Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

(Above) Filice. Shobert and Springsteen in tight formation on the front atr8ight. (Below) Steve Morehead (42) won the Last Chance Qualifier. (Above) Alex Jorgensen (44) and Springsteen put on a good show in their heat rece. (Below) Mike Kidd (7) lea~s Ricky Greham in their heat rece. _~mis 10 erry Poovey and Steve Morehead rpared 0(£ side by side in the first semi-final race, wtih Poovey forging ilno the lead going down the back s aight. They were trailed by TT specialist Brad Hurst and three-time ational winner Ted Boody. Boody, i a display of power and good draftlpg technique, jetted to the front and p;i!lIed jnto a slight lead on the second J~. The crowd's attention, though, was riv ted on former National Champion Sf e Eklund. Typifying his unchareristically poor showings this seas ,Eklund got 0(£ the line near the b3 of the field_ But, displaying the ri!fing style that won San Jose in J979, he picked 0(£ riders until lap four when he shot into the lead. A stlaightaway and a flurry of passes later, he was relegated to fourth behind BOody, Poovey and Morehead. On the last lap, with both riders trying d perately to make up ground on the leading duo, Morehead and EkI'UTrd touchea going into turn one. l'I\e net result of the incident was llrnl Eklund finished in third - one position out of a transfer spot - and M8rehead, after some fancy evasive maneuvers high on the race track, came to the finish line in founh. BDbdy and Poovey, una(£ected by the tussle behind them, finished 1-2. On the cool-o(£ lap, Morehead had a few choice gestures for Eklund. "He flat leaned on me, is what it was," said Morehead after the incident. "On a:milelrack, that's awful dangerous_ When 1 hit his boom box (muffler), it was almost an instant high-side. 1 was able to save it, but I could just as easily been going end over end. The end of a straightaway on a mile is no pIa:ce to get off." In the second semi, Lance Jones was first into turn one, with Keith Day and Steve Monger following. Jopes and Day pulled ahead, and it was anybody's race until Day's Harley was struck down with ignition problems half a lap from the finish and a transfer to the main_ - Jones, a former number-one-ranked . Junior who has been plagued by injuries recently, took the win, with Monger the beneficiary of Day's bad luck, placing in second_ Last Chance Qualifier Morehead and Eklund squared 0(£ for a fight for the one remaining transfer spot to the National in the Last Chance Qualifier. Not wanting to get in another bump-and-run confrontation with Eklund, Morehead scampered his Honda to the holeshot and tried to put as much distance as, possible between himself and his pursuers, Eklund, handicapped by a poor start, moved through traffic to take over second place, but time and laps ran out before he could mount a serious charge at winner Morehead. Junior Invitational The Junior Invitational was billed as a confrontation between the east coast's top Junior, Mark Hartley, and the west coast's contender for topJunior honors, Dan Bennett. Roben Land, however, mustn't have received a copy of the script, because he went out and put some Pro-level moves on everyone to take the checkered flag first. Eddie San Roman, Hartley and Ross Klatt showed their heels to the rest of the pack at the start and stayed out front, until'a few laps later when Land caught up. From that point on. Land and Hartley separated themselves from the other riders and put an exciting wheel-to-wheel show that, had Land just barely winning it, and gave the crowd an idea of what to expect in the National final. National Springsteen turned prophet before the start of the National when he jokingly grabbed Filice around the shoulders and said, "Hey, wait up for us out there," At the stan, Filice did just as Springsteen had expected and smoked into the lead. Jorgensen, Shoben, Goss and Kidd followed, with 12 other riders charging behind. Both Springsteen and Parker were mired by poor starts and were stuck in midpack positions, Within a lap, Poovey was rolling to a stop with engine problems. Unlike his showing in the heat race, Filice couldn't pull any ground on his pursuers. In fact, both Graham and Goss went by to move Filice back into third, That wasn't the end of "Jimbo's" problems, however. Behind him was a pack of riders that had caught up to the leading riders. In all there were nine riders freighttraining around the famed San Jose blue groove. It was a din track fan's dream come true. Nine of the nation's best milers - Graham, Goss, Filice. Shobert, Parker, Springsteen, Boody, Jorgensen and Morehead - going at it at 130 miles an hour, all within inches of each other, There were passes and repasses on every la p. "I couldn't figure out who all those guys were behind me," Filice, who soon found himself in fifth place, said later, "Scotty passed me, then Bubba, and then Jay and Ricky and Randy. I thought there were a million guys behind me. When all of them went by me, 1 figured we were in for a heck of a race." Which is perhaps the understatement of the year. To call the racing close would do it an injustice, Wheelto-wheel racing doesn't describe it either. What went on for the last half of that 25-lap race was a handlebarto-handlebar, axle-to-axle, spoke-tospoke knock-down, drag-out brawl. In the end though. it was Filice, the smallest rider on the Camel Pro circuit, who pulled out allthe stops and powered away with one of the most exciting wins in a year that has been full of exciting wins. Even a potentially disasterous bobble that send him way 0(£ the racing line in the latter stages of the race didn't deter him. "I went 0(£ the groove, and Jay, Bubba and Parker just pulled away from me. I ran mto -turn o-ne really deep and caught back up. If I'd have broken from their draft, I don't know if I'd have been able to catch them or nolo" Parker seemed happy with his second-place finish, especially after his mid-pack stan. "I got a bad start - about lIth place," said Parker. "I was moving up slow, when all of a sudden Matt Rosowicz passed me by going up high on the track. I thought, 'Shoot, that line's got to work better.' 1 zapped up there and staned picking 0(£ people left and right. "I went into the last corner as hard as I could, hoping to keep Filice back. I knew that 1couldn't draft him on the final straight; his bike is quick and he weighs a lot less than 1 do. 1 thought 1 had him, but he came by me like he had an extra 10 horsepower. There wasn't anything 1could do," Parker added. Filice's win, in front of a hometown crowd, was especially gratifying. "This is my most exciting win," a happy, sweaty Filice said to reporters. "There must have been a couple of thousand people tbat came out just to cheer for me. Hey, even my third-grade teacher came to watch me. She read about it in the newspaper and came out." On a more somber note, Filice dedicated his victory to the memory of Willie Crabbe, the promising rider who was killed in a turn-one accident at San lose last year. Ironically, Filice rode to victory on the motorcycle that Crabbe used to race. • Results 25-LAP NATIONAL: 1. Jimmy Filice (H-D); 2. Scott Parker (H-D); 3. Jey Springsteen (H-D); 4. Bubba Shobert (H-D); 5. Ted Boody (H-D); 6. Ricky Graham (H-D); 7. Alex Jorgensen (H-D); B, Slave Morehead (Hon); 9, Randy Goss (H-D); 10. Garth Brow(H·D); 11. Matt Rozowicz(H·D); 12. Mike Kidd (Hon); 13. LanceJones (H-D); 14, Hank Scott(Hon); 15. Steve Monger (H~O); 16. Ronnie Jones (H-O): 17, Terry Poovey (Han). AMA/GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPIDNSHIP/ CAMEL PRO SERIES POINT STANDINGS: 1. Randy Goss (265); 2, Bubba Shobert (243); 3. Jay Springsteen (236); 4. Ricky Graham (229); 5, Scott Parker (1 B5); 6. Ted Boody (143); 7. Alex Jorgensen (140); B, Jim Filice (1321; 9, Gary Scott (1101; 10, Mike Baldwin (92); 11. Hank Scott (B5); 12. Steve Morehead (84); 13. Steve Eklund (Bl); 14. Terry Poovey (77); 15. Miles Baldwin (70); 16. Gregg Smrz (63); 17. Doug Chandler (62); 1B, Tim Mertins (5B); 19. Midtey Fey (57); 20, Doug Brauneck (53). 9

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