Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 36 SEPTEMBER 9, 2014 P103 acceptable as a racetrack only because Cotati was even worse and Sears Point didn't exist yet." The track was doomed by the deteriorating con- dition of the track asphalt that was never fully refur- bished. "It was a fun track with potholes that could swal- low a 125," former AMA Superbike star Steve McLaughlin remembers. In spite of not being in the best of conditions, even in the 1960s, much less by the early 1970s, the track featured some of the best talent and most exotic racing motorcycles of the time. "Vaca Valley Raceway was primitive at best," said another ex-racer Chuck McAvoy. "The pits were mostly a gravel area, but filled with all sorts of exotic machinery from Europe and Japan. Seeing bikes with clip-ons and full fairings always excited me. There were times that factory teams would come for testing and riders like Ron Grant and Art Baumann were in attendance. There were some wooden bleachers on the front straight that might hold 100 people, a small 'control' building, four or five port-a-potties and that was about it." Apparently some of the corner workers weren't all that savvy in terms of knowing how to transport crashed bikes according to Jerry Smith. "I ran a 250-miler once with a buddy on my R5," Smith said. "He crashed it on the back side of the track and the marshals dragged it on a rope - on its side, not its wheels - behind a truck to get it back to the pits. A couple of times I rented the track between races to break in a new engine or crank- shaft. I think it cost $35 for the day, and I was on my own - no ambulance, nobody else there at all, just me. Only times I ever ran the fastest lap of the day." One of the original builders had a habit of taking all the profits from the track and spending them on building a nightclub in Concord, according to the track's former race announcer and later co-leasee Jim McCombe. "We needed to completely redo it and we didn't have the money," McCombe told reporter Ian Thompson in an article in the Daily Republic newspaper when talking about the condition of the track by the time his group took it over. By the beginning of the 1970s, "we knew the end was near because better tracks were coming along, and Sears Point was the coup de gras," Mc- Combe said. Vaca Valley Raceways finally closed in 1972. There was talk for years of bringing back the racetrack, but nothing ever came of it. Perhaps it was best left alone, but racing on such a dilapidated track in its final years showed you the desire by enthusiasts to find a piece of road racing pavement, no matter the condition, when the sport was starting to blossom in this country. Hurley Wilvert commented about the track on a discussion about it on the So Cal Retired Motor- cycle Road Racers page on Facebook. "I raced there many times on my 350 Bridges- tone and Kawasaki H1R," Wilvert said. "I did ride with Paul Smart in the 250-mile race in '72 on a pre-production Z1. Kevin Burke is right about the weeds being tall, and Don Emde is right about not wanting to run off turn one. I did just that once on my H1R. As I was entering Turn 1 a Coke can was rolling down the banked turn and I was head- ed right for it. I went wide to try to miss it and got into the loose stuff on the outside. I decided to take my chances off-roading and went over the top and was about 50-100 yards out into the high weeds before I hit a ditch, which stopped me. That ditch almost pitched me over the front of the bike but not quite. It was a hot day and I had to push the bike back through the weeds and up the banking to get back to the track." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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