Empire Statesmen At Watkins Glen Race July 6
Rochester’s Empire Statesmen are racing full out on the holiday weekend, with major events on July 4, 5 and 6, including a special performance at the Watkins Glen race track on Sunday, July 6. An audience of about 50,000 is expected to be in the stands for the Camping World Grand Prix race on the famous 3.4 mile road course, to be televised by Fox Network and ESPN.
Weekend events at Watkins Glen include the Corning Duel Firestone Indy Lights races, Penn Grade 1 Historic Grand Prix and KONI Challenge. Watkins Glen is located in western New York’s Finger Lakes area, southwest of Rochester.
The Watkins Glen performance tops off a working holiday for the Statesmen organization. All three generations, the Empire Cadets, Empire Statesmen competition corps and the Statesmen All Stars alumni corps will march in Irondequoit’s Independence Day parade at 11 am July 4. The Statesmen and All Stars will then enjoy a picnic to celebrate the start of the Empire Statesmen’s 25th anniversary season.
On Saturday, all three units will appear during the 5th annual Vince Bruni Preview of Champions, at Growney Stadium at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, beginning at 7 pm July 5. The Preview will be the first contest of the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) season for the Empire Statesmen. Other corps competing in the Preview of Champions are Hawthorne Caballeros, Syracuse Brigadiers, Rochester Crusaders and Dansville White Sabers. For ticket information, call (585) 266-2232.
The Empire Cadets and the All Stars will both appear in exhibition during the Preview of Champions. The All Stars will perform such long time crowd favorites as I Go To Rio, Yankee Doodle and Moonlight Serenade. The Statesmen will leave Rochester early Sunday morning, and perform about 2 pm as part of entertainment package for race fans at Watkins Glen.
Since first competing in 1983, the Empire Statesmen have won five DCA world championships, four American Legion national titles, and the triple crown: the DCA and American Legion titles and the World Show Band championship in London, England all in the same year in 1998, when the field show featured music from West Side Story. Empire Statesmen have finished in the top four during DCA championship tournaments for 20 consecutive years. The Statesmen are sponsoring the DCA championships for the third year in a row, with events in several downtown Rochester locations and at PAETEC Park.
The Empire Statesmen drum and bugle corps is a self-supporting independent group that represents the city of Rochester across the United States and Canada and as far abroad as Europe, the Caribbean and South America.
For more information about any aspect of the Empire Statesmen organization, call (585) 266-2232 or visit the Empire Statesmen Web site at: www.statesmen.org.
