Veteran Oswego Speedway Announcer Heading into 61st Season
Hall of Fame announcer Roy Sova enters his 61st consecutive season behind the microphone at Oswego Speedway. He is joined by a new partner, Keith Zehr
By Stefan Yablonski
Roy Sova fell in love with car racing at a young age. Now in his 80s, he said he doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon.
“I started out when I was 7. My uncle owned a race car and I got hooked on it,” he explained. “It does get in your blood.”
Hall of Fame announcer Sova will begin his 61st consecutive season behind the microphone at Oswego Speedway this year.
Keith Zehr will be Sova’s partner in the booth as the speedway celebrates its landmark 75th anniversary season in 2026.
Zehr is stepping into the role previously held by longtime announcer Joe Marotta.
Marotta retired after a 33-year run working alongside Sova since the inception of the SBS class in 1992.
Sova began his announcing career at Oswego in 1966 as an infield reporter before moving to the tower in 1968 alongside Jack Burgess. He later assumed the lead role for supermodified competition in 1983, a position he continues to hold today.
“Although I am from here, when I started announcing at the track I moved out of town. I lived in Ithaca, Elmira, Binghamton, the Hudson Valley, I was in North Carolina for 10 years and Cape Cod,” Sova said, quickly adding, “I missed only two races [at Oswego].”
He commuted for 10 years from North Carolina and six years from Cape Cod, he recalled with a smile. He would announce a race on Friday night — then make his way to the Port City Saturday morning to announce that night at the Steel Palace.
One of the races he missed at Oswego was the night a driver went over the wall and came back on the track.
“The other one I don’t remember,” he said. “This one was a family situation. I had to go out of town. The second one that I missed would have been in the ‘90s.”
A good teacher
“I learned an awful lot from Jack [Burgess]. He was a good teacher. He never hesitated to help,” Sova said. “He told me, ‘Don’t spend your time in the announcer’s booth. Go to the pits, meet the drivers, meet the owners, meet the crews. Find out information so you can impart that to the crowd.’ It’s something that I continue to do to this day. Jack was there until the mid-‘80s. It was like ‘82 when I became the main announcer and he became the second announcer. He was spending so much time on dirt. Keith [Zehr] will be the third [after Burgess and Marotta] to work with me; but sixth overall booth announcer.”
In 1986, Burgess decided to spend his final years working on the DIRT circuit; Sova has held Oswego’s lead mic ever since.
“Doing this so long you get to know everybody — drivers, crews, sponsors and fans. It’s not that difficult [to keep it all straight] when you have been at it this long. You only have one or two new drivers every week or so. It’s not difficult. I’ve done this ever since the beginning,” Sova explained. “I learned it from Jack. You go to the pits, meet everybody you can, find out as much as you can so you can relate it to the audience when you are doing the race. I have always done that every week and I still do it.”
Every week Sova said he completes a new roster with all the drivers’ names, hometowns and the major sponsors on the car. And even if there is no change from week to week, he still does a new one because he adds information like who won the heat races, the features. He does it for all three divisions.
“You do kind of focus on the driver; you’re talking about so-and-so, first, second and third. But if the guy leading the race is a half a track ahead, you don’t follow him. You go to the battle for second or third or whatever,” he added.
Any favorite drivers? Sova chuckles — “of course I can’t say that. Going back to when I was young, when I first started going to the track, my uncle owned a race car. So, of course, his driver was one of my favorites. My all-time favorite driver is Eddie Bellinger Sr. That goes way back.
“Some announcers get into the habit of following just one driver — you can’t do that. You have got to pick up the whole deal and talk about everybody.”
The new partner
“Keith is a Mennonite minister. He came to the track when we first had the two-seat supermodified. He bought his daughter a ride. He and I got talking and it was at the time I think Bill Foley was the infield announcer and he was going to be gone,” Sova said. “I got talking to him about doing the infield announcing and he said he’d do it. Then they needed an announcer at Evans Mills up in Watertown. He left the infield in Oswego to go and announce there. And now he is coming back to be upstairs in the booth with me.”
“After working with Joe [Marotta] for 33 years at Oswego, it’s definitely going to be different working with someone else,” Sova said in a previous interview. “Keith and I have been friends for a long time. I talked him into becoming the infield reporter at Oswego. He moved on to Evans Mills. We’ve announced a few races together there. So, although it will be different and I’ll certainly miss working with Joe I’m excited about working with another friend.”
Zehr brings a strong background to the booth, most recently serving as head announcer at Evans Mills Raceway Park. He is no stranger to Oswego Speedway, having previously worked as an infield announcer before advancing his career behind the mic elsewhere.
“Of course I’m sorry to see that Joe retired. He’s done a great job with the SBS over the years,” Zehr said in a previous interview. “I’m looking forward to working with Roy. He got me involved as the infield announcer at Oswego and we’ve done some races together at Evans Mills. This is going to be an exciting year!”
In the track’s 74-year history, only five announcers have served as weekly voices of the Speedway.
From the early days of the 3/8-mile dirt track in 1951 (the guy who announced the six races in 1951 when the track was dirt is unknown) to Jack Burgess and Leo “Poley” Lagoe (he left and Sova worked with Burgess), to Sova and Marotta’s decades-long partnership.
The New Guy in the Booth
Keith Zehr said he has always loved the supermodifieds. He will join Roy Sova in the announcer’s booth this season.
“I started going to Oswego back in 1975, so I have a lot of years there,” he said. “Roy can be pretty persuasive. He has been at it for a long time. I met Roy at Evans Mills back in 2012. I enjoyed it a lot there; but the chance to do Supermodifieds that was just too big of a carrot to ignore. Oswego is a pretty major speedway and Roy is great to work with, so I decided that I was going to give that a shot.”
He did the infield announcing from 2012 to 2017 and then again in 2021.
“I did that for seven years,” Zehr said. “Danny Johnson is the guy I replaced in 2012.”
A Pine fan
“My favorite driver? That’s hard to answer. I have always been a Jimmy Shampine fan,” he said. “Ron Wallace was my favorite back in 1975. I tend to favor guys in the back of the pack, guys who haven’t won yet. I like to see new winners. I hate to play favorites out there. You’ve got to be impartial when you’re announcing. Big trouble if you don’t.”
“My Sunday school teacher took me to a race at Lancaster Speedway. I think I was probably about 14 years old and I got hooked at that point,” he continued. “I always thought I wanted to be an announcer but didn’t think I’d get a chance. And then years later, I saw an ad that Lancaster Speedway was looking for an announcer; that would have been in 2004. So, I contacted them and I wound up getting the job. That is how I started in announcing. But I have been a race fan since the 1970s. I was in my early teen years.”
As pastor of a church in Iowa, he had to be creative to attend races in Oswego.
“I had to reserve Classic Weekend every year so I could leave,” he said.
He said he struck a deal with them at the start.
“I am old enough where I just wanted an interim position and that is all they were looking for. I said, ‘if I can have summers off, I’d be glad to do this, I have a lot of things I have to do back in New York.’ And they agreed to that! So, from the end of September through the end of April most of the time I am in Iowa. But May through September I am in Oswego doing my summer stuff. It has worked out pretty good.”
At Oswego he will mainly be responsible for the small block Supermodifieds.
“I will be doing some of the heat races for the others. But Roy will be still calling the features. He will be the main guy. Roy has had an amazing career. I don’t know of any other short-track announcer there is that even comes close to the record he has had at Oswego. He is totally dedicated,” Zehr said.
Sova had came up to announce a race at Evans Mills.
“That is when I met him. Then I went down to Oswego to a race. I heard him announce over the PA that they were looking for an infield announcer. I called him later and he said, ‘yeah we’ll try it out.’ And I ended up staying there for six years. It worked out pretty good,” Zehr said. “I got to know him pretty well over that time. Two old guys in the booth. I guess Oswego will have to get used to that. I’ll turn 70 this summer.”
Zehr said he used to be a Bluegrass DJ in Buffalo.
“We had our own festival up here for a while. Those would be the two big hobbies,” he said. “I don’t play anything. I am not a musician. I’m on the Lewis County fair board and I do the announcing for some of their events like the tractor pulls, the parade, that kind of stuff. So, I guess you could consider public address announcing as a hobby.”