AMC-MX at O.C.I.R.
AMC
at
Orange County International Raceway
Friday January 31, 1975
By: Tom Corley
Contrary to what alot of racers thought, the OCIR track was not a mudbath. I almost didn't van out to the race tonight because I kind of thought that it would be rained out myself. So then I got the brilliant idea to call up the racing office at (714) 559-0580, when the recording said some thing like "The track looks fine tonight for AMC racing" well then I knew that things were cool. But for all you racers who ever have doubts of whether or not there is going to be a race just call the all new HOT LINE that the Southern California Motocross has now at (213) 762-MOTO.
Well lately the races have been getting over a little earlier every Friday. Last week five racers and myself found ourselves munching in a coffee shop in Orange when ordinarily the third moto would still have been cooking. Considering that I didn't whip up a story last week (because of the hard to read results) I didn't get a chance to mention anything about the trophy presentation that Bette had for the winners of one of her big Sunday races. They awarded trophies by the sign-up shack and the trophy chick was pretty neat too, even if she was chewing gum. No actually I'm not too sure because I didn't win a trophy.
Before I get into the night's racing action I should also give the weather credit for freezing everyone. One flagman, I mean girl had the right idea by wearing gloves. The racers didn't freeze their hands as much because they already had protection on them, that does it, next Friday I'm going to wear my old Torsten Haiiman gloves: Seriously though it wa. hung up my camera during the third moto and went back to the van, not just to listen to some Jethro lull but because I wanted to thaw out.
In my last AMC story I messed up when I said that John Gless of the Mini Expert class was a Hacienda Honda racer. Actually he is now a Harry's Cycle Sales of Orange racer (Harry in his captain's hat and all informed me) and he did it then to the class and again tonight. Jeff Ward or David Oliver would be a match for John but they both were absent so John literally smoked everyone in the Mini Beginner, Junior, Intermediate classes and he soloed in the Expert for the win. The three winners of those other classes were Sonny Riner, Bryan Jordan and Bryon Antonacci who has one of the cleanest looking XR's that I've ever seen. Pete Hillebrecht used to do battle in the Minis for Harry's but now he's progressed to the 100 Experts and he soloed in that class for the easy win as well.
Don Jackson on a No. 233 Honda won two out of three motos for the 125 Beginner division one win while Marc Strother hooked the second division. The 125 Junior class was completely in the hands of consistent Randy Skinner who took three moto wins for the overall while there was a great battle for the second place spot between Eddie Drake and I think it was Marc Strother. But with Marc being in the Beginner class which he easily won Drake captured second place in the 125 Juniors.
In the 125 Experts or now I think that I'll just call them the 125 Pros. I know a great photographer would rather be called a Professional photographer than an Expert photographer, same thing I reckon with racers. You may remember the photo that-I took of Ron Turner biting the jacknife comer with another dude two issues ago in SCM. Well that's just the kind of night that he had that time but this Friday Ron had the 125 Pro class to his own and it more easily done, being that Dave Carlson was absent. Marty Miller (another Harry's Cycle Sales racer who makes it into this story) has had his share of the troubles just like Turner and I think he was crashing along with Turner a couple weeks ago. Tonight he was mainly about ten yards behind Turner and took second except for in the first moto when Scot Clifton whipped him. So Marty captured second over Scot Clifton of DG Performance Specialties, Joe Rumney and Tom Burba.
Johanna Stenerson has really been blowing off everyone in the special Powder Puff class. She is definately the fastest lady and has won every week here I believe. Jan Kline usually comes closest to her but nowhere within passing distance. Tonight the superfast lady racer Lone Watson of DG Performance Specialties aced Jan out for second but she still hooked third. Once I saw Jan go boom just before the Moby Dick jumps on a corner but she got on the gas again just before Lisa Howard hit the nearby berm. So Lisa captured fourth over Debbie Lutz and Gale Webb.
By the way OCIR had a new General Manager who is Lynn Kelsay. He's got some pretty far-out ideas about tricking out the track, I was talking to him about it and he said 'I wish we could use that other lot" which is one the other side of the track now. I recommended that they radicalize all of the jumps so everyone shoots into the sky.
