After four long years, the Super DIRTcar Series is making its return this Thursday to the famed Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, NY, for the Battle on the Midway.

What makes this race so special? Well, Thursday night’s winner will take home a cool $10,000 paycheck and a guaranteed starting position for the 47th annual Super DIRT Week in October. But to add on top of that, this year’s race will be in accordance with the 178th running of the Orange County Fair which will mark the first midweek Super DIRTcar Series race at the 5/8-mile in over 10 years.

Watch the Battle on the Midway LIVE on FloRacing!

Thursday, July 19 | 6:30 PM EDT

“I’m looking forward to having the series back and to be able to host the race midweek during the fair,” track general manager Mike Gurda said. “It’ll complement the fair and the fair will complement the race. I’m also thankful to be in the position to pay $10,000 to win. I’m looking forward to these guys coming out to put on a good show.”

The fair admission will be reduced to $1 for anyone wishing to purchase tickets to attend during Thursday night’s festivities.

“It’ll be a good opportunity to walk around and try some different food than your typical racetrack food,” said Gurda, who also mentioned that all parking for Thursday night’s event will be free.

The historic clay oval, one of the oldest operating dirt tracks in the country, has recently gone through some big improvements.

“The biggest thing we’ve done so far is resurfaced the entire track,” Gurda added. “We basically dug it all up and ran all of the materials through a series of screeners, which was quite a process. We’ve received nothing but good feedback since we’ve done it. The fantastic tire wear has definitely promoted better racing.”

Tire wear always played a factor with long distance races on the 5/8-mile, but with the newly refurbished surface, this Thursday’s race may show a different outcome than years past.

“Turn three and turn four are similar but turn one and two are different now,” Gurda noted. “We took some banking out but realistically we put the banking on more of a consistent progressive grade from the bottom to the top. It’s helped promote multi-lane racing by doing so.”

With a stout field of big block drivers that run weekly at OCFS, Gurda is confident they will have a strong mix of big-block modified drivers come Thursday evening in contention for the $10,000 payday.

 “I believe we will have the majority of my modified division participating on Thursday,” he said. “We took the following Saturday off which will help our guys.”

The current driver who stands atop the win list at Orange County Fair Speedway, Brett “The Jet” Hearn, currently leads the all-time wins list with 15 victories at Orange County Fair Speedway with the Super DIRTcar Series. Hearn collected the past three series races that were held at the speedway back in 2014, 2013, and 2012.

The current points leader at Orange County Fair Speedway, Anthony Perrego, will be in attendance Thursday evening to defend his home turf against the Super DIRTcar Series regulars.

Perrego has been the man to beat this season. With back-to-back wins to kick off the season, Perrego has had great success.

“We’ll need a good time trial,” he said of Thursday night’s race. “There’s not much passing there. If we do good in the heat, we’ll need a good redraw to be able to start somewhere out in front.”

With the new track surface coming into play, Perrego still feels tire wear will come into effect.

“It’ll be 100 laps with big blocks,”  he said. “It’s tough to say there won’t be tire wear. We run 30 laps on a Saturday night, so it’s definitely been better on the tires, but Thursday will be longer, and the track will have more cars on it than a regular Saturday night.”

The “Montgomery Missile” will be making his first debut this season with the Super DIRTcar Series and what better track to compete at than his Saturday night home track?

“We’re in good shape to have a good night,” he added. “If we’re fast in hot laps and get through our heat race we should be good. Redraw is important there, so if we’re good early in the night I think we have a good chance.”

After a quiet absence from the Legendary House of Power, the Super DIRTcar Series stars and cars will be making their first appearance back since 2014 to take on Orange County Fair Speedway’s regulars. The Battle on the Midway will be the biggest racing event to take the stage during the historic Orange County Fair. Who will be the driver to come out on top and add their name to the fast 5/8-mile in Middletown?