Fast Fridays Speedway
Gold Country Fairgrounds
Auburn, California

Fan Appreciation Night
June 20, 2003 - Fast Fridays, Auburn
By Gary Roberts

A rather somber night at Fast Fridays. The previous Saturday, Fast Fridays promoted a one night championship Speedway event at the County Fair at Placerville. In the course of a flat track demo during the intermission a flat track rider crashed receiving fatal injuries. John Grant, the referee, who was a personal friend of the deceased rider, reminded every competitor at the riders meeting that motorcycle racing is a potentially dangerous sport. This might sound obvious, but is something that many of us, both competitors and spectators, overlook, when enjoying our evening at Speedway.

Moving on to the racing. The track started out OK but turned dusty as the evening went on, and by the time the main events took place there was only a blue groove single race line. The weather was hot again, around 90 most of the day, but cooled as the evening went on. I would estimate the crowd size at around 1800.

Scratch Main
1. Bobby Hedden
2. Bart Bast
3. Mike Faria
4. Alan Christian
Once again, Bobby Hedden took the scratch main. It was good to see Alan Christian back out racing again, but this time he touched the tapes and there ended his race. Hedden got the gate, closely followed by Bast and Faria and that’s how it went for 4 laps.

Scratch Consolation
1. Bryan Yarrow
2. Chad Felicio
3. Jim Estes
4. Bart Bardecki

Handicap Main
1. Bart Bardecki
2. Eric Carrillo
3. Bobby Hedden
4. Bart Bast
5. Richard Christian
6. Mike Faria.
Richard Christian, from the zero yard line lead the race for three laps. At the end of the fourth lap he went wide, letting Bart Bardecki through to take the lead. On the next turn he fell, taking down Eric Carrillo and the race was stopped. Mike Faria who had been inhaling vast quantities of dust at the back did not come back for the restart. Riders were lined up in their positions at the start of lap 5, but with Christian at the back. That was the same order in which they finished.

Handicap Consolation
1. JJ Martynse
2. Bryan Yarrow
3. Tommy Hedden
4. Alan Christian
5. Jim Estes
6. Justin Boyle
It was good to see the progress that Justin Boyle has made this season. After taking third place in the 2002 Youth National Championship he stepped up to a 500 at the start of this season in Southern California. This was his first ride at Auburn this year. From the 10 yard line he lead for a couple of laps before being passed by JJ Martynse, but later retired with machine problems. For a 16 year old Justin has a bright future.

Division 2 Main
1. David Fonts
2. Ron Woodsford
3. Mike Achilles
4. Devon Defreece
5. Bill Hermant
6. Randy Martin

Division 2 Consolation
1. Mike Browne
2. Doug Mignano
3. Dean Blankenbiller
4. Harlan Bast
5. Shawn Eldridge
6. Greg Searle

Division 3 Main
1. Treggan Mullenix
2. Rich Mignano
3. John Deatherage
4. Guy Jessop
Dennis Chandler qualified but was a non starter. Greg Lovlien fell during the first run of this race and was a non starter in the rerun. Danny Poli and Dave Quick fell during the re-run.

Division 3 Consolation
1. Brian Deland
2. Kerr Kerrigan
3. Robert Christian
Other qualifiers were Christian Sherpy, Matt Pangburn, Greg Chacon, Clark Caravella, Greg Howell.

Youths Division 1
1. JT Mabry
2. Danny Easley
3. TJ Fowler
4. Alex Marcucci
5. Paul Johnson

Youths Division 2
1. Ricky Felicio
2. Jay Ricketts
3. Ronnie Woodsford
4. Tom Fuhrman
5. Dario Galvin

Youths Division 3
1. Jason Ramirez
2. Tori Hubbert
3. Trevor Searle

Gary Roberts - gary_rob@ix.netcom.com