Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Taylor would not be denied his firstever heat race win, though, and drafted past Parker with relative ease as they raced towards the black and white. "When I looked over and saw that it was Parker that I wa s d icing with I began to get nervous, but after a while I got my concentration back," said Taylor. "This is awesome. t The fourth and final heat saw a textbook drafting battle between the veteran and the kid . Morehead led the way at the flas h of the green light, but Hale latched on to his rear fender and showed little respect for his elder counterpart as he raced pa st on the back straight. Morehead answered with a pass of his own on the front side of the oval and the stage was set. After the two riders traded the lead repeatedly throughout the race, the dash for out of turn four towards the finish saw Morehead out front with Hale a few inches b eh in d . Hale smoked past Morehead with unexpected ease and scored the win. "I think I burned up a piston coming out of the last turn," sa id Morehead. "The bike suddenly lost power and Hale went by like a bullet." H Semis Riders who failed to qualify in their heat races competed in one of three eight-lap semis in hop es of finishing' in one of the top three transfer positions. The resurgent Lan ce Jon es led the way in the first sem i, but afte r getting away from Day, Beattie reeled in Jones and began to challenge him for the lead. Chris Carr (1) and Scott Parker (2) ran away with the top two positions after Ricky Graham slowed with mechanical woes. Ted Taylor topped Scott Parker in the third heat, and finished third in the NationaL The Canadian drafted past Jones at the finish line and secured a spot for himself in the main, as did runner-up Jones and third-placed Day. Billy Herndon and Rodney Farris engaged in a heated dice in the second semi, and were joined in th e closing sta ges of the race by Carnlin, who had raged through the pack after starting on the penalty line. Herndon. performed the final d raft pass and scored the win over Ta lOtts S~cramentosur~ _ris---,e~ C hris Carr may have won the race, but the rider who stole the show a t the Cal Expo State Fairgrounds wa s de finitely third-placed Ted Taylor (right). "Awesome!" wa s all the Arbuckle, California, resident could say after his show-stealing performance. "I've been telling everyone all week that I was going to be on the box tonight!" In ' his seven years as an expert prior to Sacramento, Taylor ha d only qualified for six Nationals, with his best-ev er Nati onal finish an 11th at the 1989 Rapid City Half Mile. At 5'2" and 120 pounds, Tay lor hardly fits the stereotypical picture of a racer who muscles a 319pound Harley-Da vidson XR750 around a dirt oval. But there 's something that overshadows his small stature. The 26-year-old was born with a heart condition known as a ventrical fibrillation. As he grew older, Taylor found that it became harder and harder for him to race. Last year he did something about it. "I didn't have enough energy to race," said .Taylor, "I used to get really tired, no matter how hard I trained during the week. Then in late '91, I got tired carrying a gallon of milk to the checkout counter at the grocery store. I felt like I had run a marathon. I thought I would quit racing for good then - I called up the AMA and cancelled all of my entries. " Taylor underwent open-heart surgery in February of '92, having the faulty valve in his heart replaced . The op eration was extremely successful. Full of energy, Taylor began to get the itch to return to the race track. "There were two types of transplants available when I had the surgery," sa id Taylor. "One was a mechanical valve, but that would have kept me from being very active, so I passed. The other was from the heart of a pig, and that's what I got. I gJ,Iess you can really say I'm a real hog-kind-of-guynow, huh?" ,', '" ,~ Taylor returned to the races and competed in the last few rounds of the '92 series without success. In '93, he had qualified for two Nationals - the Dayton a Short Track arid the spring running of the Sacramento Mile. At those races, Taylor finished 15th and 17th. "I don't know wh y, but I just had a feeling that tonight would be good," sa id Taylor . "I've been training harder than ever and we finally got the bike sorted out." After topping four-time Grand National Champion Scott Parker for the win in the third heat race, Taylor's eyes became wide when he realized ,that he would be a factor to contend with in the National. "I cou ldn't believe that everything was finally corning together," said the Hall's Harley-Davidson /Hap Jones /Shoei/D&T Fiberglass/Motion Pro/Mike 's Precision Machine/Max Oil-sponsored rider. "It was like a dream come true." . In the main, Taylor came out on top of a race-long battle for third, posting his bestever National finish along the way. After such an exciting night, one might assume that Taylor did some hard-core celebrating after the race. "Not at all, I'm in training, remember?" said Taylor. "I took a vitamin and went to bed." Farris and Camlin. All three would head for the main. The final semi saw four riders arg uing o ver th ree posi tio ns , as Ron n ie Jones, Larry Pegram, Estep and Dav is broke away fro m the rest of the pa ck. Davis led the majority of laps across the start/finish line, but in the end it was he who was shu t out. Pegram performed a masterful draft pa ss on Estep for the w in, while Jones fini shed only inches behind in third. Camel Challenge Fast-qu alifier Graha m chose to start the five-lap Camel Challenge on the outs ide po le wi th Parke r, Ca rr, Hale, Morehead and Farris to his left. Before the g re en light flas h ed, Morehea d ju mp ed the gun and qu ickly took hi s pl a ce o n the p enalty line, direc tly behind Graham and smack-d ab in the middle of the groov e. "I figured tha t it would be better to jump the gun and start on the groove behind Ricky than to start in the marbles on row one," said Morehead . Though Morehead's reasoning made perfect sense, it was all for naught when Graham was caught sleeping at the start and Mor eh ead was forced to swerve violently to avoid rear-ending him . "I had troubl e with this starter earlier in the yea r," said Grah am, referring to the pena lty-lin e fiasco that occurred at this year's first Sacramento Mile. "I was jus t being really cautio us, and he d id something weird with the starting board again." Carr was the first rider to reach turn one, but Parker was close behi nd and took over on the back straight. Once into the lead, Parker inched awa y from Carr and wa s never serio usl y challenged throu ghout th e d a sh . At the finish , Parker enjoye d a five-b ike leng th lead over Carr, who in tum led Morehead by a comfortabl e ma rgin. Gr aha m recovered from his poo r start to finish fourth ahead of Farris. Ha le h eld down third over Morehead, Graham and Farris early in the race, but a slip in turn one left the former Rookie of the Year up in the marbles and out of the hunt. "I just hammered it from the get-go," Parker' said. "I figured that I'd make them pass me, and it was a done deal. I caught my foot on something on the last lap and just about kicked myself on the 7

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