2004 Billy Hamill Gumball Rally

[Ryan]

The 2004 Billy Hamill Gumball Rally will be held Saturday, February 21 and Sunday, February 22 at Maely's Ranch in Corona, California. This is one of the biggest events on the youth speedway calendar and attracted a lot of interest last year.

That interest spans internationally this year as Simon Gustafsson and Linus Eklöv are traveling from Sweden to compete in the event. Gustafsson, the son of former Speedway Grand Prix rider Henka Gustafsson, is the current 80cc Swedish National Champion and finished third in the Youth World Championship last year. Eklöv competes for the youth team at Smederna, Hamill's Swedish team. They will battle defending Gumball Rally Champion Ricky Wells, last year's runner-up Tim Gomez, and other top youth riders from California.

Hamill resurrected the event last year because it has fond memories for him. His first competitive speedway race was the first Gumball Rally at Maely's Ranch in 1983. The trophy that day was an authentic gumball machine filled with gumballs. Billy has stated that he really wanted to win that trophy and was disappointed that he didn't. This year's event will have gumball machines for trophies.

 

More details at Speedwaybikes.com

[Ryan]

Here are the results from the 2004 Billy Hamill Gumball Rally. To read the complete report, go to http://www.speedwaybikes.com/res04_w/km040229.htm

 

80cc Scoring 1 2 3 4 5 T

1 - Simon Gustafsson 3 3 3 3 3 15

2 - Linus Eklöf R 0 1 1 1 3

142 - Ricky Wells 2 2 2 2 2 10

146 - Tyler Odom 1 1 R 0 0 2

 

200cc B Final

21 - Gino Manzares

114 - Joey Holt

5 - Ricky Valdez

 

200cc A Final

223 - Tamara Krips

8 - Austin Novratil

69 - Blake Bowen

 

250cc B Final

99 - Miles Calvin

29 - Jay Ricketts

1 - Simon Gustafsson (non starter)

2 - Linus Eklöf (non starter)

146 - Tyler Odom (non starter)

 

Gumball Rally Championship Final (restarted)

142 - Ricky Wells

27 - Krystal Cramer

66 - Jason Ramirez (penalty line)

301 - Dale Facchini