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By Dennis Greene
COSTA MESA, CA, OCT. 6
Way back in 1968, when speedway was reborn
in the U.S.A., there was no U.S. National
Championship. We did have a final event of
the season called the California State Cham-
12
pionship. It went to Sonny
Nutter.
Th first official U.S. Nation-
al speedway championship was
run in 1969, with Steve Bast the victor.
John Carter was second and Rick
Woods third. The second year saw
Woods, The Huntington Beach
Rocket, outscore Steve Bast for the
title. That year we first became aware
of another Bast, the younger brother
Mike. He took third place and was the
talk of the night. Well, the talk has
never stopped since then. He won the
national title for the first time the next
year in 1971. Rick Woods got it back
in 1972 and Mike took it back from
Rick in 1913. 1974 saw Steve Bast win
it for the second time. That would be
the last time anyone's name would
show up in the number one spot other
than the current champ, Mik.e Bast.
He won in 1975, '76, '77, '78 and this
past Saturday night, at the Orange
County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. In
front of a sellout crowd of nearly
10,000, Mike Bast won the title for the
fifth straight year and for the seventh
time out of the 11 times it has heen
raced for.
What do you have to do to win the
title? It's easyl There are only 15 other
guys out there besides you. Each will
get to ride five times. There are only
four men in a race and they only run
four laps, with the winner of each race
getting three points, the second place
man getting two points, third place
