MOTOR RACING / SHAV GLICK : Matiasevich No Chicken on a Bike

Both times that Jeff Matiasevich has raced in a Supercross event at the Coliseum he has won, but those were in the 125cc support class races of 1987 and ’89.

Saturday night, in the 19th Coors Superbowl of Motocross, the 20-year-old Kawasaki team rider from La Habra Heights will try to extend his winning streak, but he will be in the 250cc Camel Supercross championship race rather than the support event.

A win in the season finale would soften the disappointment that Matiasevich (Ma-TASS-a-vich) felt when he dropped from contention last week at San Jose after leading for most of the 18-race season. Defending champion Jeff Stanton, also last year’s Coliseum winner, won at San Jose to take a commanding lead in the race for the $50,000 champion’s bonus.

Matiasevich, known affectionately as Chicken, led from the fourth round through the 16th before giving way to Stanton two weeks ago in Oklahoma City. Last week at San Jose, still only six points behind, he crashed and finished 10th, dropping 20 points back of Stanton, a Honda rider from Sherwood, Mich. It also dropped him to third place. Former world 250cc champion Jean-Michel Bayle of France moved into second.

“San Jose was just one of those nights where me and the bike weren’t communicating,” Matiasevich said. “I think maybe I was trying too hard, after losing the (series) lead to Stanton the week before. Things like that happen to athletes in every sport, nights when nothing goes right.

“I got out of control on the whoop-de-doos (a series of stutter bumps) on the fourth lap and looped the bike. Before I could get going, I was back in 14th place.”

For Matiasevich to win the series in his rookie season, he would have to win Saturday night and have Stanton finish 18th or worse and Bayle fourth or worse.

“Anything can happen, I know that after what happened to me last week,” Matiasevich said. “It would take a miracle, but I’ll be out there trying to win. The Coliseum has been good to me, and maybe I’ll have another night like Las Vegas.”

Matiasevich’s first national Supercross victory came at Las Vegas’ Silver Bowl on March 17, when he took the lead from Yamaha’s Doug Dubach on the third lap and pulled away to win the 20-lap final.

“Once I got the lead, I just set my own pace, and everything worked out the way I had dreamed it would,” he said.

Last winter, Matiasevich got a taste of winning when he beat an international field in the Geneva Supercross in Switzerland.

He credits the veteran Jeff Ward, his Kawasaki teammate from San Juan Capistrano, for his improvement this season.

“Wardy and I ride together every day we’re home, and he has been a big help both in improving my training and my riding technique. Kawasaki has a Supercross course in Corona, and Wardy and I and Johnny O’Mara are out there just about every day. It really helps to ride hard against guys of that caliber.”

Ward is a two-time Supercross series champion and winner of the 1984 Coliseum race. O’Mara won the 1984 season championship.

Matiasevich’s nickname of Chicken has nothing to do with his motorcycle riding, but dates back to 1974, when he was a boy of 4 living in Watsonville.

“There were only three houses on the block, and my older brother had a chicken coop,” he explained. “One day, I got in it and killed a chicken, and the neighbors began calling me Chicken. Years later, when I started racing, I noticed that most of the guys had nicknames on their bikes, so I put Chicken on mine. My last name was so long people had a hard time pronouncing it, so I told them to just call me Chicken.”

The gangly Matiasevich--5 feet 10 and 150 pounds--is a graduate of Kawasaki’s Team Green amateur program. In 1987, he won the ultracross championship in the Mickey Thompson off-road series. He turned professional the following year and won the western 125cc Supercross championship, a feat he repeated last year to earn promotion to the major leagues.

Next week, in the Mammoth Mountain motocross, Matiasevich will step up another notch and ride a 500cc bike for the first time in competition. Then he will enter the United States Grand Prix, final round of the battle for the world 500cc championship, on Aug. 26 at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino.

SPRINT CARS--John Redican gave one of his car owners, Kathy Simpson, a birthday present with his seventh victory of the California Racing Assn. season last week at Ascot Park. The win lengthened the 45-year-old driver’s point lead over former champion Brad Noffsinger. The two will resume their battle Saturday night at Ascot in the opening round of the three-race Budweiser American Challenge. Lealand McSpadden, last year’s challenge winner from Tempe, Ariz., is also entered.

The late J. C. Agajanian was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame at Knoxville, Iowa, as a promoter/car owner. Also inducted were drivers A. J. Foyt, Tommy Hinnershitz, Rex Mays, Gus Schrader, Wilbur Shaw, Barney Oldfield, Frank Lockhart, Jan Opperman and Larry Dickson.

MIDGETS--The U.S. Auto Club’s western regional championship series will resume this weekend with doubleheaders Saturday night at Ventura Raceway and Sunday night at Ascot Park. Both programs will have 30-lap full midget and 20-lap three-quarter midget main events.

Gary A. Howard, last year’s TQ champion who scored his first full midget win last week at Bakersfield Speedway, will again be challenging perennial champions Sleepy Tripp and Robby Flock in the full midget race. CRA champion Ron Shuman, after racing in the CRA sprint car race Saturday night at Ascot, will drive a midget Sunday night.

STOCK CARS--NASCAR’s Southwest Tour will be at Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino Saturday night for a 100-lap main event on the quarter-mile paved oval. The favorites include defending series champion Dan Press and Mike Chase, both two-time winners this season. . . . There will also be sportsman main events at Saugus Speedway and Cajon Speedway Saturday night. Additionally, Saugus will have a 12-lap train race on the figure-8 course. . . . Street stocks will race Friday night at Ventura Raceway.

The Toyota unlimited super production series will run this weekend at Willow Springs Raceway, along with a Sports Car Club of America regional racing program. The super production main event will be held Sunday.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--National champion Bobby Schwartz and 1988 champion Steve Lucero, both of whom were disqualified for rough riding last week at the Orange County Fairgrounds, will be on probation in Friday night’s program on the tiny Costa Mesa oval. The two have clashed in five of the last eight Costa Mesa meetings and were reprimanded in a closed-door meeting with promoter Harry Oxley and referee Phil Moon. . . . Schwartz and Lucero will also be in action tonight at Ascot’s South Bay track, where Mike Faria has won five main events in seven starts.

MOTOCROSS--The Continental Motosports Club’s summer series will continue Friday night at Ascot Park and Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino.