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Fairgrounds Raceway
Santa Maria, California
May 17, 1997 - Fairgrounds Raceway
From: Gary Roberts
The sixth meeting for the season took place at Fairgrounds Raceway,
Santa Maria, CA on Saturday night. It was also the second round of the
points series.
The weather in California has been hot for the last week. It was over
100 F at my house in San Jose and even though Santa Maria is fairly near
the coast, Saturday afternoon was a hot one. Despite the many truck
loads of water that had been lavished on the track all week, it was not
up to its normal standard. For the first few races the track was heavy,
making turns 1 and 2 particularly difficult. As the evening went on it
got better, but then dried out. Several holes appeared, requiring the
pole to be moved out. Everyone took home a good coating of track on the
tops of their cars. Despite all this, the first thing that A final
winner, Randy DiFrancesco said to me after the races, was what a great
track!
Results:
Robbie Sauer 14
Randy Difrancesco 14
Brian Thompson 13
Brad Sauer 9
Charlie Powell 9
Bobby Campbell 9
Mark Hitchcock 8
John VanderMuellen 7
Marvin Sonnier 7
Billy Lyons 6
Gerry Dutweiler 6
Jeff Smith 5
Mark Maynard 5
Tim Appel 4
Jimmy Collins 1
Paul Baldwin 1
Doug Shaw 0 reserve, 2 rides
A final:
DiFrancesco, R.Sauer, Thompson, B. Sauer, Hitchcock
B final:
Hitchcock, Powell, Campbell, VanderMuellen, Sonnier
C final:
Sonnier, Lyons, Duttweiler, Smith, Collins (n/s)
D final:
Collins, Baldwin, Appel (n/s), Maynard (n/s), Shaw (n/s)
Last year's points champion, Randy DiFrancesco made his first appearance
of the season and took a well deserved win. But it did not come easily.
The A final got started 5 times.
May be it was the warmer weather, maybe the word is getting around. The
crowd was by far the biggest one so far this season. As a new attraction
in a predominantly rural area, its taking a while, but the fact that the
crowd is growing each week is encouraging.
Next week the points series continues.
Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com
 
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