1996 Fairground Raceway
Santa Maria, California

September 14, 1996 - Santa Maria Speedway

From: Gary Roberts

Santa Maria Speedway re-opened with good competitive second division racing. All very good close racing on a superbly prepared track. I was one of 5 Brits on the infield staff. The racing was all scratch racing (no handicap) run on an almost standard championship format. The format ended with 4 heats, A B C and D, as per Grand Prix, with the interesting addition of transferring the winner of each heat to the next heat, so A B and C were 5 man races.

Points scored as follows:

Rick Pearce     15
Kenny Hanson    14
Kon Baur        13
John Edwards    12
Terry McCurdy   11
Bill Green      10
Tim Appel        6
Allen Right      6
Bill Lyons       6
John VanderMeulen5
Gary Detweiler   5
Sean Larned      4
Marvin Sonnier   4
Jeff Smith       3
Erin Larsen      3

At the start of the final heat, Pearce, Baur and Hansen were all unbeaten and came together with Erin Larsen, the only lady in the field. Rick Pearce won, this close race and the same 3 finished in the same order in the A final.

D Final:  Sonnier, Smith, Larsen
C Final:  Larned, Detweiler, Sonnier, Larned, Appel
B Final:  Green, Lyons, McCurdy, Right, Larned
A Final:  Pearce, Hansen, Baur, Green, Edwards

For anyone who remembers the Wimbledon or Cradley Heath teams of the late fifties or early sixties, the name John Edwards would be no stranger. Yes, its the same one. John chooses not to talk about his age any more but he put up some fine rides including being the only rider to lead Rick Pearce for 3 laps all evening.

Two www pages have been set up for Santa Maria speedway at: http://www.thegrid.net/rdcsouth/speedway.htm and at: Santa Maria

It was pleasing to see this very nice track up and running again. The new management will run till the end of October with second division racing each week, except for Sept 28, the night of the US National at Costa Mesa. The event was organized well, with minimal duration between races. I heard rumours next week of a match race between Phil Collins, (this week's commentator) and John Aden, (this week's track grader).