Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

,D TTRACK:" IR ,,A A600cc N tional D M a irtTrack Series , ore ea Round 1:Daytona Municipal Stadium • rea SI own (Left) Steve Morehead (42) launches off the line and Into th e lead on th e opening lap of the AMA600cc Nation al at Munic ipal Stad ium. More head led the 25-lap main from start to fi nish. (Below) Morehead celebrated his win with t uner Mike Wheeler. By Scott Rousseau , Photos by Kinney Jones DAYTONABEAQf FL, MAR.8 , t e ve Morehe ad is probab ly st ill shaking his he ad. In four years of tryi ng, the 40-yearold dirt tr ack vete ra n had yet to come th rou gh victory's door at that"damned " Day tona Municipal Stadium. He'd held the keys in his hand, he'd had the door o pene d on several occasions o nly t o have it slammed in his face, and all too often, he' d n ev e r even b e e n clos e enough to knock. But when th e opening round of the AM A 600cc Nat ion al Dirt Track Series visited the stadi um otherwise kn own as Larry Kell y Field, the "Find lay Flyer" burst th rough it full force on his Mike Wheeler- tuned, F&S Harl ey-Davidsonbacked Rot ax to claim his first win on the tric ky, narrow- gr ooved quarter mile and notch his third win in fou r tries during the Florida Flat Track Series. " H o w a bou t tha t ?" an overjoyed Morehead said on the victory podium. "I'll tell ya what - this pl ace has haunted u s. We' ve run third h ere b efor e, an d we've been third and had the motorcycle break on us. 1 just di dn't want to lose the front end ou t there, because we were pushing it in th e h eat race. But Mike Wheeler put a WM5 rim on the fro n t, an d it worked perfectly." Morehead had no p robl ems after he grabbed the lead on the third full restart of the 25-lap main even t and then stayed ahead of a four-rider freight train, not only to shake the proverbial monkey off his b ack but to rid e it into the winner's circle. New Jerse y rider Ge orgie Pri ce IV S w as right there and waiting for a mi stak e that wou ldn't come, and when the race was over, the Bob Norfleet Racing rider had scored his best-ever finish in a 600cc National. Price was actually a victim of the two red flags in the main as he h ad m u scled his way into th e firs tturn lead on each of the first two starts. Once Morehea d got r o lling o n the "notch ," however, the re w as little th at Price could d o wi th him despite keeping up constant pressure for the entire distan ce. "Th e th ird tim e, Stevie just go t th e goo d jump an d go t on the groove before me," Price sai d . "I jus t co uldn't shake the 01' dog in to a mistake. But this is our best fin ish in a 600cc N ation al. Before thi s one we'd run third at one ." This 600cc Na tiona l m a rk ed not a comeback so' m uch as a welcome home as a once-again-rejuvena ted 'Ricky Graham rode as smoothly as anyone on the rac e trac k all night en rou te to a soli d th ir d- p lace finish . Persona l probl em s ap pa ren tly behind him once more, Gra ham mirrored the 1993 ve rsion of himself - albei t even with a bit of restraint, circulating the tight confines of the' stadium in fourth pl ace behind 600cc tough guy Rich King befo re taki ng full advantage of a mistake by th e Iow an to slip und er h im a n d put th e USC Ra cing Honda RS600 int o th ird place for the final spot on the podium. "It ' s been a while," the th ree- tim e Gr and N ati on al Ch ampion sai d while h olding hi s third-p lace pl aque. "You know, I only got one other one of these. It was a second in 1993. You kn ow what happened next.iso thi s might be good . This one's for you, Bill W." King's midra ce mi stake co s t him what appeared to be a sure third-place finish on th e one -line tr ack th at made p assin g difficult. But th e Iowan w as h ardly d isappointed w it h hi s fourthpl ace finish in what will be one of his final two races aboard fo rmer tuner Ge orge Garvi s' Hond a RS600 . King, -wh o h as now joined forces with th e Cra ig Rogers-ow ned Tea m Saddlem en Ra cin g, looked sharp o n th e Garvis machine for the first 12 laps after tucking in right behind Morehead and Price off the start, but h e lost th e fron t en d ' just before the field received the halfway flags from th e sta r ter, gi ving Graha m on e of the only oppo rtuni ties that anyone in th e final h ad fo r a p as s. King tried to get back down on th e groove, but it was 'too late, He would settle for fourth. "I was just trying to make something h ap p en wi th Georgi e, " Kin g sai d . "I push ed the front en d a little and gave Ricky the opening . Tha t was all she wrote." Texan Charlie Orr was impressive as he rolle d home in fifth place, a couple of , lengths behind the lead qu artet. Orr, who only runs, a couple Na tiona l races p e r year on his Sco t ty Ad ams Racing / East Side Liquors Rot ax, tried to keep pace with them b ut wou n d up spend ing more time fendin g off sixthplaced Roger Durkee than making any offensive moves of his own. " Ge tti n' that star t helped a lot toni gh t," Orr said . HEATS A hug e fiel d of s o me 105 e n tr ies made it difficult to eve n make it into the regular program, let alone th e 16-rider main event. A seemingly endless series of 15 qu alifying heat s and 10 more extra h eats pared th e field in to si x 10-rider heat races, which transferred th e firs t two fini shers in e ac h dire ctl y t o the m ain e ve n t . Th e r e st had one more chance at earning a ticket by winning whichever on e of th e four semis they happened race.

• Cover