Fresno's Brandan Bergen was the class of the field Saturday night in the Eddie Mulder West Coast Vintage dirt track motorcycles races at Ventura Raceway.

Bergen ran away from the field of the top 14 riders in the Digger Helm Professional 600 class. Kris Bunch finished second in the 20-lap feature in front of more than 4,000 spectators. Don Howard was third and Kenny Malaguarnero was fourth.

Bergen took a victory lap with Helm as the Eddie Mulder series attracted the largest crowd of the racing season in Ventura. The Ventura County Fair races draw overflow crowds.

While the Ventura Racing Association sprint cars are in the spotlight on Saturday nights, promoter Jim Naylor hadn't offered motorcycle racing since the 2005 season.

Mulder was a former AMA National No. 12 racer and was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.

The 63-year-old Mulder, a Bellflower native, started racing when he was 11. Mulder is one of the leading stunt riders in Hollywood. He raced his C&J framed-Triumph at Ventura during the 2004 races.

Motorcycle racing announcer Jamey Blunt mentions Mulder jumping his motorcycle off a pier during high tide for a Clint Eastwood movie.

Newhall's Mickey Alzola was another racer with stunt heroics at Magic Mountain on a roller coaster, according to Blunt.

Bob Harris, 83, was the oldest racer and another stuntman from Aqua Dulce.

"Fast" Eddie Castro entertained the throng by winning a feature and he started speedway motorcycle racing in 1979 on the Ventura dirt oval. Castro is still racing speedway on Wednesday nights in the City of Industry, Friday and Saturday nights at Costa Mesa and Victorville. When Castro started speedway, Bobby Schwartz was one of the fan favorites from Santa Barbara and Schwartz is still sliding around the tracks.

Naylor was promoting speedway in Ventura when Castro was facing a number of strong riders. Helm was a speedway promoter in Bakersfield.

Blunt is no stranger to racing in Ventura. He was calling his eighth vintage race at the track.

Keith Speir, owner of Channel Island Flooring, is one of the local heroes running in the Mulder series, which has had several races in Tulare. The next race will be at the Kern County Fair in Bakersfield in September. Speir's wife, Rhonda, is one of the series scorekeepers. Speir has turned to off-road motorcycle racing and will tackle the likes of Baja and other events this year.

Speir and Simi Valley's Ron Alexander race in the 50-and-older senior division with bikes from 1974 and earlier. Ventura's Bill Kolkman and Simi Valley's John lundgren are among the local racers in the 35-and-over Vet Division.

Jason Pridmore won his first oval race. Pridmore retired from 16 years of road racing last fall. He was a three-time AMA Superbike champion. Pridmore operates his own local motorcycle racing school.

A.J. Herrera won the Modern 750 feature and Ron Lessley was victorious in the Modern 500 1974-and-earlier motorcycle race.

Ventura Raceway will be dark until July 14 when the VRA sprint cars, senior sprints, dwarf cars, mini dwarf cars and junior midgets return to racing. Information; 985-5433 or http://www.VenturaRaceway.com.