Fast Fridays Speedway
Gold Country Fairgrounds
Auburn, California

1999 Week 5
Fast Fridays Speedway, Auburn, CA
Friday June 4, 1999
From Gary Roberts

A good crowd showed up again on Friday for more good racing at Auburn. Jim Sisemore was missing from the program because he's already in England, but fellow Overseas Finalists Bart Bast and Mike Faria were there, before their departure early this coming week.

Latest report on Jim is that he has mastered the driving over there and has started working on the beer. Back to the races. Last week Charlie Venegas won both the Scratch and the Handicap, this week it was Mike Faria. His scratch main race was worth the admission money alone. Charlie lead from the gate and Mike started staking out an outside line, getting closer and closer. After a lap or so, side by side, Charlie found traction going down the back straight, there was contact and Charlie had to throttle back for just a second, effectively giving Mike the race.

Unofficial results.

Scratch Main
1. Mike Faria
2. Charlie Venegas
3. Bobby Hedden
4. Bart Bast

Scratch Consi
1. Billy Janniro
2. Pat Linn
3. Bob Hicks
4. Chad Felicio

Handicap Main
1. Mike Faria
2. Bobby Hedden
3. Bart Bast
4. Rich Marcucci
5. Robert Curry
6. Chad Felicio

Handicap Consi
1. Billy Janniro
2. Ian Ferris
3. Charlie Venegas
4. Pat Linn
5. Vance Felicio
6. Dave Faria

Division 2 Main
1. Glenn Scott
John O'Connell, Shawn MacDonald, Matt Browne, Derek Silva, Eric Veale also rode. Glenn Scott came up from division 3 this year and did well to win this, his first second division main. Getting over the finishing line ahead of the rest of them turned out to be extremely fortuitous for him. Among the rest over the finishing line, Shawn MacDonald, found traction, fell off the back of his bike, which then took out everyone else. It looked absolutely horrendous. I was amazed that nobody was hurt.

Division 2 Consi
1. Dave Booth
2. Scott Olney
3. Steve Arena
4. Harlan Bast Snr.
5. Rachalle Kerr
Donny Powell qualified but was a non-starter.

Division 3 Main
1. Vince Bertolucci
2. Brian Leventon
3. John Knapp
Don Webster, Greg Hooten Senior, Mark Thomas, Kevin Fereira, Tom Odekirk were also in the race. This race also had bad ending. A member of the track staff was helping a rider off the track in turn one as the first two finishers raced to the checkered flag. He moved out of the way of Vince Bertolucci but into the path of Brian Leventon, who hit him with full force. The track staff member was stretchered off and Brian walked off, but was very shaken.

Division 3 Consi
1. Jamie Hughes
2. Ron Woodsford
3. Mark Woodward
4. Bill Warnock
5. Don Chipman
Mike Douglass, Harry Bradwell and Bill Dixon were also in the race.

Division 1 Juniors
1. Chris Kerr
2. Jon Curry
3. Eric Carrillo
4. Bryan Yarrow
5. JJ Martynse
6. AJ Jones

Division 2 Juniors
1. Alex Marcucci
2. Brenton Bast
3. Ray Linn
4. JT Mabry

Division 3 Juniors
1. Danny Easley
2. Amanda English
3. Chris Olney
4. TJ Fowler

For some reason there was no Speedway on Saturday, both Cal Expo and Chico being closed. There is, unfortunately no sign of any Speedway opening up at Livermore this year. Next weekend we are back to 2 nights of Speedway, Fast Fridays as ever on Friday and the Bob Peters Memorial at Cal Expo on Saturday.

Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com