Fast Fridays Speedway
Gold Country Fairgrounds
Auburn, California

Week 2
Friday May 15, 1998 - Fast Fridays Speedway
By: Gary Roberts and RC Jones

From Gary Roberts

Another great night of racing at Auburn. The track was good, the stands were fairly full and unlike the previous week, the weather stayed dry. It did get a bit cold though.

Division 1 Scratch Main
1. Charlie Venegas
2. Bart Bast
3. Jim Sisemore
4. Mike Faria
Charlie Venegas got a great gate and only Bart Bast got within striking distance, but despite 4 laps of trying, Bart couldn't get past. Mike Faria held third for the first couple of laps, until the persistent Jim Sisemore got past him.

Scratch Consolation
1. Louis Kossuth
2. Bobby Hedden
3. Matt Becker
4. Tommy Hedden

Division 1 Handicap Main
1. Mike Faria
2. Jim Sisemore
3. Bart Bast
4. Ian Ferris
5. Louis Kossuth
6. Kelly Bennett

Division 1 Handicap Consolation
1.Charlie Venegas
2.Bobby Hedden
3. Vance Felicio
4. Pat Linn
5. Matt Becker
6. Jimmy Martinez
Jimmy Martinez started out front on the 20 yard line, and lead for a couple of laps. Eventually the freight train caught up with him. He applied just too much power coming out of turn 2 and came off the back. The bike stopped in the middle of the back straight and somehow, everyone missed it.

Division 2 Main
1. Harlan Bast Snr.
2. Doug Mignano
3. Bill Newby
4. Dave Booth
5. Tom Adams
6. Eric Veale
Eric Veal had this race in the bag until his machine stopped and it resulted in a popular win for veteran Harlan Bast. Harlan's buddy, 74 year old Bill Thomas came second in the consolation race.

Division 3 Main
1. Mike Browne
2. Bobby Chipman
3. Joe Whiting
4. Glenn Scott
Danny Chipman and David Lee (last week's winner) collided quite spectacularly on the back straight on the first lap. Both are over 6 feet tall, both are heavy set gentlemen. Miraculously, both escaped injury. Mr. Browne, who retired from Speedway some 5 years ago, came back to Speedway racing this year as his son, Matt, started as a junior Speedway rider.

An imposter in the third division was 17 year old Charlie Powell from Paso Robles. He rode on a regular basis last year at Santa Maria, where he was rarely beaten. It was acknowledged that he should have been in a higher division, so while the rest started on the 0 and 10 yard lines, Charlie was put on the 20. Because of the increase in the number of riders this year, there were 9 starters in each third division qualifying heat. This made it very difficult to move through traffic. In his heat he was blocked most of the race, and could only manage third. This put him in the 6 man consolation race. 6 men, as opposed to 9, provided him with sufficient space to get through and pull ahead for an easy win. This demonstrated how difficult it is for a good rider to move through the third division.

Results for Junior Speedway.
Juniors Division 1
1. AJ Jones
2. Eric Carrillo
3. Bryan Yarrow
4. Jeremy Martynse

Juniors Division 2
1. Anthony Martinez
2. Josh Newby
3. Jay Heidt
4. Matt Browne

Juniors Division 3
1. Ray Linn
I missed the rest.

Ryan Fisher and the rest of the Southern California contingent of juniors was missing. A couple of brand new juniors showed up. Their details are on the Southern California juniors web pages.

The only bad news was that Dixon, which was due to hold the season opener on Saturday, had to postpone the event till next week. Wet weather earlier in the week prevented the track preparation being completed. Bloody El Nino again!

Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com

From: RC Jones

Dear Speedway Fans

Nice report from Gary Roberts. I would like to add a couple of things.

Two highlights for me were the backwards race and the sidecars.

The backwards race was won for the second year in a row by John Grant ... John made it look a lot easier than it is racing a speedway bike in the opposite direction. Second was Harlan Bast Sr... (Mr. Hard Rock himself.. who also took a great win in Division II)Third was Vance Felicio. While most riders took the foot peg off and put it on the opposite side a couple of riders did not and were lapped easily by the top three.. A fun race to watch as the sparks fly off the exhaust pipe through the turns.....

Four sidecars came up from Southern Cal... Put on a nice show... I had never seen a monkey fly that far in the air before....One heat bikes and bodies were flying everywhere...Fun for all...

After a poor showing last week, Charlie Venegas put it together for the Scratch main win...In the handicap main, it was a scratch main race from the 50 yard line... Mike Faria led the charge through the pack for a nice win, only taking the lead at the white flag...

Cheers
RC Jones
I Love Speedway