Fast Fridays Speedway
Gold Country Fairgrounds
Auburn, CA

Sidecars & Backwards Speedway
Fast Fridays
July 5, 2002
From Gary Roberts

Still enjoying a Northern California heat wave, the track looked OK most of the night, but there dust started to come up towards the end, and the outside line, used by a few brave souls did not work. In the midst of the July 4 holiday, I was pleasantly surprised at the good turn out from the crowd and the riders. Top absentees included Mike Faria and Alan Christian, injured Rich Marcucci, and after an altercation with the wall in his first ride, machine-less Chad Felicio.

Scratch Main
1. Chris Manchester
2. Bart Bast
3. Bobby Hedden
4. Tommy Hedden
In his normal style Chris won this with a fast gate followed by 4 smooth laps. Bart initially rode side by side with Bobby Hedden, but as he had earlier found, there did not seem to be much traction on the outside. It still left me wondering if Chris would have made it, had Billy Janniro been in this race.

Scratch Consi
1. Scott Brant
2. Bryan Yarrow
3. Billy Janniro
4. Ivan Sevart
So why was Janniro in the Consi, not the Main? He knee hit his fuel tap sometime between leaving the pits and the second lap of his semifinal race. He spent a couple of laps trying to turn it back on, while racing with the other hand. By the time it was firing properly he was in fourth place with only a lap to go. He made it to third, which put him in the Consi. This time, he made a mistake big time in the first turn and was lucky not to collect the wall. His efforts to catch up were valiant, but only allowed him third place.

Handicap Main
1. Bobby Hedden
2. Tommy Hedden
3. Eric Carrillo
4. Bart Bast
5. Chris Manchester
6. Scott Brant
Probably the best race of the night. Eric Carrillo looked like he had it in the bag until Bobby Hedden found traction riding the outside and moved his way past the entire field . On the last lap his brother Tommy did the same thing, to finish second.

Handicap Consi
1. Paul Orlandi
2. Ivan Sevart
3. Tommy Hedden
4. Matt Browne
5. Tom Adams
6. Billy Hiles
With 30+ years of racing all kinds of motorcycles behind him, everyone watching Paul Orlandi knew he was having a great time winning this race.

Division 2 Main
1. Richard Christian
2. Robert Mellor
3. George Snodgrass
4. Randy Martin
5. Jay Heidt
6. Rachalle Kerr
The most promising prospect to arrive this season is Richard Christian. He started racing Speedway less than two months ago. I predicted that he would get from division 3 to division 1 in his first season. Last week he made the jump to division 2 and this week he won his first D2 main. I still expect to see ride D1 this season.

Division 2 Consi
1. Devon Defreece
2. Bill Warnock
3. David Baker
4. Derek Silva
There were 3 other riders, at least one of whom should not have been in the race. It made me lose track of this one.

Division 3 Main
1. Lee Sharp
2. Dennis Chandler
3. Mike Achilles
4. Kevin Fereira
5. Dino Blankenbiller
6. John Deatherage
7. Rick Gutzke
8. Stephen Lewotsky

Division 3 Consi
1. Danny Adams
2. Dean Nakatsu
3. David Lee
4. Brian Ballard
5. Greg Chacon
6. Kimmy Valentine
7. Kim Stevens
8. Tim Marsh

Youths Division 1
1. TJ Fowler
2. Justin Boyle
3. Mark Carrillo
4. Danny Easley
5. JT Mabry
6. Alex Marcucci
Danny Easley came out worst in a very nasty looking spill in the heat race, collecting a burn from an exhaust pipe and a bruised kidney from a foot peg. This diminished his enthusiasm in the main which turned into a Fowler, Boyle, Carrillo battle, with National Champion TJ Fowler finishing first.

Youths Division 2
Youth Division 2 Main ended when Hunter Morris, promotee from Division 3 fell while leading on turn one and RJ Becerra went around him but directly into the wall at full bore. Miraculously he walked away. On opening night, Southern California visitor, Ricky Wells, did exactly the same thing . Ricky was less lucky, collecting a broken arm, but this week was his return visit to Auburn. Good to see him back racing.

Youths Division 3
1. Ronnie Woodsford
2. Tori Hubbert
3. Bryce Olney

For those that like that sort of thing there was the annual backwards race and some sidecar races. While offensive to we purists, both seemed to attract some following. Next week we are back to a regular program and the week after is the North vs. South.

Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com