the Big M Friday (July 11) night. 

The track was sloppy but that did not stop the 10 amateur drivers and pacers from having a lot of action in the first race on the card.   Several horses left hard from the gate and after a fast :26.4 first quarter in the off going, longshot May I Cruise West (Mark Schullstrom), got to the top spot. 

He was able to overtake John Dally (Roy Marohn), but his lead was a tenuous one for just over a quarter of a mile.  That is when the outer flow started to move in and post time favorite, Take It Back Terry (Melissa Arbia) made a bold move to the front and took the lead heading into the top of the stretch. 

The other closers came calling but experienced some traffic trouble and had to fan three and four-wide but their efforts fell short to the race winner, Arbia, who held on for a length victory.  Finishing up second was Willie Boots (John Calabrese) and rounding out the trifecta was Scirocco Mistysaid (Mark Silva). 

A troubled traffic trip Bravo Tex N (Matt Zuccarello) finished up a hard closing fourth.  The mile was timed in 1:54.2 over the sloppy going.  The 11-year-old gelding is out of Western Terror, is trained by Ron Burke and owned by Burke Racing Stable LLC, Weaver Bruscemi LLC, Lawrence Karr and Phillip Collura.    

The GSY Series will continue its summer racing next Friday night at the Big M with the first post scheduled for 7:15 p.m.