Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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-; IIIlI • ~ t lr) l' • • .,. 0'\ '"""" ~ 00 '"""" ....t::: U M ~ :E or It's a different sport on "home court" u.s. By Dennis Greene COSTA MESA, CAL., MAR. 7 .. Our u.s. Speedway team more than vindicated itself last Friday night at Oran ge Cou nty Fairgrounds In the second of three race meets that are being promoted as the U.S. versus the World. The first race meet was February at the Houston Astrodome after the M IA Nationals . The World team took the U.S. team apart, 64 to 44, a 20-point spread. . . . and what would we do w ithout the Huffman Hop? ..... - 26 Race n um ber two a t th e Orange Co u n ty Fai rgr o unds was a complete turnaround. The U.S. team, ca ptained By So nny Nutter, wo n 13 of th e 1g eve nts, tied on e and lo st four, turning in a total score o f 66 poin ts to the World's 39, a 27 point difference, pu t ting th e overall advantage of seven points with t he Am ericans for t he t hi r d and fin al even to be hel d th is Thursday nigh t at Ir win da le Race way. . 19 73 U.S. Na ti onal Speedway Champ Mike Bast topped the Am eri can team in points with a t otal of 14 , high man for the night. Ivan Mauger, at 13 points, was second overall and top scorer for the World team. New Zealand's Mauger, four-time World Speedway Champ, had his work cut out for him early in the night when John Davis of England was injured in his second race and unable to ride any more for the night. John was the reserve rider called on after Egon Muller of Germany was hurt in practice. With two riders out, Ivan rode fou r more events without a teammate agai nst two riders of the U.S. team . Of the four solo events he won two, came in second in o ne and third in the o ther. Rick Wo o ds, the' o n ly th ree-time U.S. Nat ional Speedway Champ, racked up a score of 12 points. second highest for the U.S . team and third fo r th e night. Woods got off to a poor start in his first race, falling in t um one. He got back into the race and was closing rapidly at the checkere d flag, but scored no points for that event. Woods more than made up for his error by winning his next four events, taking more firsts than anyone for the night. Steve Bast, the 1974 U.S . National Champ added II points to th e U.S . victory, Jeff Sexton, the man who finished second in the Nationals to Steve, added another 11 points to the score, tieing Steve for the fourth spot overall. Fifth overall went to Barry Briggs of New Zealand and Ole Olsen of Denmark, both with nine points. Briggs, four-time World Champ, had engine: trouble in two events, scoring no points. Ole Olsen of Denmark won two of his six rides, scoring one point in th ree others, adding nin e points for the World team . To round o ut the 66 points for the U.S. team , Sonny Nutter added eight, Bill Cody six and Scott Sivadge three. Fo r the Worl d J o h n Louis and Chris Pusey of England added four points each. The capacity crowd saw the best in the world o f Speed way. Wheth er th ey spo ke German , Da nish, Eng lish, o r Swed ish, t hey are: all the top s in the sport, and, witho ut a doubt, the 10 thousand rac e fans who pac ked the grandstands, braving rain showers, a re, in the eyes o f t he co mpetitors, the • greatest fans in the world . Resu l ts in Res ults Section.