American Speedway
American Speedway: Harmatiuk celebrates homecoming with main event win at Industry Speedway.
By Admin
Jul 17, 2008, 20:35

Shaun Harmatiuk made his homecoming a success Wednesday night by winning the main event on an unusual night of Speedway Motorcycke racing at Industry Speedway.

Harmatiuk, of Garden Grove, was making his first appearance at The Grand arena after competing in Europe and England for several months, and he obviously found the tight, short track at the Industry Hills Expo Center to his liking.

“This track is really short (about 160 yards),” he said after becoming the fourth main event winner of the season and the third in the past three weeks. “A lot of tracks in England are three times this size or more, and to try to take the corners when it’s this tight is hard. We just kept playing with the bike all night.”

Harmatiuk, who won the second of his three heat races and inherited a win in the second semifinal, started the 4-lap main event on the pole, with Shawn McConnell, Ricky Wells, Jimmy Fishback and Eddie Castro to his right, in order. He used that pole position to his advantage, getting the lead from Wells and McConnell in the first turn, and then withstanding constant pressure from McConnell, of Brea.

Wells, who won the July 9 feature, was third this time, with Castro fourth and Fishback last due to mechanical problems.

A night that already had been made unusual by the use of 5-rider qualifying heats instead of the customary 4 riders per heat in the First Division got even stranger in the late stages of the program when main event winners Charlie Venegas and Buck Blair failed to make the main event, Neil Facchini won his semifinal but got disqualified, and leading qualifier McConnell had to win the Last Chance Qualifier to get his spot after falling on the final lap of his semifinal.

McConnell’s semifinal was the one Facchini won by holding off Harmatiuk and Wells in what easily was his best ride of the season. But before the Riverside rider had a chance to celebrate he was disqualified because the muffler on his motorcycle had become separated from the exhaust pipe, an inadvertent violation of the rules.

Venegas, who has won eight of the 11 main events this season, had to win a runoff from Brad Sauer of Bakersfield to get the 10th and final spot in the semifinals. The San Bernardino resident finished third in his semifinal, missing the main by one spot, and was third behind McConnell and 16-year-old Russell Green of San Bernardino in the Last Chance race, from which only the winner advanced.

Blair, who won the main event June 4, had been one of the top scorers in qualifying, with three second-place finishes. But he was third behind Fishback and Wells in his semifinal and pulled off the track on the second lap of the Last Chance Qualifier.   

INDUSTRY SPEEDWAY RESULTS - Wednesday, July 16, 2008

FIRST DIVISION

Heat race winners
1. Shawn McConnell, Brea; 2. Jimmy Fishback, Rancho Cucamonga; 3. Ricky Wells, Yorba Linda; 4. Brad Sauer, Bakersfield; 5. Shaun Harmatiuk, Garden Grove; 6. Charlie Venegas, San Bernardino; 7. McConnell; 8. Eddie Castro, Ojai; 9. Bobby Schwartz, Costa Mesa.

QUALIFYING POINTS
Points for the 5-rider heats were awarded on the basis of 4 for a heat win, 3 for second, 2 for third and 1 for fourth; the top 10 scorers advanced to the semifinals:

McConnell 10 (4-2-4);  (3-2-2); Fishback 9 (4-2-3); Harmatiuk 9 (3-4-2); Wells 9 (4-3-2); Buck Blair, Huntington Beach, 9 (3-3-3); Schwartz 8 (3-1-4); Castro 7 (2-1-4); Neil Facchini, Riverside, 7 (2-3-2); Russell Green, San Bernardino, 7 (2-2-3); Venegas 6 (1-4-1); Brad Sauer 6 (1-4-1); Robbie Sauer, Bakersfield, 2 (1-0-1); Jason Ramirez, Orange, 1 (0-1-0); Marvin Sonnier, Bakersfield, 0.

Venegas beat Brad Sauer in an elimination race for the 10th position.

First semifinal
1. Fishback; 2. Castro; 3. Blair; 4. Green; 5. Schwartz.

Second semifinal
1. Harmatiuk; 2. Wells; 3. Venegas; 4. McConnell; 5. Facchini (finished first, but disqualified because the muffler had separated from the exhaust pipe).

Last Chance qualifier
1. McConnell; 2. Green; 3. Venegas; 4. Blair.

Main event
1. Harmatiuk; 2. McConnell; 3. Wells; 4. Castro; 5. Fishback.

OTHER MAIN EVENT WINNERS

Second Division – Allen Doss, Riverside.
Third Division – Blake Bowen, Moreno Valley.
Youth – Rocco Scopellite, .
PeeWee – Nicholas Varner; Christian Terranova.