Return Of The Stockton Mile

By John Logan

I’ve been a fan of flat-track racing for many years, be it TT or ½ mile or the granddaddy, the Mile. As a kid in the 60s I used to sneak into the Shasta County Fairgrounds in Anderson and watch the ½ mile TT races. I attended many San Jose Miles as well as a few Sacramento Miles, and I was saddened when they were cancelled years ago. A few months back, when I found out there was going to be a mile flat track race in Stockton, I knew I was going.

The event promoter, the Lodi Motorcycle Club, did a great job, despite getting hit with some very unusual and unexpected conditions. Before the opening practice there were warm but cloudy skies at 9:00 am which changed to lightning, thunder and a brief downpour. This closed the track for about an hour or so to re-groom and dry/pack the track, cutting short or even eliminating some practices.

The qualifiers had some pretty small fields of four to eight riders that quickly opened up gaps where, quite often, there was not much one-on-one racing after the first corner or so. I believe the spectators would have enjoyed the racing more if they had combined close classes, like 450 Expert, A, B and C, and put more riders on the track at once.
The main events went off without a hitch, until the Grand Finale Expert Unlimited race, where the track conditions had degraded to the point that after their warm up lap the racers conferred and decided they would not race until it track officials groomed it. Logic and safety won the call and the track maintenance crew was called out. This put the final race start close to sunset (on an unlit track) and it was fortunate that there were no further delays or accidents requiring the ambulance that could have resulted in a DNF for the final main event, which at 12 laps, seemed all too short.
Judging by the success of the event, maybe we should start calling it the First Annual Stockton Mile. With over 7000 paid fans in the packed grandstands, and vendors reportedly running out of food and drink, it wasn’t perfect, but it will doubtless be returning: practice makes perfect. Ah well.. It was a mile race. My first in a long time.