Ken Maely's Ranch
Corona, California

Winter Series - Round 2
November 15, 2003 - Ken Maely's Ranch
By: Trish Wells

John DeFries' 2nd round of the Winter Series went off without a hitch this Saturday. Despite the recent rain, the track held up well, with just a couple of trouble spots, which were quickly found and avoided. The 24 500cc entries were quickly assigned a team, or raced individually. The competition was tough, and there was some excellent racing.

Going into this round, Bobby Krips' team (The Hawks) was leading, with 34 points, over Justin Boyle's team (Da Playerz) with 32 points, then Mark Adams (Maely's Mayhem) team with 27 and John DeFries (Da-Aces) with 25 points.

Krips choice of Junior riders proved to be the way to go in both rounds. Tim Gomez, Dario Galvin and JT Mabry were a force to be reckoned with, and helped bring The Hawks to another victory. Tim Gomez (who still has one more year left in the Junior division) ended the day with the top teams score, a perfect 12 points, 3 wins from 3 races.

Krips team ended up with five 1/2 finishes out of 8 races...now that's team work. Neil Facchini helped Boyle's team with two 1st place finishes, until he had engine trouble and failed to finish the last round. Rudy Lauer was Adams' top scorer with 10 points and Marvin Sonnier bought in 10 points for DeFries' team. Other notable teams points scorers were Dario Galvin and Bobby Krips, each with 10 points, and JT Mabry with 9.
The day ended with Krips' team scoring 41 points, with 2nd place going to DeFries (29 points), 3rd was Adams (26 points) and Boyle (22 points). Add these to the 1st round points, and Krips' team now leads the teams racing league by 21 points. They're going to hard to catch. DaFries and Boyle are tied for 2nd, and Adams is one point behind. 2nd place could be anyone's.

Second division racing was as exciting as the teams racing. Steve Dziadus II won the points for the day with two wins and one second, bringing in 11 points. Junior, Dale Facchini, tied with Jeff Scott for 2nd place, with 9 points, and Fred Schmitthammer came in 4th with 7 points.
Not to be outdone, the Juniors also put on an excellent show. 2nd Division riders Ricky Valdez and Tamara Krips showed the spectators that the race wasn't over until the checkered flag came out. At the end of the day, the 2nd division winner's crown went to Tamara Krips, who beat Ricky Valdez by just one point.

There was some good, close racing in 1st Division Juniors, with Ricky Wells and Krystal Cramer going into the last round tied for first place. Jason Ramirez got the start, but was passed by Ricky Wells, who went on to take the checkered flag. Cramer and Ramirez battled it out for 2nd place, with some very tight racing. Ramirez held on to 2nd place, with Cramer taking 3rd and Dylan Stark 4th. At the end of the day, Ricky Wells placed 1st, Krystal Cramer 2nd, Jason Ramirez 3rd and Dylan Stark 4th.

One of the highlights of the day had to be the PW50 races. There was plenty of passing and all three rounds proved to be anyone's race. Nick Schoonover and Braydan Galvin went into the 3rd round tied for 1st place, so the pressure was on. Schoonover and Galvin battled the entire race, with Schoonover taking the win, and the 1st place trophy for the day. Galvin came 2nd, Jack Higginson 3rd and Allen Mohmann 4th. These kids proved that we have some great speedway talent coming up.

Billy Hamill showed up, and was quickly put to work on the track, as well as presenting the trophies at the end of the day. The support people like Billy give to the sport of speedway is greatly appreciated, and it gave the kids such a buzz to be presented trophies from "Billy Hamill"...along with a hug from the trophy girl, Berlin Higginson.

Thanks to John DeFries, Dave Delbridge (the ref), the track preparers and the rest of the volunteers for making this such an enjoyable event. We know Ken Maely was there somewhere watching his "kids" having a great time on his track.
The 3rd round will be held on Saturday November 29 starting at 11am, and will be dedicated to Ken Maely. Bring your BBQ's and favorite dish (John DeFries' words) for after the racing.