Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1151987
VOLUME 56 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 6, 2019 P119 aged adequately by former Oakland A's executive Steve Page, the track gradually began addressing safety issues and went from being consid- ered by most riders as very danger- ous, to one that was comparatively safe by the 2000s. Sears Point suffered through mul- tiple owners and poor management during its early years. After the '69 AMA race, the series didn't revisit the track until 1977. It would be a trend of starts and stops for the national road races that would continue for decades to come. In '77, Kenny Roberts took the national win on a Yamaha. The '77 race also witnessed the first AMA Superbike race at Sears Point, and it was a local club racer named Paul Ritter who took the unexpected win on a privately-owned Ducati. Ritter's victory started a trend of local Sears specialists who would annually give the AMA national rid- ers fits. The club races at the track produced some riders who had the track absolutely dialed. After Ritter, it was locals David Deveau (600cc Su- persport in 1988), James Randolph (750cc Supersport 1994), John Williams (Battle of the Twins 1984), and Brian Parriott (750cc Supersport 2001) whom each took upset wins over series regulars. In 1979, Sears was one of only four AMA National Road Races (along with Daytona, Loudon and La- guna Seca) on that year's very lean road-racing calendar. It was in '79 that a teenage racing sensation from Louisiana named Freddie Spencer scored his very first AMA Superbike victory riding a factory Kawasaki KZ1000. In 1982, John Williams won the AMA Battle of the Twins in Kent, Washington, becoming the first African-American to win an AMA Na- tional road race. This, some 30 years after black riders were first allowed to compete in AMA national events. Williams, who was from nearby Berkeley, honed his racing skills in club events at Sears Point. He finally won a national at his home track in 1984 when he took the AMA Battle of the Twins victory at Sears. Donny Greene, from neighboring Novato, California, became a multi- time AMA 250 Grand Prix Champion after earning his chops at countless club races at Sears. AMA Superbike sensation Scott Gray, from Santa Rosa, was another leading rider to come out of the club battles there. AMA Motocross Nationals were held at the track on the hillsides above turn seven for three years starting in 1978 on separate dates from the road race nationals. Sears Point hosted the AMA Superbike season finale in 1987 and 1988. In '87 it was the epic Wayne Rainey/Kevin Schwantz battle. Schwantz won the Sears finale, but Rainey came away with the champi- onship. The same thing happened in '88 with Doug Polen winning the season finale in a last-ditch effort to catch Bubba Shobert in the Super- bike title chase but came up four points short. There have been some amazingly close finishes at Sonoma. One of the most memorable came in 1993 when a young Miguel Duhamel, on a factory Kawasaki, nipped the dominant champion Doug Polen and his Ferracci Ducati at the line. Then there was the 1996 knock-down, drag-out battle between Yoshimura Suzuki teammates Aaron Yates and Mat Mladin, with Yates scoring his first AMA Superbike win. In 2002 the track signed a spon- sorship agreement and was renamed Infineon Raceway, although diehards continued calling it Sears Point for years. When the naming rights for Infineon came to a close in 2012, the track was renamed, once again, to Sonoma Raceway. It's taken a while, but the Sears Point name is fading into history and most fans today, especially the younger generation are comfortable calling the track Sonoma Raceway. During the economic boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s that track saw massive crowds show up for the AMA Superbike events at Sonoma. The crowds were among the biggest in the series. Often fans were still trying to get in when the races were starting. A big part of the credit for that explosion in popularity was directly attributed to the track's hiring of newspaper reporter John Cardinale to head up media rela- tions in 1998. Cardinale was friends with so many of the Bay Area media, and he worked tirelessly at promot- ing the events at Sonoma, including the Superbike races. Even though Cardinale passed away in 2013, the legacy of excellent promotions continues at Sonoma. So, if you attend the MotoAmeri- ca races this weekend in Sonoma, you will be a part of a milestone event, a half-century of motorcycle racing at the track that has one of the richest legacies in the history of the sport. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives