Paris Speedway Results - July 28, 2000

Nick Fafard Wins the MAIN and ties the HANDICAP with Joe Heye

By Duncan Luke
luke99@idirect.com

The day long threat of rain made track preparations difficult, and when none materialized, it resulted in late watering and an unusually bumpy track for the night's racing.

For the fourth meeting in a row a different rider was involved in a scratch and handicap double. This time however Nick Fafard dominated the scratch program and went through it unbeaten but had to settle for a tie in the handicap main event. On the first try front runner Michel Lemay came down on the second lap and was excluded. On the restart Fafard moved up to third place by the end of the first lap and second one lap later. However Joe Heye had the bit between his teeth and kept Fafard at bay until the end of the race. A dash around the outside of the final two turns saw Fafard come off the turn with more speed than his rival and he caught him as they crossed the line. An extra yard would have given the win to Nick but at the line the verdict as a tie.

Fafard won the scratch final easily from John Mercier but all the action was at the rear of the field. After getting badly out of shape at turn three in lap one, pretty much coming to a halt and dropping from second to last Joe Heye charged back and had a ding dong battle over the last two laps with Gary Hesmer. They were bumping coming out of the final turn and Heye came out of this the better of the two and finished third. The cool down lap was anything but with both riders gesticulating at one another. Probably just as well it was their final race of the night!

D2 provided some interesting racing with each rider having his moments during the night. Heat 9 in particular provided excellent action with two separate four lap battles. Michel Lemay just beat Byron Ambo across the line by less than a wheel while behind them Jeremy Musson edged out Frank Dittmer for third. Later in the night Dittmer came off hard when he came across the line on Tom Marriott's bike, got a little more drive than he expected, and wheelied on down the straight. He fought to bring the bike under control as long as possible before having to bail out at the end of the straight. Fortunately both Frank and bike escaped with only bruising.

The first heat in D3 saw Rob Dixson jump out in front of Kyle Dixson and open up a useful lead only to hit the wall at the end of the second lap. So Legault's record of being unbeaten in every race he has finished is still intact and his latest winning streak has now reached fifteen races. Rob Dixson recovered to take second place ahead of Paul Martin in the main.

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