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/126066
National Champ Louis Kossuth and Penhall protege Sco tt St . J ohn. T he Scrat ch Handicap events produced the no rm al amount o f ex ci te me n t w ith Gen e Woods winning t h e Handicap Main and t he Second Divisio n victory goi ng to Kurt Stro m m er. Then Bast and Fishback sq uared off for a special two o u t of three match rac e. Aft er one win apiece, The An imal inched out Bast in the fin al to take th e overall win. . Irwindale, September 9 By Jim Griffith Ventu ra, September 7 By Dennis Greene The Bakersfield Bandits made their last appearance of th e 197 6 season as a team at Ven tu ra Tuesday night, only to lose by eight p oints, 43 to 35. Ironically just three week s ago the Bandits wer e beaten by the Sharks by the sam e eigh t points, 43 to 35. 26 Team capta in , So nny Nu tter, led the Sh ar ks to victory with 11 p o ints. Again Scott Siva dge and Bobby Schwartz turned in tw o clea n sweeps to assure the w in. Dan ny Becker and Rand y Mar sh added o ne mo r e, not t hat the Sharks needed it. As a team , th ey were never in trouble during the points race all night. The Bandits' team ca p tain, Jeff Sexton, tu rn ed in a perfect score of 15 points, b ut ha d little backing as th e rest of , th e team just co uld no t ge t it together. The second half of the pro gram, Han d icap Racing, h ad its lighter moments wh en Bry an Buffington pitched his J. A.P; into T urn T hree and had h is rear w he el come h is surprise I Larr y Kosta went on Handicap Mai n Even t for riders with Division T wo to Bob McLain. off, much to to w in t he Divisi on O ne h onors goi ng San Bernard ino, Septe mber 8 By Jim Griffin Bast a!'d Company came to t own, som et h ing that m ost teams don't look forward to , bu t the Sizzl er s ar e h ealthy once again an d beginning to 10 0 k m or e like the team of old with Fishback recovered and out of his post inj ury slump and Dean Fo reman starting to regain some o f his st yle after a painful b ack inj ury. Aft er five events t he Sizzler s had a five point lead with Fishback an d Foreman both co n tri bu ti ng five to t he I 7 p oint total. T hen L A. began t he ir meth odical gri nd an d after ten eve nts they led by six. Dean and The An imal swe pt n umber 11 to bring th em within. two, but t hat's as close as the Sizzlers could get. Final score, th e Sprockets 43 and the Sizzler s 35. At in term ission, Junio r Sp eedway display ed the expert riding ability of T he Spro ck et, Sizzler st ory , part two . The two te ams to o k up wher e they left o ff the night b efore , but the Sizzlers were down by tw o. Larry Shaw, who did not compete at San Bernardino, was out with bronchitis and Dennis Sigalos was absent due to an injury sustained at the race the night before. L A. opened with a sweep, then Fo reman and Fishback swept number two. In six of the remaining 11 events that followed, both teams scored eq ual points but the o ther five even ts clearly belonged to the Sprockets, making th e final score L A. 46 and the Sizzlers 32. ·Mike Bast was high point man for the Sprockets with a perfect 15, followed by Bru ce Penhall .with 14 . For San Bernardino it was Ron Preston and a very aggr essive Dean Fo rem an with nine apiece. As soon as eve nt 13 was co mp let ed, Penhall an d Bast rode to th e announcer booth an d t ha nked their sp o nsors, team ma nager Bruce Flanders and the rest of t he Sp rockets fo r a gr eat team season. T he fina l statement came fr om Sprocket captain Mike Bast, "The Irwindale team are the champs." T he five lap Second Division Main saw T o m Burba run away and hide fr om his compe tition, winning by almost half a lap . In the Handicap Consolation, Bryan Buffington wa s first to get the ch eckered flag, followed by Mark Ch erry and St u Egli. T he Handicap Main witho ut the usu als like Bast, Penhall, Pre st on and Fishback turned o ut to be nothing less than spectacular. Going into the last turn of the last lap, sp eedy Joe Spisak led by a matter o f b ike lengths. At that poin t th e sec ond and third placed r iders laid their bikes down bl oc king the p ath . of th e three b ehind t he m . This resulted in all five riders going down. A quick look for Spisak sho wed that he was down also . Speedy J oe wa s the first to co llect himself an d his motorcycle, riding acr oss for th e win. T he first to untangle himself and h is bike from the five remaining riders was Bra d Oxley wh o pushed a rather bent ma ch ine across to ta ke second. The rain, t ha t had threaten ed all n ight began falling as Irw inda le clos ed out ano t he r even ing of speedwa y. Costa Mesa,'September 10 Rain ed ou t for the second week in a row. Bakersfie ld, September 11 R ained ou t 'fo r th e second week in a row. Ven tu ra, September 14 By Denn is Greene Now that Team Racing has come to an end, with little or no fanfare, the totals are in. The Bak ersfield Bandits came out on top with 26 wins and just 11 losses. Even th ou gh th e L.A. Spro ckets also totaled 26 wins, they rod e two more matches than the Bandits, which they lost, giving them 13 losses. The te am season was shortened by two .weeks because 0 f rain. A dozen special events are on tap , and there just was not en o ugh time left to make the two weeks up. T he first of the Special Even ts was run Tuesday night at Ventura, an All-Star Team Tournament. The four topscorers on each of the four best teams