Winner Warren Diem (3) leads Scott Ormiston (18), Charlie Venegas (17) and the rest in the Indoor Ice Speedway World Championship main event.
Ormiston , from Brighton, Colorado, challenged Diem for the lead on
the sixth and final lap of the main, but came up short and finished second.
,I.C.E. Indoor Ice Speedway World Championships
-Diem slides to
victory in Tucson
By Michael Ross
TUCSON, AZ, JAN. 13
,
Warren Diem staved off a last-lap attack by
Scott Ormiston to w.in the inaugural
Budweiser Indoor Speedway Ice Race World
Championships Saturday night at the
Tucson Community Center.
.
.
O rgamzed hb y I E
nternationa I
.
i
Ch a rnp rons ip ven ts, t h e
three -day eve n t ,br o u g h t
Czechoslovakian speedway legend
jiri Sta ncl a nd Po lish speedway hero
Zen on Pi ech to Amer ica as "A"seeded riders. T he 30-ma n entry list
was indeed a world-wide roster;
included were Da ve Roberts fro m
Wa les, Rene Mortensen of Denmark,
Viktor Kuznetzov of th e' USS R, j an
j en sen a nd Gaetan Carigan of Can ada , and Kevin H aw kins of G rea t
Britain.
Ten riders were seeded a nd did not
have to compete in Thursday or
Friday nigh t qu a li fyin g eve n ts.
No tabl y, ex-G ra nd Prix roa d race r
Mik e Baldwin was on- ha nd Thursday hoping to qual ify. Baldwin o f
Co n necticu t practiced wi th Colorado 's-Mark Borgman in preparation
for th e event.bu t was .u na ble to make
the cu t.
F id
. h ;
ded
n ay mg t s p rogram was
icated to the mem ory of Bob H etrick,
who co-fou n ded the indoor ice
racing organization wi th Gary Densford in 1975. H etri ck and his wife, ~
judy, died i n a p riva te pl ane crash
in 1979,
A nea r-ca pa city crowd was on
ha nd for Saturday night's championship ro und. The 30-rider field had
been pa red to 18 riders, a nd each ma n
had to ri de in four four-lap, fourman heat races . Racers score d th ree
points for the wi n, two for seco nd
and one for third; fourth p lace didn ' t '
merit any points. T h ese p o ints
determined starti ng positions for th e
mai n.
From th e ou tset, Diem p ro ved to
be a substantial th reat. T he 1989
World Cup Champion took the wi n
in his first heat race by grabbing th e
