High School MX at OCIR
SAM
at
Orange County International Raceway
Thursday February 6, 1975
By: Tom Corley
All right High School motocross has returned to Orange County International Raceway. Every Thursday night the lights will be on with open racer challenges for any racer with a student body card, while on Saturday nights different high schools will be challenging each other. These races are under the direction of the Scholastic Association of Motorsports headed by Jim Manning, who is now firing off races at Ascot Park in Gardena as well.
It was a very light turnout of racers, to .say the least tonight. At the riders meeting everyone was told that they were going to get to race a little longer because there wasn't very many classes and only sportsmen racing. But this was no different then the start of the previous High School racing seasons. It's started out small but then things really started to cook. People suddenly hear by word of mouth about the loads of prizes and racing accessories and then they finally realize that all of this builds up to the big night at the Superbowl of Motocross for the fast cats who qualify.And those racers that did show up seemed new to the program. Last season it seemed like Whittier Honda set up a pack of Elsmores to win and Dave Carlson of Ketella would always blow everyone off. And because of the weather the track was altered a bit. Instead of them turning the comer and flying over Lover's Leap jump at the start they made a fast straight which veered to the right of that jump.
The first race of the night was for the 100's and the Mini-Crossers. Well in this contest Bill "Willy" McCandless of Harry's Cycle Sales in Orange smoked the small field of racers but went considerably slower because of the muddy track. Vern Brown and Sherman Vandeman of Fountain Valley Hi both were following in second and third, on Yamahas and what was so notable about these guys were that they both had feathers sticking out of their helmets. John Salinsky, who was holding one of my cameras, said that he remembered when everyone used to do that at ole El Toro Raceway and at Ascot.
The 250 Junior race really did have some great competition. The first moto started off kind of bad though. Greg Knight, who had a trick reed-valved Husky, ate it at the start when someone cut in front of him. The best way to sum up mis race is to say that Terry Smith just flew away from everyone. Terry races for Yamaha of El Monte and I'm not sure just what Hi he goes to because the results weren't exactly sano. John Gilbertson on a No. 47A Honda from Fountain Valley ate up the class for second while Russell Stark took third on his Southland Cycle Suz for Bolsa Grande Hi. If you followed last seasons racing you would probably remember how Stark ate up both the 125 and 250 classes. And in the long run he'll probably end up taking home the bacon this year!
