Saddleback Park
SSM
at
Saddleback Park
Saturday April 5, 1975
By: Tom Corley
The day's Expert turnout wasn't exactly comparable to the way it was last Saturday but it was like that in most every race this weekend. This was naturally due to the big bucks race that was held at Hangtown up in the northern part of the state.
And the weather wasn't exactly right on today with gloomy over cast skies hanging overhead just waiting to shower everyone. But as it turned out, no water was poured on Saddleback and the track was actually in much better shape, traction was there when you needed it because the soil stayed moist.Robert Hannah, of Steve Hurd Motor¬cycles, did unreal last week against the other Inter-AMA stars but things didn't turn out so well for him today. Hannah was shoved back into the fourth place position in the 250 Expert class with problems. Meanwhile his teammate, Rob Elliott, who usually flies with the same jersey on, was out ahead the whole way except for the first moto and ended up with a 2-1 placing for the day. This was good enough for the 250 Expert bread over Pat "Flying" Flynn, Jerry Trojnar, Rob Hannah, Frank Fitzgerald and Kevin Callaway.
At the same time the 500 machines were diving and I think that I would be right in line by saying that the winner Mike Yorba pretty well untouchable against the usual locals in SAM racing. He looks so smooth on his WM Maico while the others often look uncontrollable. Yorba collected cash today over Bob Grisevole, Ted Hammer and Mark Conrad.
The best race of the day was between the 125 Novices and Juniors, who diced together so much that you couldn't exactly tell who was in what class. With the start of the first moto Mike Williams, on a quick DG Racer, lit off the in front of the entire pack even though he was only entered as a Novice. Then fast Ron Stroner (Bul) who was cooking as the top Junior started to give Mike some heavy trouble. I saw him move up on the Honda as he gassed it while haulin' down off of the roller coaster hill. Soon Ron had the win for that well fought for moto but Stroner's day was made even more difficult by Kym Kirschenmann, who just hopped of f of his ole Suz and now races a new Elsinore and J.N. Elledge, on a new '75 Bul. Stroner and Elledge were 1-2 as they smoked the pack of Hondas in the final go and this was something that was really unusual to see.
So overall in the 125 Novice class Gregg Young came out the winner as he just barely beat second placer Mike Williams out in every moto. The crash and burn artists of this class were Bret Catcott and Ken Roush, who both ended up in one of the hairiest pile-ups that I've seen in quite awhile. Naturally due to three great first place wins Ron Stroner grabbed the first place Majestic trophy in the 125 Junior class over Kym Kirchenmann, JN Kelledge, Jeff Moore, Doug Kinney and DNF'ing racers Albert Voto and Steve Morofield.