The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • 2

BREVARD 2 peedwayl aples, Billy hh Bad Boy Of The Eau Gallie 1 MV I 11, 4 1 4 If r'l I v- Vi 1 SPEEDWAY'S MOST SUCCESSFUL CAR FLIPS WITH OGDEN AT WHEEL Wheel sails over car after axel breaks (top right) By ED BERND JR. Staff Writer In two swift years super-fast Biily Maples has won the dubious title of Bad Boy of the Eau Gallie Speedway. He has managed to draw a suspension of something between six weeks and eternity for hitting a car that he couldn't pass, sending the car into the fourth turn wall and out of competition. "I MEANT to bump him," Maples admitted, "but I didn't mean to put him in the wall." The 36-year-old Maples, broad shouldered, weather beaten and looking tough as raw hide, says it's just jealousy and nothing else. The man who won the Florida state mini-stock championship in 1970 with his No.

8-Ball Sunbeam Imp and took the 1971 national championship in January talks defensively i bout his current troubles. "THEY'RE just jeal-. us," he said. "They hate a juy with self confidence, and I know I can drive the car and win and the man building my engine knows he can build the engine to win. They're tired of seeing me win, so they kicked me 3Ut." "They" is a combination of track management and drivers, Maples said.

On the Saturday night after Maples tangled with Randy Davis in the No. 76 Volvo a drivers meeting was called. At the end of the meeting a vote was taken. "Seven guys voted me out," Maples said. "Seven out of about 20 that were there." MAPLES, WHO has been suspended twice in the last three years for fighting, almost got into trouble after his run in with Davis on the track.

A sizeable crowd gathered in the pits and was finally dispersed by deputy sheriffs. I stood there that night," Maples said. "They called me so many bad names, but I just put my hands beind my back, gritted my teeth and took it. "Then, when I got back in that room (where the drivers meeting was held) they said I was suspended anyway, It got me so mad TWO 170 CHAMPS AND TROPHIES C. R.

Ogden, Billy Maples Hot Wheels, Hot Pants At Speedway Tonight individual, the kind you don't meet often nowadays. He is a natural athlete just ask him, he will tell you he has a lot of natural athletic ability. And he is a self-made man in the old tradition, who has been on his own since childhood. "When I was 15," he said, "my dad called me in and told me that he had been supporting me for 15 years, now he was going to do me a favor and let me start supporting myself." He did just that. Out of school at an age when you weren't allowed to get out, he went to work as a roofer.

Today he owns his own roofing company. At 17 he was married. "We celebrated our 19th anniversary Monday," he said proudly. ONE MAN who has known Maples for years laughed when he remem put a roof on my next doof, neighbor's house," he said. "They sang all day long.

They never stopped singing and laughing." He was born in but grew up in Miami, used to fight in the ring 47 fights with the last one as a professional. He won that by a knockout in the second round. "But I couldn't work all day as a roofer and fights too," he said. THOSE 47 fights still haunt him, for when he loses his temper and uses his fists a reputation follows him. Bill's 60 racing trophies, all won in the last two years, are not the only trophies he has.

He has won three of the four pool tournaments he has been in, taken several trophies on the shuffleboard games and plays "a pretty good game of Ping Pong." Hot pants will compete Eau Gallie Speedway to-with hot wheels for the night when the track offers crowd's attention at the a $50 prize to the girl with speedway. "I turned it over the second week out," Maples recalled. "Then the next week I won a heat race with it, my first win. Then I didn't win anything else for a year." LAST YEAR was when he teamed up with Brian i 1 1 an English mechanic who has the diplomas to prove he can work on British cars. "I was going to sell the Sunbeam," Maples said.

"But Brian told me he could make it win if I wouldn't sell it," The car has only a 998 cubic centemeter engine when the mini stock class allows 1600 and the Volvos run every cubic centerme-ter of that. "I KEPT the car, he built the engine, and now I win them all," Maples said. That is, he did. Now Ogden is back in the car, driving it and winning with it. Ogden won both heat races last Saturday and had an easy lead on the feature when, ironically, an axle broke and he had the car on its top, just as Maples had had it on its top the second week he was in it.

MAPLES IS a rare because I tried so hard to keep from fighting, and they suspended me anyway. I wished then that I had gone ahead and hit somebody because there were three or four I should have hit." MAPLES understands the difference between notoriety and popularity. "Ninety per cent of the people come out there to see me get beat," he said. "Ten per cent want to see me win." Maples started racing four years ago. He was one of the first in the new mini stock class at the Eau Gallie Speedway and' that is where most of his racing has been done.

"It's just a sport with toe," he said. "I love racing and I love the track. I've supported the track. I usually have two cars out there and sometimes have three." The No. 10 Sunbeam belongs to Bill.

HE GOT HIS start in an English Ford he and Bill Clark built four years ago. "I mangled that car for about six months," he said. "Then I got a Volvo and mangled that for about six months." Then he bought the Sun-b a his well known 8-Ball, from C. R. Ogden, one of the top drivers at the the hot pants outfit the fans like best.

This week's racing program starts the final nine-week scoring period that will finish the season. THREE WELL-known STEVE'S AMERICAN SERVICE bered him on a job. "They FULL '71 ENDURO LINE Auto Repairs WE SPECIALIZE IN TUNE-UP AND BRAKE SERVICE Steve Potts 142 N. Cocoa Blvd. Phone NE 6-44S3 COCOA, FLA.

IN STOCK AT CYCLESPORT VISIT OUR OPEN AIR SHOW ROOM SALES SERVICE PARTS ACCESSORIES 489 BALLARD MELBOURNE PHONE (305) 254-4189 (LESS SOUND MORE GROUND) A drivers won the highest number of points in their classes during the nine-week period just finished. Bill Maples, suspended three weeks ago for at least six weeks, accumulated enough points in his 8-Ball Sunbeam Imp to lead the mini-stock class. Jack Cart's No. 92 Chevy took top honors in the limited stock class for the nine weeks. AND TOM Waring's No.

98 Mustang led a close race for high points in the early modified class. Drivers will draw for starting positions in tonight's races. After they start accumulating points, the cars are assigned starting spots based on the total number of points they have accumulated. THE CARS with the highest number of points start at the back, the lowest at the front. This has been one of the biggest seasons in a long time for the speedway.

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1 at Sarno Eau Gallie The Pilot House Dickerson Marine Center 254-1591' PHONE 254-1529 i BILLY MAPLES IN THE 8-BALL Before it became Ogden's No. 0 Era 3 races, there were still more than 49 cars out for the three divisions. More than that are expected for the hot competition of the final weeks of the season. ITR Tl EVERY SATURDAY smtm vr NIGHT! k.t LU BREVARD'S OLDEST MOTORCYCLE DEALER FEATURING HONDA GATES OPEN AT 7:00 P.M i PIT STOP THE GENUINE BUGHOUSE lliilljfclii7l 1 3 CLASSES CF CARS MINI-STOCKS EARLY MODEL MODIFIEDS LIMITED STOCKS WEEKLY FEATURE fiF THE BREVARD SENTINEL STAR mmmm 3UB TO KEEP RACE FANS UP TO DATE ON LATEST LOCAL NATIONAL COMPETITION NEWS 1-4 I SHEARER VOLKSWAGEN, IliC. MELBOURNE TO ADVERTISE PHONE COCOA 636-5331 TITUSVILLE 267-2932 MELBOURNE 723-5286 fM.

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