Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By Scorr ROUSSEAU Now That's Close Ou'd have to look long and hard to find any motorsports series - or, for that matter, any sporting series - that matches the closeness of AMA Grand National Championship dirttrack racing. In fact, while compiling this week's ''Archives,'' which was originally supposed to showcase the number of championship titles decided by five points or less, I quickly realized that there wouldn't be enough space to give all of them their due. There were too many of them. Instead, we'll take a look at GNC title races that were just a little closer, titles that were decided by a single(!) point. In the 5 I-year history of the AMA Grand National Championship, it has happened five times, and one of those five was decided by less than a point. Huh? Yeah, you heard me. Read on. It all started in 1958. That's when the great Carroll Resweber defeated three-time and defending AMA Grand National Champion Joe Leonard in a straight fight at the Peoria IT to claim the AMA Grand National Championship by one point, 36-35. "What it was, was that I had to beat Joe at Peoria," Resweber says. "If he got fourth, I had to get third. I just had to be ahead of Joe." That's exactly what happened, though Resweber's task was made all the more difficult by the fact that Leonard was a better IT rider. "Joe was a much better IT rider than I was, but it just worked out," Resweber says. "I had to beat him, and I did. That's all I can say about it." Despite the odds, Resweber says that he never felt any pressure to win. "I really didn't," he says. "I guess because I didn't think too much about that number-one [plate] back then. I just loved to race, but I didn't like Peoria, and when you don't like something, you can't do it 100 percent. The odds were against me, but it worked out great." After that, Resweber would go on a tear, winning three more titles in succession from 1959 to 1961 to become the series' first four-time champion, a record that would first be tied by Scott Parker, who ran off four straight from 1988 to 1991. And it was the 1991 title chase, between Parker and factory Harley-Davidson teammate Chris Carr, that produced the closest series finish in AMA Grand National Championship history. One point wasn't close enough. This one was a tie, 225-225, the only time it has ever happened. Parker claimed the title via the tie breaker, by virtue of his greater number of race victories, having amassed six wins to Carr's four. ''A tie is a tie, and that's the day that you hope you have enough wins," Parker says. "It seemed like the last part of the year I was always the strongest. When I had to take and get the job done, that's when we did what we did." Unlike Resweber, Parker did not need to beat Carr in order to win the championship at the series finale Sacramento Mile. If Carr won, second place was good enough for the tie, and Parker had a mental edge, knowing that he had not been defeated at Sacramento in the previous four autumn races held there. As the drama unfolded, Y 82 NOVEMBER 9, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS the two riders pulled clear of the field and settled the score between them. Carr actually beat Parker to the finish line, ending Parker's Sacramento Mile win streak but not his championship win streak. Parker was the champion for the fourth straight year. Parker would later take sole possession of the record for consecutive championship titles by winning fIVe straight from 1994 to 1998, but that 1991 title is one to remember, for obvious reasons. "I was feeling good that I could just go do my job, and it would all come out good," Parker recalls. "I just stayed on his rear, and he hauled the mail. Afterward, I remember that's when he pulled up and I jumped on his motorcycle with him, and he took me on the victory lap. On the one hand Ifelt bad, but Ialso felt good. I knew that he was to trying win it just like I was. It was either me or him, but he won the race, and I won big the "It was all about the cash," he added with a laugh. When it comes to tight championship battles, consistency is still king. In AMA Grand National Championship history, this mantra is exemplified not once but twice. In each instance, the man who won the championship did so by one point, and he didn't have as many wins as the man he beat for the number-one plate. In 1963, Matchless-mounted Dick Mann and HarleyDavidson's George Roeder had a humdinger of a battle that came down to the penultimate round. Roeder had won twice during the season, crossing the finish line first at the Springfield Mile and the half-mile at Freeport, Illinois. Mann, coincidentally, suffered terrible injuries in a local race at Freeport after he crashed and was run over by several other riders. That he was able to recover at all and return to racing before the end of the year was miraculous enough, but then the unfathomable happened: Not only did Mann win his first race back (the very next round after Freeport, the Ascot TT), but Roeder failed to qualify for the main event, allowing Mann to take the title, even though Roeder went on to win the series finale, the Sacramento mile. The final points tally was I 14-113. Mann wasn't the only one to win the war with just a one-battle victory. In his freshman year as a HarleyDavidson factory rider, Randy Goss earned the 1980 AMA Grand National Championship by being more consistent than supreme miler Hank Scott, who earned no less than five wins - three miles and two halfmiles. Goss only won one race that year. Ironically, it was a mile. "I finished first at San Jose, and Hank was second," Goss says now. "The problem was that the miles were Hank's thing, and coming down the stretch, I won a mile. Then coming down to Ascot, that was my strength, and I didn't run worth beans that night. I wrecked in practice, and I wasn't having a very good night. At Ascot, when you're not haVing a good night, it's tough. You're hanging on for dear life. Hank actually beat me that night, but I ended up beating him by one point." Goss says he remembers the finish at Ascot that night. "I remember when I came to the line, [Steve] Eklund was actually trying to beat me to the checkered flag, and that would have flip-flopped it, but I beat Eklund to the line," Goss recalls. "That's how close it came." After the points were tallied, Goss said he was more than relieved. ''Actually, I was in shock," Goss recalls. "It was something that you've strived for, and then you achieve it, but what a lot of people don't understand is that when it's over, it's over, and it's time to get back to work, because next year has started already!" Of the five closest finishes in AMA Grand National Championship history, perhaps the most emotional was the 1984 finish between Team Honda teammates Ricky Graham and 8ubba Shobert. Graham had been strong early and then again in the middle of the season that year, but Shobert matched him stride for stride and had come on strong especially late in the season, with a road-race win at Mid-Ohio backed up by a Sacramento Mile win. The title came down to the wire at the Springfield Mile on October 28, 1984. Both Graham and Shobert had figured into the lead draft throughout the race, but just one lap from the finish, Graham and privateer Ted Boody tangled handlebars, with Graham hitting the ground between turns one and two. Boody went on to beat Shobert to the line for the win, while Graham somehow managed to get back up and get under way, finishing 13th. The air was tense as the final points calculations were made, and then the results were announced: Graham 285, Shobert 284. It was Graham's second AMA Grand National Championship and Honda's first. Five times. Five titles. Four points. Next time someone tells you that NASCAR has some close points battles for the Nextel Cup, be sure to let them know that they CN don't know the meaning of the word close.

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