Weekend Bike Rides Back on the Track at Ventura
A long-standing tradition of motorcycle racing at Ventura Raceway will be renewed this weekend after a one-year hiatus.
Tuesday night International Speedway programs featuring 500cc alcohol-fueled motorcycles without brakes were a staple at the track from 1971 through the 1980s, and the 1990s saw the advent of an annual flat-track race for vintage motorcycles.
Both events return, with the Outlaw Vintage Short Track Motorcycle Races taking place Saturday night and a speedway race Sunday.
Sunday morning plans include a motorcycle swap meet and an antique motorcycle show featuring bikes from the Otis Chandler Vintage Museum.
The vintage races were scrubbed in 1998 when track promoter Jim Naylor and event promoter David Hansen were unable to reach agreement on terms.
The speedway bikes’ last visit to Ventura was in 1995, when the raceway played host to the American World Championship Qualifier.
Hansen’s vision is to make the all-motorcycle weekend an annual event, and International Speedway promoter Brad Oxley hopes to hold three or four races per year at the raceway.
“Ventura Raceway has bent over backward to do this,” said Hansen, who owns an antique motorcycle shop in Oxnard and also promotes three other motorcycle swap meets at the Ventura Fairgrounds. “They are bringing in a special surface of [decomposed granite] for the Speedway bikes, which will make the surface very slippery.”
Naylor--who announces the races, grooms the racing surface and runs a full-time sign-painting business in addition to his promoting duties--estimated that preparing the track for motorcycles will consume an extra two days.
“It’s hero’s work,” Oxley said of Naylor’s efforts. “It really takes a lot of work to get the track smooth enough for speedway bikes.”
Said Hansen: “Jim changes hats faster than anybody I know.”
According to Hansen, the agreement to hold the vintage event was finalized around the first of the year, and the speedway plans were finalized in March.
Oxley got involved after bumping into Naylor at an off-season promoters’ workshop.
“Jim Naylor is a big player in the racing promoters workshops meetings,” Oxley said. “We saw him out there and talked to him a little bit about our event and our desire to be back at Ventura. When he was putting together the [vintage] event, he called us and asked us if we would want to be a part of it on Sunday.
“We normally don’t race Sunday events,” Oxley continued, “But a lot of the same people are going to be involved, so it just makes sense.”
Hansen believes the layoff won’t hurt attendance. “It just made everybody want this even more,” he said.
Vintage motorcycle racing has grown in popularity since Hansen held his first event in 1992, enabling him to add a 500cc support-class race and two senior classes.
Former AMA flat-track champions Eddie Mulder and Gene Romero are promoting the five-race West Coast Vintage Flat Track series, and results at Ventura will count toward the series’ championship.
International Speedway results will not count toward the West Coast points standings, which will offer a larger purse.
Oxley is leading the International Speedway points standings at the one-10th-of-a-mile Costa Mesa Speedway but will not race at Ventura so he can focus his full attention on promoting the event.
“We want to put on a good show, but we don’t want to put the added pressure of points on the guys who have only raced at the Costa Mesa bullring,” Oxley said.
The speedway races will be run in a scratch format, using three rounds of five-man round-robin heats with points awarded for each on a 4-3-2-1 0 basis. The top five will advance to the main event. Places six through 11 will compete in a last-chance race, the winner advancing.
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Gary Howard’s victory Saturday night in the 30-lap IMCA Sprint Car main event was his second in as many races since his return to Ventura Raceway. He won the inaugural IMCA Sprint Car track championship in 1995. . . . Mike Furlong of Thousand Oaks notched his first IMCA Modified 30-lap main event victory, going wire-to-wire after inheriting the pole when Kathy Pierson of Camarillo was in a collision at the start. . . . Steve Chuhaloff of Camarillo won the 15-lap I-4 Modified main event, and Richard Johnston of Thousand Oaks won the 15-lap Pony Stock main event.
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Rod Johnson of Canyon Country leads A.J. DiMarzo of Saugus by 30 points in the Super Late Model class at Irwindale Speedway. Johnson finished fifth Saturday in the main event won by Greg Pursley of Newhall. . . . Dusty McDonald of Simi Valley is tied for first with Gerrit Cromsigt of Pine Mountain Club in the Late Model standings. . . . T.K. Karvasek of North Hills trails Mike Price of San Pedro by 50 points in the Super Stock division. . . . Lee Ladd of Thousand Oaks holds a 32-point lead over Kevin Bernhardt of Fontana in the Mini Stock division.