Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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VOL. 53 ISSUE 7 FEBRUARY 23, 2016 P97 seeing the track at speed riders only became more enraged. More meetings, threats, some riders packed up, some went to tip over Roger Edmondson's motorhome, which held AMA offi- cials Edmondson and Tom Mueller. Only pleading from Edmondson's wife kept things from getting completely out of control. But then the 750 Supersport race was called to the grid. It ran without incident and the volatile at- mosphere gradually subsided and the races went on. Of the top-name Superbike riders, only David Sadowski and Kevin Magee elected to sit it out. Troy Corser went on to win that first Pomona Superbike race on the Ferracci Ducati over Muzzy Kawasaki teammates Tiger Sohwa and Steve Crevier. Afterwards Corser said he was "comfort- able with the pace" and that he "wasn't taking any risks—none." The next year (1995) improvements were made and the riders raced largely without protest. To go fast at Pomona, in some sections rid- ers had to turn off their brains. The more you were willing to hang it out, the faster you could go there. Many riders tried to just to survive the weekend. There was one unique quirk about the track however that favored one type of rider. The bumpy, 13-turn, 2.5-mile Fairplex circuit predomi- nantly featured broad left-hand turns, favoring former flat trackers. That became apparent when Mike Hale broke through to win his first AMA Superbike in the second race held in Pomona in April of 1995. Hale, riding a factory Smokin' Joes Honda RC45, qualified third behind Muzzy Kawasaki's Pascal Picotte and Vance & Hines Yamaha's Ja- mie James. In the race, Hale was actually broad- sliding his Honda out of the broad lefthander in flat track fashion. When he walked up to the podium one spectator yelled out, "Dirt trackers rule, baby!" Hale waved with a broad smile. More evidence of a flat tracker's advantage at Pomona came in the third and final year at the Fairplex. In April of '96 it was Chris Carr stunning the road-racing establishment when he put the Harley-Davidson VR1000 on the pole for the Su- perbike final, which was going to be broadcast live on national TV. Carr had been atop the charts all weekend, but it was still shocking to see the normally under-performing Harley Superbike starting from the pole, especially with the relatively inexperi- enced road racer Carr at the controls. Of all of the stories of Pomona's Superbike races, Carr's pole win had arguably the longest-lasting legacy. Unfortunately, Carr's dream weekend came to a crashing end. He was in the lead pack when he caught a false neutral going into the first turn early in the race and he wasn't able to get the bike slowed down before he lost the front end. In the final Superbike race at Pomona, it was former flat trackers Larry Pegram and Doug Chandler battling with Honda's Miguel Duhamel for the lead. Duhamel held off the other two at the flag. Pegram was second and Chandler third. It was the best Superbike finish to that point in his career for Pegram. One interesting side note that some will re- member was the American Road Racing cover shot by Tom Riles showing Mike Hale en route to victory in '95. Pomona was a parking lot course with nothing but bland backgrounds, yet Riles had managed to find one turn in the back sec- tion of the circuit where no one ventured that actually had a small island of grass and trees in the background. The resulting cover photo made Pomona look like an idyllic picturesque Euro- pean road course. Sublime photos or not, Pomona was off the schedule in 1997, never to return. For just having a three-year run the races at the Fairplex are still talked about today with the conversation usu- ally starting with, "Remember when they ran a Superbike National in a parking lot?" CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives