Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1960's

PAGE EIGHT ---CYCLE NEWS MEET GARY CONRAD • • • • By DAVID SHAW If Gary Conrad had his choice, he • • • would have been 300 miles from the Mojave Desert last Sunday, hunting fowl i~ Northern Cali fornia. Bu t he had no cho ice. He 's been after the No . I lightweight desert plate all year, and not even the opening of the hunting season Saturday could have prevented him from riding the state championship . hare scrambles the next da y. So he rode - and finished ahead of every other lightweight in the fiel d to add the state hare scrambles championship to the state hare and ho und and nati onal hare scrambles 'cham pionships he had won earlier this summer. Gary and his father, Rudy , have been huntin g partners si nce Gary was old enough t o carry a gu n. Every year, t hey go north to Merced and Wasco t o shoot ducks, geese and Quail. 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G ary, the ri de r , an d Rudy. the tuner, have worked hard this year t o win the No. I plate in li ghtweigh t desert com petition. With a 450-point lead over the field, one woul d think Gary cou ld have ski pped last Sundays race. Bu t he too k no ch ances. "I want that No. I badly," Ga ry told CYCLE NEWS . "To earn it, yo u have to ride every race whether you like the course or not and w hether you would rather do something else or n ot. If I finish No. I, I'll probably slack off a little next year, and just ride the events I like. I'll get to do a little more hunting, too, I imagine." Gary says riding every Sunday has made motorcycle racing "alm ost like a business th is year. I want to get back to riding just a couple of times month so r id ing wi ll be fun, like it was when I first started." Now a 22-year-old plumber's apprentice, Gary began riding in 1956 while a I3-year-old Palmdale junior high school st ude nt. He had a 165cc Harley-Davidson street machine which he stripped and geared down for practice weekend riding in the desert. The next year, he got a Dot and entered his first race. He fell four times and fouled 15 plu gs. By the time he finished the fir st loo p, every other ri der had finished the whole race. Two months later, Gary rode again an d was the first lightweight to cross the finis h line. He 's been in front ever si nce. He was the first lightweight to finish in 31 of his 74 desert races . He's won 17 scrambles races in 63 tries. And in the two types of racing combin ed , he's finished among the to p three 107 times in 137 races. Ga ry rode most of his scrambles in 1962. and has r idden very few since because he doesn 't find them challenging. a- THE fINISH UNE Not too many experts h ave the patien ce to w ait t wo years t o win their first ma in event. Gu y Louis did and it paid off last week on t he Ascot oval. His win was one of t he most decisive this year and one of the fastest I5-lap trips recorded. Guy wa s a hotshot amateur a couple of years ago. He set some .records that still stand. It is hard to be a big winner one year and just one of the boys the next two. Now that he has won one and kn ows th e combination don 't be sur pri sed to see hi m win at least one of the remaining three events. Louis has been backed by Bill Heins and Shell Motors since he started racing in 1962. Heins is an ex -rider w h o is a full-t ime police sergeant when not playing with Enfield racing engines. Branch is Back J erry Branch is back in the racing business with h is trim orange and white H-D. J im Nicholson is the current pilot who is givin g the fans a treat to some fin e slidi ng and pure horsepower runs down the shutes, Nine experts have now won at least one main event this season. This tops any previous records at Ascot for the amount of ri ders to sit in the select circle with a white number plate. " Winning a T.T. scrambles depends more on the machine than the rider," he says. "Take Prado, for instance. If y ou have the horsepower, you win. If y ou don't have it, you don't win. I li ke something that te sts the rider a little more . That's w hy I stick to the desert: ' Even on t he de sert, Ga ry admits, there are courses that don't ch allenge th e ri der. Th ese are the type courses he will skip next ye ar. "When I get out there, I want it rou gh - rocks, hills, sandwashes anything that ma kes me try harder. I don't li ke to ride a fast, flat course that anyone can handle," he says. Gary, a native of Los Angeles who now lives in Palmdale, is a stocky, 5-foot lO-inch 170 pounder who s e physical ability is matched by his drive and determination in the desert. That combination has enabled h im to carry the No. 5X plate twice, the No. 3X plate once and the No . 7X plate once in the last four years. And that same combination will probably earn him the No. Ix plate this year. . If he does finish No . I, t he first people to congratulate him will be his two biggest supporters-his father, Rud y, and his sponsor, Nick Nicholson. Both men have been with Gary all the way, helping and encouraging him throughout his career. Rudy even keeps a log on every race Gary rides. According to t hat log, Gary has ridde n 7,600 miles in com pe titive r a eing, To ri de that far, a motorcyclist starting in Los Angeles would have to ride clear to New York, then on throu gh P ortugal, Spain , Italy, Hungary an d Greece into Istanbul, Turkey. To do that, of course, he would have to ride across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. But then there are those who say Gary Conrad just might be able to ride on water. He's ridden on everything else. By R OXY ROCKWOOD Only ten ri ders make the final each week so th e fie ld is only one sh y of be ing a complete winning lineup from end to end. All winners this year are California riders. All bu t one will be entered for the state championship race on the final night, No v. 12. Biggest bench racing argument going these days is who is . the best amateur-Eddie Hammond, Nicholson, Gene Rom ero or Ch uck Jones. It gets real heated in some quarters. All Four Toug h Of the four, Romero appe ars to be th e best all-around in h alf-mile and TT events. Nicholson is a shade behind with Jones third. Hammond looks better and better on the oval but still need s mo re time in TT events. Qu ite a few brand changes are in the wind for next season by top riders. There are also many rumored changes in racing machines for '66. Look for BSA to jump back in with both feet. Road race foll owers of the AMA type may ha ve some good news in a few weeks. The same can be said for riders that have been waiting for some indoor short track racing in the L.A. area ove r the winter months. '"

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