Charity Newsies 10-Mile National Championship

CHARITY NEWSIES 10-MILE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

J. R. BEALL

THE AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE ASSOCIATION’S ten-mile championship flat-track race was held at Columbus, Ohio as scheduled, but for a time during that eventful Sunday, few of the spectators, or the riders for that matter, would have given a plugged nickel for their chances of seeing a race that day.

The day of the race dawned sunny and hot and quite innocent in its outlook. By 10:00 AM, a terrific crowd had arrived to see the start of time trials. The track was shaping up nicely, and the riders turned in some good times, with Tony Murguia running the fastest expert time, and Don Kiger the fastest amateur. By noon, ominous clouds had gathered and a few drops of rain fell, but nothing to get upset about. The amateur heats got underway on time with Don Kiger of Lancaster, Ohio winning the first one easily on his BSA. Kiger is one of the most promising riders we have seen for some time, having developed a sort of “Klamfothian” style.

The second amateur heat was won by another Ohioan, Ted Heil, from Dayton, Til Akehurst of Baltimore, Maryland took the third heat, and it might be added that Til, along with expert rider Ron Twigg, were the only non-Ohio riders to win any events this day.

The first expert heat was just about to start when, without noticeable warning, it began to rain. Rain is much too mild a term for the ensuing deluge — cloudburst would be closer. In fact, had Noah been there, he might have been looking around for a few cubits and a couple of professional ark builders. This monsoon continued for over an hour, until it looked as though the track was about right for water skiing, and humorous comments of, “OK, everybody out of the pool” and “Has anyone notified the Coast Guard?” could be heard from all sides.' The only logical conclusion to be made from the prevailing watery conditions, was that the time had come to tool off home and wait for announcement of the rain date.

However, racing got started again about 5:00 PM, and surprisingly enough, the track surface was very good, being a little tacky, which allowed for some very fast laps. In the feature event, Ronnie Rail came through again, battling the whole ten miles with Tony Murguia, who placed second. Dick Hammer was third and the rest of the finishing order ran; Darrel Dovel, David Estep, Jody Nicholas, Roger Reiman, Gary Nixon, Babe DeMay, Art Barda, Duane Shadley and George Roeder. The elapsed time was 9:25.60. Expert heat races were won by David Estep, George Roeder, and Ronnie Rail. Don Twigg took the expert consolation with John Tibben second, and Dan Nealeigh third.

Bart Markel, national number one, was on hand with a good qualifying time, but something happened to his machine in his heat race, causing him not to make the feature. George Roeder and Dick Mann were also plagued by mechanical problems, which is probably why their names did not appear in the lists above. Roeder, incidentally, has decided to try his hand at four wheels, too, and he planned to drive a stock car in the Firecracker 400 on the 4th. •