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/126000
I Gary Scott quietly steals Sacto Mile, eJuniors photo finish Gary Scott: "Anybody back there?" Kinda' hard to see in the dust. By Lane Campbell SACRAMENTO, CAL., JULY 20 Running the same muffler he used at Albany last year, Gary Scott quietly blew off an Expert field full of visiting talent; and District 35's Frank Adamo won the Junior Final with a come-from-behind . . photo finish In what. had tl? be th e race of the day . Mile racIng had returned to Sacramento after a long drought, running under CMC sanction, using the Cal Expo horse track for the first time. There were some problems getting the track s urface converte d f,;,r moto!cycle use. As Men Lawwill des cnbed the track prep: "They should have gone down to the base th e horses were using (and built it from there) , but they had some soft stuff they tried to pound in on top of it. That 's what's breakin' up." Break up it did, especially in turns three-four, where the preferred groove began to lo o k like a battlefield, forcing Steve (74 1 Eklund and Pat (99) Guthrie pitched it in like th is lap after lap. They were going FAST! (Hence the blurring.) the riders either all the way inside or far outside seeking smooth traction. Then, too, the horse people apparen tly forbade the use of chemical salts in the soil, so there was dust. Th o ugh the du st was horrible at times (the win d carried everything churned u p o n the fron t straigh t down into the exit o f tu m four, o ften. obscuring the start-finish from the riders' view) few riders really co mplained. "Right on track, except yo u can't see." (Rick Hocking.) "Stockton was worse." (Diane Cox.] "Hey, we've all raced worse tracks. I think these guys did a su per job with t he lit tl e time we had. We'd like to come back at night - I think we could put on a super show. All us guys had fun. . . .. (Chuck Palmgren in Victory Lane after placing third in the Expert Final.) The Brelsford-Kanemoto Kawasaki combination didn 't hook up quite as expected on the slip pery groove, though once when the rear end did hook up, Scott co u ld carry the front wheel for about 10 0 feet out of tum two, feet up and still crossed up. Rex Beauchamp (H-D) set fast time at 41.44, followed by Palmgren (Yam ), Jay Springsteen (who holed a piston on his miler and had to race w ith his IT motor), Gene Romero, Gary Scott, and Rick Ho cking, all under 43 seconds. Fastest Junior was Dan McWhorter. McWhorter (Yam) grabbed the lead from the outside pole in his heat and held it over Scott Pearson. The real race was for third - the last direct transfer - , as the position chan ged hands six times in the first three laps and ab o ut four times thereafter. Sacramento's Jim Vendley finally got it and hung on, after coming from dead last. He had been forced to mill around behind the pack on the start. . as his clutch wouldn't release. Pat Guthrie holeshot the second Junior he at, lost the lead to Steve Eklund in the first lap (E klund coming from about fourth) and dogged him until the final laps, slipping inside in tu rn s one-two, then losing the lead as Eklund wo uld high-line around three-four. On the final lap, Guthrie real ly took the bit and blasted out of turn two with about three lengths on Eklund, an advantage that gave him the edge at the checker, after barely h olding it through tum four. Oregonian Jeff Johnson ran off and hid from his heat competitors, and Frank Adamo won his heat after du ellin g with Mark Smith. There was no J unior Semi, and the J un io r Main came on righ t after the Ex pert heats. It was a while in coming, as Ekl und's bike cold-fo u led waiting on the line , and G uthrie laid it down in tu rn three on the warmup lap after the water truck had doused the groove. McWh orter holeshot it when they finally got away, with Jeff Joh nson an d Eklund tucked in beh in d , about a length apart. Ek lund d ucked under Johnson in tu rns three-four, really getting d rive in that a rea, while McWhorter was high-lining it, kic king u p a humo ngo us rooster tail of loose di rt. Eklund, sporting a set of Coyote air shocks that m u st work, continued to run lo w th rough the rough, and got by McWhorter after the halfway lap . Frank Adamo had worked up from mid-pack and argued with Mark Smith ove r third, finally settling it as his tires seemed to work better as the race went on. As to tires, both Eklund and McWhorter were b urning theirs up ("McWhorter's was done' - John Gennai. "He had worn it out in the heat and turned it around for the Main.") Adamo was closing fast, and as the leaders lapped the first back-markers. Frank Adamo shocked a lot of people_He shocked Eklund most of all. i - _ 14 ....