Bob and Hyla Sweet at Daytona this week

[Ron McCreary]

old time Fla ( especially Eau Gallie and Vero ) racers will remember Bob and Hyla. they moved to California many, many moons ago. Bob is the #21 in the third pic down on this page:
http://4qracing.homestead.com/earlydays.html

their son Sammy will be running AMA flat track tonight ( Wed, 3 /5 ) at the Daytona Municipal Stadium. he's getting back into motorcycle racing for the first time in years. his number is 60N.

heats start at 8, feature scheduled for 10:45. open pits 6pm-7:30.

http://www.amaflattrack.com/article....1063&aid=11064

Todd

[ancrdave]

Hey Ron... Nice web site... Great pick of that #4 Dodge Dart... Wasn't that the same car Henry Pullen drove??

[Todd McCreary]

http://sammysweetracing.com/

Sammy gets some fantastic starts but the ring rust/big race jitters are still showing. he qualified 9th out of 93 riders. only 16 make the feature.

starting 2nd in his heat ( #4 ) he jumped to the lead by turn 2. unfortunately, he kept washing out of the turns and there is no cushion to speak of at Daytona Municipal. after dicing back and forth for the lead and then 2nd for the first half of the race he calmed down and settled back to a 3rd place finish. only the top two transfer out of the heat to the feature however.
http://www.amaproracing.com/prorace/...&type=h&rnum=4

his last chance qualifier ( #4 again ) was very odd. the pole sitter jumped the start and got sent to the back. this left Sammy on the inside front row. on the start Sammy crashed in turn 2, bringing out the red and a full restart. after the 4min hot box repair session, Sammy was allowed to restart but joined the pole sitter on the back row. on the third start Sammy pulled one of his patented fast starts and passed four bikes around the outside by turn 2. too bad a rider went down in turn 3 and the race was red flagged again. this rider was also able to fix his bike so they finally got a good start off on their 4th attempt with three riders being penalized to a 3rd row start. Once again Sammy passed ~3 riders by turn two but was only able to make progress on two more by the end of the race. as the AMA only takes the winner from each last chance race to the feature this left him on the outside looking in.
http://www.amaproracing.com/prorace/...&type=s&rnum=4


all in all it's a pretty good showing for a guy who took a twenty year sabbatical. it's really bizarre to think that i probably saw Sammy run at the Elkhart County Fair back in the 80's and didn't even realize who he was.

at the rate he's going i expect he'll score his National point this year ( qualifying for a "National" feature race certifies you as a major rider ) and drop the "N" suffix from his number next year.

[Todd McCreary]

Dave
Ron says that Henry drove that before he did but it was Midge Garland's car. he got the ride when Henry moved to Jacksonville.




Nice web site.

all credit goes to Boneman. we just provided some incriminating pictures.

[ancrdave]

Yeah, that car was a screamer... Henry won quite a few races at Speedworld just after the track opened with Midge's car... I never knew Ron drove it too... Man, those were great days...