1996 Fairground Raceway
Santa Maria, California

October 26, 1996 - Santa Maria Speedway

From: Gary Roberts

The last meeting of the season was held on a cold evening in front of a disappointing, but not disappointed crowd. This ended the Photo-Ad Easy-Ad sponsored series. Randy DiFrancesco was the winner of the series, with Rick Pearce second and Kon Bauer third. Results were as follows:

Randy DiFrancesco 15
Kon Bauer         13
Rick Pearce       13
Bryan Thompson    11
Bill Green        10
Terry McCurdy     9
Marvin Sonnier    8
John Edwards      8
Bill Lyons        7
Scott Scarborough 7
Rudi Maresca      7
Jim Mustain       4 reserve 4 rides
Jeff Smith        3
Gerry Duttweiler  3
Paul Baldwin      2
Jim Collins       0
Kenny Hansen      0 1 ride
Mike Boyle        0 reserve, 0 rides

A final
Baur, DiFrancesco, Pearce, Thompson, Green

B final 
Green, Sonnier, Edwards, McCurdy, Maresca

C final 
Maresca, Lyons, Smith, Mustain, Scarborough

D final
Smith, Baldwin, Collins and Duttweiler non finishers.

Who was missing? John VanderMueler was still nursing a separated shoulder that he acquired last week. Sean Larned's truck broke down a few blocks from his home and rumour has it he rode his speedway bike home. Erin Larsen was taking a street bike road test.

Unlucky rider of the evening was Kenny Hansen who has been a consistently high points man throughout the series and was up among the leaders before this event. He fell on the first corner of the first race, his machine over revved and broke a valve, which put him out for the rest of the evening.

The A final was a great race. Kon Baur broke a primary chain while lining up for the start and due to his points position was allowed substantial extra time to fix it. Randy DiFrancesco got the gate with Kon and Rick Pearce close behind. Kon stuck in close behind Randy and finally got by on the third lap, to get a well deserved win for the race.

John Aden beat Phil Collins 2-1 in a 3 race 2 lap match race. Eddie Castro beat Ryan Fisher 3-0 in a later such event.

There was to have been a full Junior program, however only 2 first division juniors showed up. Ryan Fisher, who is really in a class of his own was selected to match race Fast Eddie Castro, and put up 3 good rides on his 250, but was not a match for Castro. Ryan is by far the hottest junior prospect here.

The other first division junior, Donny Robinson, raced, on a 20 yard handicap line in several second division junior races, being a clear winner every time. Donny who only started racing this season, after several practice sessions during last winter, has made excellent progress and is a name for the future.

Well that's it for this season. Back to the ballet and the opera till next Spring.