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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127363
Hea t 13 was the best race of th e n ight
and it in vo lved Pat L in, Rick Webb ,
Mike Cortese and John Greg. L it t
grabbed th e holesh o t with Webb all
over hi s rear fender. Liu went wide in
the first tum leuing Webb slid e by into
first . Liu returned th e favor by getting
underneath Webb in the next comer
while Cortese and G regg went hammer
a nd tong for th ird and fo urth. L iu had
th e highest en try speed of a ny body else
wi th th e possible exce ption of Diem
but had trou ble keep ing it under
con tro l. Lin managed to keep his bike
under him and win the heat.
Racers scored three points for a heat
race win , two for seco nd and one for
third. Fourth pl ace earn ed no points.
Points were added up after the heats
with the top t h r ee scorers go in g
directly to th e fro nt row of the main.
The remaining th ree positions were
decided by the Last Chance Qualifi er
with the top three going to the back
row of the main. Venegas scored a
perfect 15 points and took his place
at pole position. Webb, with 13, would
line up next to him.
One exception'io that ru le occurs if
several racers scored the same number
of points throughout the night. The
competition was so close th at two runoff races were staged to break th e tie
score among those competitors. Litt
won th e first run-off and Mark H annah the second, earning them a spot
.in th e LCQ after Cameron Brooks was
excluded for causing Mark Da y to
crash .
The LCQ saw more wild action as
Rob ert Curry and Ha n na h collided
while they bo th tried to occupy the
same space at the same time going into
tum one. Curry was excluded and
made no bones about his dissatisfac. tio n wit h the ref's call.
At th e restart Ball went down with
Doug G reyson and Hannah. O n the
restart it was Ball winning easily and
tra nsferri ng to th e front row alo ngside
Venegas a nd Webb . Grant, Greyson
and Li n went to the back row of th e
mam,
Things go t a liule confusing wh en
two riders mi ssed th e LCQ due to an
oversight by th e offi cial s. They were
automatically placed in th e main event
to make up for th e oversi gh t. This
caused some hard feelings at the en d
of the night among some racers who
asked to remain nameless.
The main event was red-flagged o n
the first lap when Venegas and Liu
went down. On the restart Venegas go t
th e hol esh o t a nd led th e six-rider field
around th e track for th e first o f six laps.
Venegas bobbled for a second leuing
Webb mov e in close, but at th e ch eck ered flag it was Venegas with Webb
in second and Ball a close third as John
Grant trailed in a distant fourth .
Greyson was credited with fifth and
Lin, who crashed out in tum th ree,
DNF.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow
night, " said a confident Venegas. "I've
been concentrating on m y starts so I
feel like I have a good chance to win."
"Everything went well tonight,"
reported Webb. " I did a lot of work
on m y bike . . . got my rear tir e working good. I got my head working right
too; something I've been trying to do.
I didn 't even qualify last year, so I'm
pleased with tonight's race."
World Championship,
Every yea r race promoter G ary
Densford invites several Europeans to
race in the World Championship,
adding th e interna tiona l flavor to th e
event. Last year Eu ropean speedway
champ Jiri Stancl, Polish star Zenon
Piech, Ren e Morten se of Denmark and
British League Championship medal
winner Kevin Hawkins filled out th e
Jan Jenson (ri gh t) also passed Ball to finish third in the World Championship main event.
Charli e Ven egas (cen ter) picked up first-place trophies in both the Bob Hetrick Memorial and World Championship.
ro ster. This year Canada's top ranked
in doo r ice speed wa y master , Jon
J en sen , made his wa y to the podium
by winning two o f hi s heat ra ces and
th en took a seco nd and a th ird in the
two remaining heats.
Hannah also won two ra ces a nd
fin ished in second in heat th ree and
fourth in th e first. Venegas scored two
heat wins with a second a nd one th ird.
Ball a lso scored two heat wins, a second
and a third, which forced a run-off to
decid e wh o wo u ld mak e up th e front
ro w. Wh ile all this scoring was going
o n th e crowd amused th em selves by
sta rting a wave that went on for 15
mi n ut es. Fin ally, Ball , Webb , Ven ega s
a nd J en sen lined up for th e run-off
wi th Ven egas ge uing th e holeshot but
he ra n wid e in th e firs t tu m a nd Ba ll
too k over to win. Webb was seco nd
with Ven ega s in third.
G erman Ca rsten Pelzman had a
positively terrible ni ght. His personal
bike had been con fisca ted by British
Customs and he was forced to borrow
a bike which didn 't work for h im .
Pelzman failed to score a single point
all ni ght.
.
L it t also had a tough nigh t a nd to
ma ke matters worse was excl ude d
fro m his heat for rough riding. The
crowd booed the referee 's decis ion
whil e L iu sto m ped o ff the ice after
a heated di scussion with J oiner a bou t
th e cal l. Futherrnore, Liu fell during
th e LCQ a nd si m p ly stood defiantly
in the middle o f th e tr ack waiting for
th e fie ld to co me back a ro u nd , wh ich
they did , a lm os t running over h im.
Jen sen wen t o n to win th e La st
C hance Qua lifier and tra ns ferre d to
the seco nd row of the m ain with
Hannah and H awkins.
Venegas pulled off another hol eshot
to lead die six-man field at the start
of the main event and he then pulled
out a small lead over Ball and Hannah,
who were dicing heavily for the
runner-up position. By the mid-point
of the race Jensen joined th e fracas and
repeatedly tried to put a wheel inside
both of them while Hannah struggled
to keep pace when his hand grip came
off. Ball slip ped a nd was forced back
to the fourth spot. On lap six Venegas
took the checkered flag and hi s first
World Championship. Hannah had
the measure of Venegas during the
closi ng laps but ran out of time and
had to settle for second. J ensen finished
a close third.
a
Resu lts
fiNAL: I. Charlie Vmqr-u (G· W): 2. Rick Webb
(Wa): 3. Rob Ball U'w): i. j ohn Gra n. (Wa): S.
Doug Gr