Saturday–Sunday, 20-21 Aug 2022
Harry writes:
The Sacramento Mile Flat-track racing event turn out to be one hot event. We SMBC’ers met up in Livermore at 8am Saturday, with Ron, Rich, Russ, Chris W, Rob, Paul, and myself in attendance, before heading off to the delta’s island levee roads. Actually, Rob was heading elsewhere after coffee to beat the day’s forecast heat.
Up and over the Antioch bridge with not even a breeze noticeable. Sherman Island was the first loop, then on to Twitchell, then Brannon for a break at Pirate’s Lair, where the local islanders were all busy preparing for the annual delta Loop Fest 2022. www.deltaloop.net A day of food trucks, music, arts and crafts, and of course drink, at all the various marinas in the area. Kinda like a pub crawl, but with boats and cars, what could go wrong? We were glad to be moving on, and off the narrow, bumpy island road.
Our next stop was the historical town of Locke. It is the only town in the United States built exclusively by the Chinese Americans for the Chinese Americans, who built the delta levees. Established in 1915, Locke still looks very much like it did 107 years ago, and as a registered landmark, acknowledges the legacy of their extraordinary efforts in developing agriculture in California.
The day was getting hotter as we made our way to Rio Vista for a refreshing lunch in the cool air conditioned restaurant, The Point, complete with a beautiful waterfront view on the Sacramento River. Randy arrived to join us, as did (albeit a bit late) friends of mine from high school, Jimmy & his wife Laura, then PJ, son Paul, and Paul’s father in law, the three all riding Harleys, as was Randy. What? Sorry, I can’t hear you…
With lunch complete, as Russ & Paul head back home, it was off to the races for us, well, to the cool hotel I should say. The River road (160) was getting blistering hot as we approached Sacramento. With a well needed stop along the roadside for water, indicators were reading 100. We finally check in to the hotel and greet two more of my high school chums, John A, and John B. Hum, that’s kinda funny writing their last name initials. Anyway, both the John’s had driven up, and graciously offer to drive us to the track in cool comfort, oh yeah!!
Three more friends of mine from Pioneer, Terry, Beth, and Chris arrive at the race track to join our grouping of tables, located in the Turf Club section. This track is a horse track venue, so a lot of work goes into preparing not only the protective air bag/hay bale fencing, but the actual track dirt, so that it can safely withstand a full day of motorcycle racing. Lots of water and a lot of packing it down went on, and the day got hotter.
The heat was really affecting the riders as well as pit crews, so much so that the regularly scheduled 5-6pm open pit area/rider autograph event was postponed until after the last race of the night, giving the riders and crews time to cool down inside their RVs for that hour.
So the racing is comprised of three classes, single cylinder 450’s, twin 750s, and the production 750s. All roaring down the dirt straightaway at 140mph, and sliding round the turn to the next straightaway.
The production class main event finished with 2 Harley Davidson XG-750’s on the podium, accompanied by a Yamaha MT-07 on the third step. The single class had the Yamaha YZ450-F on the top, followed by a KTM 450 SX-F, and the Husqvarna 450FC in third.
The last race saw battle by the twins, ending with the Yamaha MT-07 in front, followed by two Indian FTR750s. Young 19 year old rookie Dallas Daniels fended off two top riders, Jared Mees, and Briar Bauman, for what could be a challenging quest for the season’s high point standings, earning the number 1 plate, with only four races to go.
We skipped the rescheduled 10pm pit event and opted for a late night cocktail/gab session back at the hotel.
Sunday breakfast at the hotel, included chats with the winning teams and riders, before their trip to the next venue, the Springfield Mile in Illinois. After breakfast, a goodbye to old friends, then riders Chris W, Ron, Ran, Rich and myself headed home. We rode the River road to a break stop at a waterfront park in Isleton, then on to Rio Vista where Chris and Ran headed to the BigHorn for libations, while Rich, Ron, and I went home to put out the garbage.
Hopefully the 2023 Sacramento Mile will have cooler weather, and the delta waterways will have both ferries up and running…
Pics of Locke from Chris
Rest stop pics from Randy
