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/126484
- Costa Mesa - San Bernardino - Ascot - Ventura - Sacramento - Napa - Costa Mesa - San Bernardino - Asc Ghost " Lance King and Mike Curoso. King edged ahead coming out of tum two on the opening lap, but Alan had the lead back for keeps by tum three. Woods moved to the outside and challenged King for second on lap two. Woods was able to pull even but couldn't get by King , who was celebrating his 17th birthday. Curoso went down in tum three on lap two and retired for th e night. Christian held the lead for th e remaining two laps to the checkered with King breathing down his neck in second. Woods came in th ird with Curoso getting credit for fourth. Dave Sims took a hard fought victory for his first IMS Handicap Main of the season . The newest star of speedway, John Foster (the former desert racer has only ridden in First Division three times and has recorded two Handicap Main victories and one second) took the lead on the start over Dave Miller and Sterling Cogar . Cogar did a spectacular wheelie in tum one losing the bike which then crashed _ heavily into the tum two crashwall. Foster continued to lead over Miller and Lance King. King then fell in tum · one on lap two dropping him back to rififth , Sims had worked his way up to n third and took second from Miller at the end of lap three. Sims, using the outside, then chased down Foster and took the lead at starter Sid Sutton's white flag . Sims hung on for the victory with Foster b coming in a close, well deserved , second. Miller was third followed by Tom Morley (on Steve Nutter's bike), King and Coga r. Tom Burmeister copped his first IMS Second Division victory of the season. Burmeister hardly worked up , sweat as the ~1ain was red -flagged v when Shane Hawl ey got an early roll off th e line. - On the restart , Paul :Belisle an d Dennis Bransford moved out front going into tum one. Steve Lucero took , the lead coming ou t of tum two . Bransford then crashed hea vily into the tum four crashwall bringing out another red. w. At this point, referee Irwin Moon · called the race with Burmeister being awarded the victory. Lucero later objected the officials' decision saying he had beenin front when the red was dropped. The official decision held with Burmeister getting th e victory being followed by Tom Hughes, Belisle, Hawley, Lucero and Bransford. a Ken Williams took his first IMS · Third ' Division victory of the season. Carl Shockley took the lead over Steve Rogers at the start. Williams quickly got by the lead pair and never looked back. Jeff Havacko began picking off traffic, getting by Rogers for third on the back chute on lap two and taking second from Shockley at the end of lap two. Shockley pulled into the infield with mechanical problems on lap three and Don Bovee fell at the end of lap three. At the checkered it was Williams with Havacko a close second followed by Rogers, Da vid Alvarez, Bovee and Shockley . David Hancock took the lead over crowd favorite "Lil" Ronnie Corey coming out of turn four on the fin al lap of the Junior Speedway Mai n . Corey had led the entire distance un til he bobbled in' turn four on the final lap . Corey was able to finish a close second to Hancock at the checker . One of the biggest cheers of the season took place d uring a J unior Speedway heat as Corey took the victory. T he crowd at IMS ha s fallen in love with the little rider and he is one of th e most popular riders at th e . track. entura - Sacramento - Results SCRATCH MAIN : 1. Alan Christian; 2. Lance King; 3. Gene Woods; 4. Mike Curoso. HANDICAP MAIN: r, Deve Sims ; 2. John FastOf; 3. Dave Miller; 4 . Tom Morley; 5. lance King; 6. Ster ling Cogor. SECOND DIV; 1. Tom Burmeist er; 2. Tom Hughes; 3. Paul .Belisle; 4. Shone Hawley; 5. Stove lucero; 6. o - DennisBransford. THIRD DIV: 1. Ken Willioms ; 2. Joff Havacko; 3. Stove Rogers; 4. David Alverez 5. Don Bovee; 6. Carl ; 00 0') Shockley . JR SPEEDWAY: 1. David Hancxx:k;2. Ronnie Gray. Adamo and Lucero on the go at Ascot By Gary Hoffman GARDENA, CA, AUG . I4 Tonight at J.C. Agajanian's Ascot Park, 16-year-old Steve Lucero made his first appearance, coming down from northern California and riding for his first time on the big quarter-mile track. Wearing number llN, this is Steve's first year riding the big bikes after four years of Junior Speedway. But you'd think from the way he rode, he'd been here all year. Winning .his first two heat races and defeating Moose Kennedy in the FeatureMatch Race (after Moose had a mechanical problem), Steve's impressive riding got him all the way to third place in the Handicap Main, even coming in ahead of Ascot veteran Brad Oxley. Tonight also brought more surprises. Not only did half of the First Division riders not show up , but half th e ones who did took a hard spill on the track. But let us get on to what counts, i.e. the Main events . Second Division was won once again by Dennis Bransford. This is getting much too easy for Den nis as he came from the 20-yard line battling for third position on th e first lap with Eddie Thurman, then passed the speedy bike of Randy Songer and moved int o first when Craig Young dropped out. Dennis held on to first with Thurman and Songer not too far behind. Randy Songer, by the way, is still in his diapers so to speak, as far as how new he is to speedway and he keeps on showing everyone each Thursday. Keep your eyes on Songer for next year. In the Handicap Main event, Lucero shot out first coming from the 20-yard line with Frank Adamo and Denny Pyeatt hot on his trail. Lucero was still hanging on to first on lap two, but only by a thread now as Adamo slid under him in the first turn of the third lap and Pyeatt slid by in the second tum on the last lap placing Lucero in third with Pyeatt in second and Adamo taking the trophy. Somehow at Ascot , the most e~ting race is always the last race , the Scratch Main. Pyeatt drew the outside position with Adamo next to him in the number three spot. Sandona was in the number two spot and Kelly Moran would have been in the pole position' had he decided to ride. . Adamo , itching to win both Mains, almost broke the tape , though he 'd probably have to push it out into tum one someplace before those tapes would break. With th e start it was Pyeatt who sho t out first then Adam o and Sand ona running a close third . On the second lap , Sand ona pulled out with mechanical problems so now it was a two-man race - Pyeatt and Adamo, two equally" fast veterans of the quartermile battling for the checkered, or more than that jus t the fun of beating the other one . Adamo gave it everything he had riding low while Pyeatt took the. high Derek Gage gets a little out of shape at lMS. Dave Sims is outside. road . In the very last stretch, it looked as though Adamo would have enough momentum to push him past Pyeatt, but he fell short by about a half a bike allowing Pyeatt the win . Ending on a bit of a sad note, Marty Spellman announced he has retired from speedway. Marty related that the main reason was lack of funds. No sponsor. It 's a shame to see a dedicated rider with his heart in speedway not ab le to ride for all of us to enjoy while as soon as some other riders get a few sponsors, they' re off to another country after all ou r support. Results FEATVRE MATCH RACE: 1. Stove lucero dol . MooooKennedy. SECOND DIV MAIN; 1. Donnis Bransford ; 2. Ed Thurman ; 3. Rondy Songer. HANDICAP MAIN: 1. "'enk Adamo ; 2. Donny Pyeatt; 3. Stovo lucero. SCRATCH MAIN: 1. Donny Pyoott; 2. "'ank Adamo; 3. John Sondona. Moran magnificent at Costa Mesa By Ken Kellogg COSTA MESA, CA, AUG . 15 _"No more practice. " That's the word after tonight at Costa Mesa. This was the last Friday night for riders to figure out what they 'll do in the Nationals, because next Friday is the final round of the National Qualifiers and for some, like Kelly Moran , it might very well be a do-or-die situation. Kelly is in approximately 22nd place and with only two rounds left (IMS and CMS) , he will be doing as much of his magic as he can muster. Moran came out in event number one and proved that he had lots of that "m agic" left. He rode everywhere except in the stands, mostly to see where he could ride next week. The riders weren't the only ones getting ready for the Qualifier here. Harry Oxley's track crew had the track in outstanding condition getting it ready for the second biggest race of the year. Some of our top riders were rushed off to New York for some son of a demonstration. Keith Chrisco and Lance King were just a couple who were missed . In event number 16, a Second Division Heat, Paul Belisle and Pat Hawl ey unfortunately met on lap two in a crunch of flying bikes and spinning heads (mostly Belisle's). Pat's bike spun around and Pau l ca ught his . front tire rig ht ups ide the helm et . Belisle was all right , though , an d walked off the track. T he race was red -flagg ed and called an official race with Hawley making th e transfer . T he ma tch rac e was betw een Bobby McLain and Shawn McConnell. McLain took the gate but McConnell moved out front in tum two and stayed there to finish about two bike lengths in front. The Third Division Main was doomed to be a weird race. It began with all the riders so over-ready to race that there were about five rolling starts. When it finally did get underway, it really did get going, unfortunately one lap too many, but the extra lap didn't affect the outcome. Rusty Jennings had just passed Victor Robledo the lap prior and when they backed it up Rust y still took first with Victor second. Finishing third was Carl Shockley. . The Second Division Main brought back George Armas (who last week got bumped ass over applecart out of the Main). This tim e no one bumped George, no one even got close. He rode a good race and never looked back. . Second was "Flying" Pat Hawley with Jeff Havacko th ird. The Handicap Consy was one of the closest races of the night. There were three starts, but once that was over with, it was a tight race. Dave Miller actually took the gate, butJohn Foster passed him on lap one. From then on , it was the three bikes of John Foster, Miller and Dave DeTemple within about a foot of each other. They seemed to spread apart in the straightaways, but in every comer they were all so close that if Foster had turned around, he would have hit either Dave with his helmet. That's how they finished , though, Foster, Miller and DeTemple. The Handicap Main, the only Main event Alan Christian rode tonight (that's right, Alan didn't make the Scratch Main) , saw Derek Gage bump Christian on lap two and cause a restart . On the restart, Alan's string of bad. luck continued on the second lap as he went down and finished fourth, although he did get back up and give it an effort. Phil Gagnon won wi(h Shawn McConnell taking second over Mike Curoso. The Scratch Main and Kelly Moran; that just about tells it. Kelly took the gate, but instead of easy riding, Moran gave it all he had. He had to as Curoso was hot on his rear tire. Moran again was everywhere on the track, outside, inside and almost upside down . He probably covered enought ground to make seven laps. It was a very impressive ride . Curoso finished second with Craig Schaeffer third and Mike Muntean fourth. Results SCRATCH MAIN: 1. Kelly Moron; 2. Mi ke Curosa; 3. Craig Schaeffer; 4. Mike Munteen. HANDICAP MAIN : 1. Phil Gognon; 2. Shown McConnell; 3. Mike Cur06O. SECOND DIV. MAIN: 1. George Armas; 2. Pat _0. HawIoy; 3. Joff THIRD DIV. MAIN ; 1. Rusty Jennings; 2. VICtor Robledo; 3. CartShockJoy. 35