2007 Fast Fridays Speedway
Gold Country Fairgrounds
Auburn, California

2007 Fast Fridays Track Championship
Fast Fridays, Auburn, California USA - September 7, 2007
By Gary Roberts

Fast Fridays 2007 Track Championship took place last night in front of an disappointingly small crowd. It was the start of the Auburn Placer County State Fair and lots of misguided people wanted to go to the fair. The track was described by most riders as grippy, which left little opportunity for overtaking.

24 years ago, Tommy Hedden started racing speedway. For the past 15 years, Tommy Hedden has been one of the top Northern California riders. Despite these impressive credentials, he had always ridden in the shadow of his older brother, Bobby. On July 22, 2005 Bobby broke his back which effectively ended his speedway career. Since that date Tommy Hedden has taken over where Bobby left off. Last night, he won Fast Fridays 2007 Track Championship.

The format for the evening was a true points-only-championship format with no crowd gratifying A and B finals, just the way Speedway should be run!

Hedden scored 14 point. Second place went to Mike Faria with 13 points, with Charlie Venegas taking third with 12. Tied for fourth place, each with 11 points were Chad Felicio, Bart Bast and Ricky Wells.

Hedden lost a solitary point to Faria. Faria lost both his points in the same race. He got out-gated by Venegas but instead of settling for second he tried to find an outside line. This resulted in the handing of second place to Wells. Venegas lost his points when he fell down, while in second place, trying to catch Hedden.\

Ryan Fisher had a night I am sure he will want to forget. He fell twice while trying an outside line. Kenny Ingalls who must be Northern California ’s most improved rider for 2007 had a reasonably good evening, finishing with 10 points.

Second division track champion was Jim Lewis, who held off moto-crosser Danny Turner.

The third division track championship winner was Daniel Faria, son of Mike. Considering that he only started racing this year, he has made good progress especially in the second half of the season. Favorite for the title, Beau Judge fell in his qualifying heat.

Division 1 Track Championship
Tommy Hedden 2 3 3 3 3 14
Mike Faria 3 3 3 1 3 13
Charlie Venegas 3 3 0 3 3 12
Chad Felicio 1 2 2 3 3 11
Bart Bast 3 2 2 2 2 11
Ricky Wells 2 2 3 2 2 11
Kenny Ingalls 3 1 1 3 2 10
Greg Hooten 2 1 0 2 2 7
Ryan Fisher 1 0 3 1 1 6
J T Mabry 0 3 1 1 1 6
Josh West 0 0 2 2 1 5
Alex Marcucci 2 2 0 0 0 4
Shaun Harmatiuk 0 1 2 0 1 4
JJ Martynse 1 0 1 1 0 3
Shawn Eldridge 1 0 1 0 0 2
Devin DeFreece 0 1 0 0 0 1

Division 2 Track Championship
1. Jim Lewis; 2. Danny Turner; 3. Tyler Hansen; 4. Danny Poli.

Division 3 Track Championship
1. Daniel Faria; 2. Jeff Irwin; 3. Richard Fehrman; 4. Adrian Contrares.

So that concluded Fast Fridays regular season. Following three weeks of darkness the Fall Classics event will take place on October 5. Three weeks after that will be the USA vs. The World, then a long wait till May 2008.

Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com