Greensboro Coliseum Complex
1921 West Lee St.
Greensboro, North Carolina 27403
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| Sat. January 30, 1999 |
"Technically the largest building in the NHL this season (21,000 seats)!" Greensboro Coliseum Complex 1921 West Lee St. Greensboro, North Carolina 27403 |
As last night, the full sixteen rider program brings back the fierce competition that was
missing in Florence last week. The speedway bike main ended up with
James Birkinshaw (Sheffield, England)
on the 'pole' ( inside position on the start line ),
Adrian Newman ( last night's champion from Melbourne, Australia) in gate two,
Stuart Robson (Northumberland, England) on the outside.
On the second row at the start line, was
Anthony Barlow (Merseyside, England),
Robert Curry (Ranco Cordova, California), and
Nick Fafard (Montreal Quebec, Canada).
The race ended just 50 feet later in the first corner with a crash that disabled the bikes of
Burkinshaw, Curry, and Newman. I didn't see the cause of it as I was down in turn four, but Adrian
was lying in Curry's path, and Curry lofted his front wheel in a 360 degree turn to avoid hitting
Adrian. The race was postponed until after the Quad final, to give half the field time
to repair their bikes.
On the restart, all were put back on their start positions.
Nick Fafard and
Stuart Robson,
went down in the first corner, and only Stuart was able to continue,
Curry's bike quit, moving him back to fifth.
Burkinshaw lead it to the checkered flag, followed by
Adrian Newman,
Anthony Barlow, and
Stuart Robson.
The Quad Main Event had FIVE RESTARTS!
Louis Smith started it off by breaking the tape on the first try, and was
moved back to the penalty line for the rest of the attempts to get the race finished.
John Grant made contact in turn three, first lap,
and his quad flipped over on top of Grant who landed on his back.
Medical personnel rushed to check him out, and to the crowd's relief, he stood, and
remounted. He was put back to the penalty line for causing the restart.
The third restart made several laps before a quad started dragging a
marker cone under it, and caused a three quad pile up.
Mandy and Chuck, who were leading at the time of the red flag, protested this restart, as they felt
enough laps had been completed to call the race. The officials and the crowd were against
calling the race off. Chuck stood up on his quad and appealed to the crowd,
but they misunderstood what he wanted, assuming he just wanted to get the race going again, and they cheered wildly!
The fourth restart ended in a first turn pileup with Mandy underneath it all.
Her flipped quad broke her front bake lever, and she was nursing a badly bruised left arm
from the crash. On the FIFTH restart, remember Smith? He had been put back to the penalty line?
All this time he had been making panicky charges through the pack to regain
his front row positioning, and a couple of laps later, wheelied his quad
out of turn four, right over, and knocked him out. The quad tumbled end over end down the front wall,
and dangerously close to the event announcer!
Unofficially, the event ended with :
1st Chuck Moores (Greenville TN)
2nd Scott Beauchamp
3rd Mandy "Wild Child" Brodil.
Official heat results were not available, due to heated debates after the event, but will be posted when available.
