Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

i Aus'fin's eAqua Festival o 00 en r-4 By Tony Bell and John Rannikko Art By Bell Photos By Rannikko AUSTIN. TX , AUG . 3 The Annual Austin Aqua Festival motorcycle races were held again in the usual stifling August heat. A bit more than usual this year because of a record-breaking heat wave that left all green brown and all brown black. First, a bit of background about the way .this part of the world works . Most central Texas communi. ties have some sort of specialty which is celebrated annually with parades and a shot-loose festival which incidentally includes a lot of beer drinking. Cuero has its Turkey Trot, Luling has a Watermelon Thump . San' Antonio does it with a Folk Life Festival Gonzales has a Chick Fest , and so on: Austin's claim to fame is a multitude of fresh lakes surrounding th e vicinity and hence the Austin Aqua Festival. Now , Austin doesn't tak e this bus iness lightlv.. Two whole weeks are de · c1ared free-for-all with events that encompass every creature that breathes. There are cat shows , car races . canoe races, foot races, ethnic nights, more ethnic nights, flower shows, land par· ades, water parades, p.~rade parades, beauty contests, sknng cont,ests , ~reworks, and ,~ast but not least, lots ?f Commodo~es w.ho ru~ around m pseudo admiral SUIts makmg sure that none ofthe.beer gets warm; . .. In the midst of ~ese vaned acnvmes some real street racmg does occur. Just south of!own .La k. ~es an area ~ed e by the city which IS m no way critical to. normal traffi.c flow. This area con~ams the Coliseum, normally an indoor rodeo arena among. other things, and the giant be -domed Civic Auditorium. An all street and parking lot course roughly I. 5 miles long winds around these two landmarks as outlined by a multitude of orange dunce hats and hay bales . The course actually serves double service as the week before the sporry car folks flog around it bending fenders in their four- wheelers. There were several disqualifications within the top spots of several of the classes for violation of the Homo Rule. According to Doug Polen. one of the riders receiving a disqualification, "The Homo Rule is named after a fellow who brought a stock bike out here one year and raced it in every race and took a bunch of firsts and seconds." Polen earned two firsts and a second, but was disqualified in the Open Cafe class where he won . He got a first out of the 411- 750cc Cafe class when the leader was disqualified, however. Paul "Hogma n" Stephenson was also slapped with the Homo Rule as he "Crossed the finish line in three classes in first and a pair of seconds, but took home only two second place . trophies. "Greedy" Bobby GOodin became a trophy monger at the Aqua Festival road races, earning two firsts, a second and two thirds. Homo horned in on his style as well. taking away one of each kind and leaving him with a first and third. one of which was the highly coveted win in Open GP. . The Open GP class thundered down the Riverside Drive between the Municipal Auditorium and Town Lake for the start of the last 10 laps of the day. "Hagman" got the lead from the start aboard a Honda, but gave it up to Goodin (Duc) between laps one and two. From there, Goodin stretched the lead to 19 seconds by lap six and won the class easily. David Bearden took third place on a BMW. A lot of attention went to the 251500cc GP class because it contained several motocross bikes which looked out of place on asphalt. With tall suspension and a skinny 3.00 x 21 Cheng Shin rib tire on the front, one could only feel sorry for Jack Hicks as Vic Force sets 'A' Stock record. It was an action-packed weekend in R-emont california. And, Vic Force on a Suzuki GS-ll00 was responsible for a lot of it. . Vic lined up. put the powerto his Stock Suzuki. and proceeded to break his own world record in the 'rr. Stock Class with a record E. T. of 1106 and record speed of 122.61 mph, Nice going, Vic! That was a true show of Force. , m A 22

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