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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128222
.• ~I Gene Romero's West Coast Flat Track Series , I Round 2: Placerville Speedway The youngster scores his first career wefTS win By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS BY RON TILFORD PLACERVILLE, CA, JUNE 21 eenager Jimmy Wood showed the maturity of a seasoned veteran when Gene Romero's West Coast Flat Track Series made its second tour stop of the year at Placerville Speedway in Placerville, California. Despite the fact that he was aboard a "spinny" Honda CRF450Rpowered short-tracker, the 17 -yearold Wood of Redlands, California, displayed the slow throttle hand necessary to negotiate the dry blackgrooved Placerville quarter-mile clay and ran away to post his first career WCFTS Open Pro win aboard his T 58 JULY 9,2003' C U c I e Maxxis Tires/Eddie Mulder/Rod Lakesponsored entry. Wood led the 16-lap race right from the start, beating defending West Coast Flat Track Champion Kevin Bricker to the groove as the field battled for position in the first turn. The Moto MD/Pro Beauty/ Maxxis-backed Bricker got right on Wood's tail and appeared to be setting up to make an outside pass for the lead in three. Then Bricker appeared to lose his early momentum, Wood inching away off of turns two and four. In the end, it all added up to a half-straightaway margin of victory for Wood. "We never touched the setup on this thing all night long," Wood said. n e _ s "We never changed the suspension, the tire or the gearing. All we did was put gas in it. I just put my head down and ran as hard as I could. I wanted to get away early. My Maxxis tire was awesome all night." Bricker came home second, the spot moving him into the series points lead as he attempts to run down his second - and perhaps last West Coast Flat Track title; he has stated that he will be retiring at the end of the 2003 season. At Placerville, Bricker said that his tire gave up the ghost early in the race, and that certainly didn't help him get the best drives off the corners. "We waited for the racetrack to come to us tonight, but we made a mistake with our tire in the main event," Bricker said. "We probably should have changed it before the main event. I got off the line with Jimmy, and I thought, 'Okay, here we go,' but then about three laps in, it just started to go away." Bricker now leads Wood by a single mark in the West Coast standings, 32-31. Third place fell to CCM USA/Florin Road Toyota and Souza Racingbacked Tony Souza, who was probably the hardest-working rider all night. After making contact with another rider and going down in his heat race, Souza then had to ride the last-chance race, which he won and then turned around and finished second in his Semi to earn a spot in the Open Pro A main. Souza shot off the line third in the main event and ran a few lengths behind Bricker and Wood in the early laps. As the main event wore on, he tried to move up on Bricker, pulling to within about four bike lengths down the back straightaway on the last lap, only to come up short by about three lengths at the finish. Still, Souza said that he was satisfied considering the long road that he had taken to the podium. "I think we ran every race there was to run here tonight," Souza said. "We had trouble in our heat race, and then we had to run the last-chance, and then the semi. So to come away with a third-place finish after all that, I really can't complain too much." The eight-lap Saddlemen Open Vintage main event was almost over before it started, as over half the front row jumped and were placed on the penalty line by WCFTS starter Scott Zimmerman. That still left two of the heavy hitters, defending class champion Rick Hocking and friendly rival Rod Spencer alone to drag race to turn one. Hocking was the quicker man at the flash of the green, and that was about all she wrote. The '70s AMA Grand National combatant streaked away on his Bill Knight Racing/A&A Racing/Saddlemen-backed Yamaha to collect his second Open Vintage win in as many rounds and take a commanding lead in the class standings. Hocking now leads with 48 points, 15 more than second-placed Steve Hall, who was fourth in the Placerville main event. Spencer soldiered on to a second-