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" ESpeedWay Y .' Ventura County Fairgrounds SP E W Final DA Ameri9an (Left) Greg Hancock celebrated with a wheelie off the last comer In heat 17 as he rode to his fifthstraight win for a max imum score of 15 points. (Bel ow - Left to right) Billy Hamill, Hancock and Josh Larsen were the top three 's corers of the meeting. They will be joined by Mike Faria and Dukle Ermolenko at the Overseas Final . In round tw o, H amill would drop another point to Josh Larsen , a form er Brit ish League rider with the Arena Essex Hammers w ho has returned to Sout hern Californ ia for the '94 season. Larsen was in gate four, with Hamill on th e pole. Whe n the ta p es went up, Larsen took control going into tum one. Hamill challenged him, trying to pull down inside Larsen for the lead off tum two; Bobby Schwartz and Jim Sisemore we re quickly ·relegated to the back. But Larsen stayed hooked up and four laps later had his second win of the evening w hich kep t him ev en w ith H a ncock, who wo uld score his second win in heat seven over Faria, Charlie Venegas and Brent Werner. Manchest er w as also maintaining a pe rfect score. The former U.S. National Champion, who now rides for the Belle Vue Aces in England, op en ed up th e night with a victory over Venegas, Sisemore and reserve rider Jim Estes in heat two, and followed it up with another convincing win over Ermolenko in heat six. Manchester op en ed up th e th ird round with yet anothe r win in heat nine, the openin g ride of round three. "The track is bitchin', and the competition is really good," Manchester said . "I'm just pu tting it all together, finally, but my next two rides are the hardest. J'm going to give it everything I have; I won't be d isappointed. I think I'll qualify, but you never know." Ha ncock and Larse n kept pace with Manchester in round three, posting wins in hea ts 10 and 11, respectively. Hamill finally broke through for his first win of the evening at the end of the ro und, with a win over Venegas, Bobb y Hedd en and Brad Oxley in hea t 12. gate two and Brent Werner in three. Han cock quickly jumped into the lead, as Hamill wheelied off the line and carried his near-vertical machine into the first tum behind Castro. Hamill quickly dipatched Castro in turns one and two, but Hancock had already mov ed out to a comfortable advantage, which he would ke ep for the win and three points. Hancock finished second, scoring two. Castro beat Werner for one point. " Nobody had made the start from gate one, but I was determined to make it," said Hancock, who was also' pleased with the track conditions. "I don't think you could ever top Long Beach, but for putting together a one-off.race track they've (International Speedway, Inc.) done a fantastic job." By the intermission, Hancock, Larsen and Manchester were in good shape, sharing the event lead with nine points, while Hamill had rebounded somewhat with seven. Larsen was thrilled to be in such good shape. "Positive thinking; I'm not going to count my chickens," Larsen said. "I have to make the start of my life in the next one because I ha ve Greg in four and Chris in two . I want to go through. but I want to win too." Ermolenko was tied with Hamill for second, but with three riders already sharing the lead and Hamill looking stronger, the Wolverhampton Wolf was concerned with the direction his night was going. After an opening-round victory in the first heat of the night, Ermolenko dropped two points, with Hancock gets his due By Scott Rousseau Photos by Mitch Friedman VENTURA, CA, MAY 21 Gre g Hancock lined up for h is fou r th- ro und ride a t th e 1993 . m e ri can Sp eed w a y Fi nal, h e could ha ve been thinking about a hundred different th in gs. It had bec om e pretty obvious as the night p rogressed that he was going to qua lify for th e O vers ea s Final, but Hancock w as searching for more than'just that. The 24-year-old Hancock, already a British League veteran, had visited the American Final twice before, expe riencing triumph and tragedy all at once. At Lon g' Beach, California, in 1990, after locking up one of on ly four available qualifying spots to the Overseas Final , Hancock was involved in a terrible accident during the four-man run-off for the American Championship, suffering a badly broken arm when he was accidently run over by Rick Miller. It prevented him from continuing further in the championship chase that year. Hampered by the lingering effects of tha t injury in 1991, Hancock r eturned to Long Beach for the last American Final ever to be held at the track and failed to qualify after crashing through the fence in one of h is ri d es. Sure, Hancock debuted in the 1993 World Final , after being seeded as a top American and qualifying through the rest of the rounds. There was no American Final in 1992 and 1993, however, and Hancock was left to ponder his misfortunes in front of his hometown boosters. But this was a new and different American Final, at a different race track, and it was Hancock's time to vindicate A:; 18 his past by sweeping all of his rides en route to vic tory in front of 3500 fans . More imp ortan tly, he earned a ticket to the O verseas Final at Coventry, Englan d, on June 12. Joinin g him will be his Crad ely Hea th Heat he ns teammate Billy Ha mill, along with Josh Larsen, Du kie Ermolen ko and als o MikeParia, w ho not only electrified Southern California speedway fan s by qua lifying, but finished the event in fourth place. The Am erican Final was a night of traged y for yet an other overseas- based Amer ican r ider - th e new one , Ch ris Manchester. Tied fo r th e lead a t one p oint in the meeting, Ma nc heste r crashed during his fo u rth-round ride and was severely injured. As the night began, Hanc ock - considered a co-favorite to win the event was confident th at he would make it through, and th at he kne w what it would take to get that elusive maximum score. "The track's small, but it's got its bigtrac k advantages," Hancock said . "It's going to take five good starts and not making any s tu p id decisions or mi stakes. It should be a good night. " Another rider tabbed to take the win and go through, Hamill d idn't mince words regarding what it would take. " Plen ty of throttle," H amill said, "and you gotta do what you gotta do ." After watching current - or recent, in the case of Josh Larsen - overseas riders race to victory in the first three heats of the round, Hancock m ad e hi s way to gate one for heat four, his important first ride of the evening. Also looking to get off to a good start, Hamill would com e fr om the outsid e p ol e . Sand"wiched between them were Ed Castro in