The summer calendar went out with Labor Day, and this is the weekend the fall one arrives all at once. Northport hands its entire village over to a footrace that has been run since 1977. Belmont Park opens its new grandstand to anyone who did not get a sold-out Opening Day ticket. Port Jefferson fills its harbor with dragon boats, Oktoberfest season taps its first kegs in three places at once, and a town-owned estate in Ridge throws the kind of country fair most people assume Long Island stopped having decades ago. Here is where the next three days are worth the drive.

Northport gives its streets to Cow Harbor weekend

The Great Cow Harbor 10K is the rare Long Island event with a national reputation: an elite field, a staggered start, and a course that finishes by the water in one of the prettiest villages on the Island. Race day is Saturday, and Sunday is the party. On Saturday the roads close at 7:15 a.m. and the 10K goes off at 8:30 from Laurel Avenue, with a 2K fun run behind it and awards at the gazebo in Cow Harbor Park at 10:30. Park at Northport High School and take the shuttle, because the village itself will be closed to you. Saturday night there is a free big band concert at the village bandstand at 7. Sunday is Cow Harbor Day proper: a pancake eating contest outside Shipwreck Diner at 9:30 and the parade down Main Street at noon. If you have never watched this village on this weekend, that is the pick of the whole list.

Belmont Park, take two: the weekend is not sold out

Friday's Opening Day at the rebuilt Belmont Park sold out in advance, and no tickets will be sold at the gate. The part that matters for everyone else: Saturday and Sunday are the same new track, the same fall meet, and tickets remain available. The New York Racing Association is capping opening weekend crowds at 6,000, general admission is 10 dollars, and trackside grandstand seats run 50 dollars on the high-demand dates, September 19 and 20 among them. Parking opens at 11 a.m., gates at noon, first post 1:30. The first new grandstand in downstate racing in a generation is worth seeing in its first weekend, and Saturday is the way in that does not require having planned ahead in July.

Dragon boats take over Port Jefferson harbor

Saturday, the 12th annual Port Jefferson Dragon Boat Race Festival runs from 8:30 in the morning to about 5 p.m. at Harborfront Park, with team race heats on the water all day. Between heats there is a dragon dance, land dragon races, a tug of war, food trucks, and more than 20 vendors. Watching is free, and the right way to do it is the way the chamber suggests: bring a lawn chair, claim a spot on the grass above the harbor, and let the race announcements wash over you for an afternoon.

Oktoberfest opens three times on Saturday

As covered in our Oktoberfest guide last week, the season opens Saturday in triplicate. Farmingdale closes Main Street between Prospect and South Front from noon to 5 for an Oktoberfest edition of its Music on Main street festival, free, with the village's restaurant row moving its tables into the road. In Oceanside, Barrier Brewing pours its fifth annual Oktoberfest from noon to 5 on New Street, and South Shore Craft Brewery runs Shoretoberfest from 1 to 6 on Hampton Road, with a fresh Marzen and a lederhosen contest. Sunday belongs to the real thing: Ompahfest at Plattduetsche Park in Franklin Square, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., 11 dollars at the door, with brass bands brought over from Germany at the German American park restaurant that has anchored the Island's German community for over a century.

A country fair on a 1790s estate in Ridge

The Brookhaven Country Fair takes over the town-owned Longwood Estate at Longwood Road and Smith Road in Ridge on Saturday from 10 to 8 and Sunday from 10 to 6. Admission is 5 dollars, kids 12 and under free, with a free shuttle from Longwood Junior High. It is the town's history festival in the shape of a fair: re-enactors on the grounds of a house that predates the town's incorporation, vendors, a children's area, and this year a country band with line dancing and a beer garden. It is also pet friendly, which almost none of this weekend is.

Still going: Bellmore's carnival and two more

The Bellmore Family Street Festival, in its 39th year, started Thursday night and runs through Sunday at Bedford and Pettit Avenues, with carnival rides, live music and the biggest street fair footprint in south Nassau. On Fire Island, the Grove and Pines Film Festival screens Friday through Sunday in Cherry Grove and the Pines. And out in Manorville, Prime Pasture Farm opens its fall season Sunday at 10, the farm's first pumpkin season since it became a licensed cidery this month.

The short version

If you want one day that feels like the whole Island in miniature, drive to Northport on Saturday morning and stay through the concert. If you want the thing you cannot do any other weekend, Belmont on Saturday is the first Saturday of racing there in years. Everything else on this list forgives a late start.