Brewerton International Speedway in Central Square, New York is taking precautions tonight for an unusual event at the D-shaped clay track, a protest.  Local Central Square, NY resident and little person Mark “Smalls” Vespa plans to make his opinions heard on Friday night as he is calling for a protest at the track if officials do not stop calling the cars Midget cars.

Last winter, Smalls Vespa started the organization Little Americans Midget Eradication (LAME) and Friday night is the organization’s first “official” protest.  The organization’s first unofficial protest came at this year’s St. Patrick’s Day party at O’Shea’s Bar and Grill when Mr. Vespa was over-served and coaxed into putting on a leprechaun outfit.  Smalls refused to exit the men’s bathroom in his little outfit claiming that he was not coming out and proceeded to have a lock-down protest of one until his clothes were returned and owner Danny O’Shea was the only one left in the bar.

Serving as President of LAME, Mr. Vespa sent out an email earlier this week to all two of the organizations members asking them to undertake direct action of a protest to make Brewerton Speedway change the name of Midget cars to, Little People cars.

“Little People of LAME, you are needed” the email started.  “I ask that you show up in force to Brewerton International Speedway this Friday night at 7:00 to join me in a peaceful, yet desperately needed protest.  It may seem normal for the regular race fan to go see a Midget car race at their local dirt track on a Friday night, however to little people; the word midget is highly offensive.  The term “midget” dates back to the 1800’s which was the height of the “freak show” circus era, and was generally applied only to short-statured persons who were displayed for public amusement.  Using the word midget to describe a small race car implies small things are for just that, public amusement.  This must change and it starts with Little People car racing at Brewerton.  We hope to condemn this action of using the word midget in the strongest possible terms and if no action is taken, I plan to tie myself to the roof of one of the participants in the race.”

Protests are not new to the Brewerton track as officials and fans remember the protest of 1998 when Transsexual’s wanted to change the name of Modified race cars and 2002 when BBW (Big Beautiful Women) protested the Monster Truck race.  And who could forget last year’s BMX race that was protested by Bowel Movement to the Extreme members.

It seems as though the planned protest has not had an effect on race fans planning to attend Friday night’s race.  “Hell, a midget strapped to the roof of 900 pound, 350 horsepower race car?  I’d give my left nut to see that” said race ticket holder Randy Dawson.

LAME has notified members that the next targets for protests are the poorly-named Short Tracks.