Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

orRTTRACK AMA Regional Dirt Track Series Round 11: The San Jose Mile • By Scott Rousseau Photos by Flat Trak Fotos SAN JOSE, CA, ocr. 20 ary Stolzenburg said he'd build it, and they did come. G&C Rac. ing labored long and hard to bring the San Jose Mile back to the region's hard-core dirt track fans for the first time in over three years, wi th the event's $60,000 purse drawing the cream of the crop in professional dirt track racing, seven-time AMA Grand National Champion Scott Parker among them. When the 15-lap, 18-rider 750cc Expert main event rolled to the line, however, Parker - a 10-time San Jose winner - was not in the field. The mechanical gremlins that avoided Parker and ll-time Grand National Championship winning tuner Bill Werner during the Grand National season bit the duo hard in the very first heat race when the champ careened into the hay bale~ while powersliding into turn three. "The swi':tgarm broke," a shaken Parker said. '1 thought it was the brake, because 1 lost it." Parker left the race track with a sore ankle and was taken to a nearby hospital where X-rays showed no signs of a break. With Parker gone, who better to grab the $8,700 first-prize money at history's richest Regional dirt track than his fellow Michigan mafia member, former factory teammate, and recent Oel Mar Mile winner Kevin Atherton? Nobody. They never even got close to the Total Control Racing rider. Atherton wasn't the only rider to post a win for the day as Bartels HarleyDavidson's Johnny Murphree, Team Corbin's Lonnie Pauley and Marine Transport's Bryan Bigelow all grabbed a measure of glory in their respective classes at the event, which drew 5,980 enthusiastic spectators and over 120 riders to the fabled mile track at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. G ... .g ..... o OJ U 8 750cc EXPERT Atherton was the pole star by virtue of his fast heat time of three minutes, 56.08 seconds, which came in the first of the three 750cc heats that qualified six riders each directly to the 18-man main event. There were no semis, no second chance. When the green light flashed it was the 25-year-old Michigander who put his Tom Cummings and Dave Wattsprepared short rod XR on the point and kept it there, actually picking up the pace on each successive circuit of the rough-but-fast clay racing surface. "The race track was not in good shape," Atherton said afterward. "They really tried with it, though. 1 mean, when they got here, there was grass growing on it. But it was safe. You just had to pick your lines, just like we did at DelMar." Atherton continued to pick up steam, leading Bartels Harley-Davidson's Jay Springsteen by just over 2.5 seconds by lap six. The Springer had gotten off to a great start and was more than holding his own aboard his Jim Kelly-built, Joe Bisha-wrenched machine, but Corbin Racing's Dave Camlin was in third place and on the move. After su ffering a disma I start, the Springfield Mile doubleheader winner got moving on his Skip Eaken-tuned XR750 and ran Springste.en down on lap seven, blasting by the three-time champion at the start I finish line to pick up the second spot and then set off in a futile attempt to catch the speeding Atherton. "1 got such a bad start," Camlin said. "But I don't know if 1 had enough for Kevin anyway. He was the man today. We were second fastest. But it was great to be back at San Jose. 1 hope we can come here again." Further back yet, Corbin Racing's Honda-powered speedster Chance Dar- ling was dicing with F&S Harley-Davidson/KK's Steve Morehead in the best battle on the race track. The pair mixed it up in the corners and down the straightaways, running side by side at times, before the "Findlay Flyer" '"Vas just able to pull away from Darling at the line to take the fourth spot. "1 just rode on the outside edge of the rubber, where it was smoother," Morehead said. "But Chance was going real good. He's been getting real racy lately, and he works for everything he's got.

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