MONTICELLO, NY — Sitting on the concrete wall next to the winner’s circle at the Monticello Raceway, waiting for the next race to take to the track, gives a sports scribbler time to think back on the heydays of “The Mighty M.”

Times written in harness racing history, like John Manzi’s promotional race between an elephant and a camel, celebrated sportswriters of years past competing against each other in a special media-only race and of course the legendary Miss Monticello Raceway beauty pageants.

Those glory days when the grandstands were packed with hotel guests out for a day’s racing action and the wagering was hot and heavy.

These days, the once-mighty grandstands are a distant vision of past glories, the crowds of old are silent whispers of former years, but the harness racing action is still alive at the local half-mile track, which opened on June 27, 1958.

On a recent afternoon, this sports scribbler and Shawn Wiles, the raceway’s executive director of racing and facilities, sat for a few moments on that wall, waiting for the winner of the day’s feature race to be declared. Perhaps we reflected on the long and storied history of the local raceway, as the abandoned grandstands loomed overhead.

Wiles’ career in the sport began in 1972 while he was in high school, and over the decades he has served as president and vice president of the United States Harness Writers Association (USHWA). He is currently vice president of the Monticello-Goshen Harness Association, and is known for his “tough stance on racing integrity.”

At times during the racing action, as the Standardbreds kicked up the crushed stone, the sounds of their hoofbeats reverberated off the sun-streaked glass windows of the old grandstands.

And if you listened closely, you could almost imagine the roar of the crowds of yesteryear cheering for their favorite to make it to the winner’s circle.

Such is the stuff of memories, “doing the Time Warp again” at Monticello Raceway.