Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1960's

-America's Only Weekly Motorcycle Newspaper" YOU'II '~. alwa'. . . . . . Publisher••••• Charles C . Clay ton ... It Edito ria l stories , ca rtoo ns , pho tos . Busine s s Manager•• Sharon Clayton etc . are we lcomed and wiJI be paid Ci rcula tion Mj(r ••• GayI' Thomason FI~ST • • • • for upon publication (e xcept press Editor• •• •••• ••••• Carol Sims release s and " Voice" letters.) Ad,\ d ve rti ~ ng M gr•••• • • Tom Culp dres sed. stamped envelope assures Photo EdItor••••• Denni s Greene return. Bookkeeper. , • JoAnne Stephenson &411 N, LHg Beach Blvd. Single ro py price • •• • • ••• • 25¢ Lab Technician•• ••BiII Peurgrew Subscription: One year 2nd cl ass Long Beacll, Calif, 50805 Receptioni st. ••••Louise Marshall M ••• ••• ••••••• ••• $7.50 ail Or: Box 4!8, LOIIg Beach, Calif. P ubli shed week ly excep t the Ii rs t One Y~ar First Class Mail• • $14.00 and last week of the calendar yea r Phone: 423-0431 (Subs cn bers please allow three by c&s P ublis hing Co, ; Pos t Office weeks for address chanae.) (Area Code 213) Box 498. Long iseach , California . Advertis in g ra tes and circulation Seco nd Class posta ge paid a t Long Fnm L.A, Phones: &3&-8844 I nformatio n will be se nt upon request. Beach, Calif. INVITATION TO SALINAS TERMIN-ATIO N! In reading Maureen Lee's account of L1gbtweights TT In your February 9, 1968 paper I find she neglected to mention that sandy Termln was first in the first two motos while starting on the front line. In the last moto she started in the back row with the amateurs. Kelly Struble number 23x led the last race with sandy Termin In second place. On the final lap at the rock turn sandy Termln faile d to shut down for her turn. collided with the rear wheel of Struble's Hodaka and flipped her own bike end over end. Perhaps Maureen Lee was too busy racing at that time to adequately cover this event. LEE JOHNSON HWltington Bch., Calif. ·Well. it is a liUl e hard to take notes .men you are going buckety-bucke ty on a lIke.· THANKS FOR THE RESCU E I would like to take this opportunity through your very fine paper to thank the Prospectors M.C. for their help on the Gold Rush Endur o last weekend. My scooter br oke down in a very inacce ssible area and without a lot of extra e!fort by sev eral of their members hip my bike would still be there. Thanks again for the loan of the rear wheel, fellas . A good job and a good run . DICK AHLESFELD Or ange County M,C. Orange, Calif. "This letter Is written to serve two purposes - to tell you that I think your paper Is great and also to tell you whal I think about your so-called gr eat hots hoe Southern Calif. riders that have journeyed up here to r ide our rac e track at saunas, the sand pit. Every time we have a race we are lucky to have one or two riders from the greater L,A. areas come UP. And then we all sit back and watch them get thor oughly beaten back by the local guys. And just to set the record straight this track Is run 3-4 times a year in the spring. There have been two r iders who have done any good at all up here. One is the gr eat John Rice (#1 - send him up again) and G, Bailey on his Greeves. Even National Numbers have ventured up here and been beaten by a man who has never been beaten on the track, John Lamonte of Hollister. Also as for the track being a TT track, you are wrong wrong wrong wrong. True, not as rough as a moto- cross - but still rough. As Preston Petty said, " You only have to shut o!f on a few places." If this Is so, why no better pla cing than he did? Something is amiss som ewher e. Now I have written to many riders down there to get them to come up here• Only a few bothered to answer . All in all you have a good pape r and Ilook forward to It every week. But if your riders down there are so all s o darn fast wby don't they come uP here more often ? It seems to me the attitude is why go there and get beat. Also some more credlt goes to the Sallnas Ramblers for puttin g on the s moothest run races anywhere I have ever r idden, including your area and Washington. Let's have some of your big name guns come up here. The track Is rough. Knobble s are a mus t. The next r ace Febr uary 25. It 's about the only rough track left up here outside of Richmo nd. DON W, WILSON salinas , Calif. POINTS PROBLEM I'M WITH CLIFF I am wr iting you at the reques t of several of our Bay Ar ea racers . Your inval uable jour nal r ece ntly published what was titled the Annual ACA Points s tandings . Several San Francisco Chapter AFM riders Joined the ACAlast year and won a goodly number of ACA races . Yet our names cannot be round in the s tandings . I mys elf won both produ ction and grand prix ACA ra ces , "Ron Grant won at least 8 ACA races, and Art Baumann not many fewer. None of us are on that list. And, as I figure it, Grant won the 250 class for the year, yet the prize appears to bel ong to the more familiar ACA racer, and a fine racer he is, Buddy Parriott. I bave written to Mr. Wes Cooley about these curiously cons istent anomalies. I hope you will find space for this inqulry and, if he furnishes you with one, Mr. Cooley'S answer. 1bank you. ANTHONY HERBOLD President AFM san Francisco Bay Area Chap. Piedmont, Calif. (·You've no doubt recei ved Mr. Cooley's reply ~ now, but we'll explain the ACA's position in tile points matter so lItat everyone involved will be inronned . Membership in the ACA costs $2.00. aDd Ibis entitles winning riders to receive trophies and /orprize money. However, to be eligible for points. members must also purcbase either a Senior ($10) or Junior ($5) rompe:.ition license from the ACA. All the riders mentioned in your leUer are inde ed ACA members, but the $2.00 vari e ty, hence ineli gible tor points, though weirome to race and win whatever a wards are given.· ) In response to ClI!! Boswell ' s letter In Voices , I would like to be one of the charter members In the organization for the pr evention of cruel ty to road r iders thai Cll!! suggests. I agree with Cliff that we need a s trong or ganization to keep the politicos from walking al lover us. Cll!! has seen a lot of water go over the bridge, and he predicts that if present trends continue, we motorc yclists may have to find a dllierent hobby. Motorcycles can, and have been legislated of! the roads. I read that some country, New Zealand, 1 think, passed so many re strictions against bikes, that It became impractical to own one. It can and will happen here if we don't band together and fight like hell. Except for a few like you and Cll!! , no one seems to be concerned enough to fight back. The guys who are sitting on their butts and doing nothing now are the ones who will scream the loudest when they can't ride their bikes out of the driveway without breaking a dozen new hen-house laws and having the bookthrown at them. GEORGE HAYS Midway City, Calif. TELL THEM YOU SAW IT IN CYCLE NEWS GUY URQ UHART, SAN DIEG O'S OLDEST DEALER D IES B~ Earl Roloff Bor n In the s ummer of 1895 in Kentucky, Guy Ur quhar t migrated westward In the early 1900's with his retired parents. At the tender age of 17 he enjoyed his first business venture in the El Centro area. Mining gold and driving trucks down Mexico way to make ends meet in his lItUe bike and sporting goods shop, the lure of the motortzed two-wheelers caught his young fancy. . Acquiring an Indian and Flying Merkel fr anchis e, he soon fOWld that he lacked the experience to compete against the oldsters , so he packed up and moved into the san Diego area to purchase an Indian dealership from his older brother Jim. Taking over in 1926 he soon had the local scene well in hand and moved from his Market Street location to the pr esent facility In downtown san Diego. Parti cipating in and promoting events in this area such as the san Juan Capistrano Hill Cli mbs , san Diego Night Rac- Ing (a first), he soon gained renown in the sport. Importing the J .A.P. speedway machine was another first and when Indian popularity walned In the late 40'S, he 'was one of the few with the foresight to jump on the Br itish bandwagon with Bill Johnson and Triumph. This same business foresight was again demonstrated In •63 when he took on the Yamaha line several years ahead of his competitors. Guy amassed a goodly ' Income with real estate and ca ttl e , but those who knew him will tell you, and I'm sure, that his heart was always with the motorcycle business. Two for mer employees , Floyd Emde and Joe Leonard rose to racing tame and Guy also gave Indian Its last "big" win at Daytona Beach in ' 48. For a man who was active in a time when sidearms were fashionable and san Diego's Main Street was a dirt road, no greater fulfU1ment could be than that which was his. To have lived a full life, reached his goals and ambitions and accumulated a vast wealth not only of financial assets but of "fr iends" as well. THE NEW IMAGE By Chuck Clayton No Rain On This Parade It' s only 7:3 0 p.m.a ful l half-hour until ra c e tirne . The As tr od ome' s hi ve o f re d, purpl e and gold s e a ts ar e already half full of well-d re s s e d T e xans. I don' t kno w what e lse T exa s is number o ne i n a ny more . but it c ertainly i s number one i n pro ra c ing e nth usi asm, j udg i ng by this turnout• .A re co rdbreaking crow d is e xpecte d for thi s fi rst mot orcy c le ra c e .in the famo us A s tr odome . Houston's pro udes t landma rk . The dome is unbe li e vab ly lar ge. Kni e ve l mi ght barely j ump over it a t fu ll throttle, but it would be c lose . Ima gine As cot P a rk wi th a so rt o f geo desic glass a nd .s te el bowl ove r it , and seats bubbling halfway up to t he to p, a ll a rou nd a dirt t ra ck about the s i ze of a foot ba ll fie ld . . T he track is s hiel d-sha pe d; ro und a t one e nd and poin te d at the o the r , With short ch? tes betwee n. the 5 co rne rs . Hay bale s mark the track, e ve ry other one dra pe d With a red . white a nd blue ba nne r. T he ra cers wi ll follo w thesame pa th around the track a s wate r i n a tube of the same shape . T he ir groove is nearly a perfect c i rc le . Unbo unded cr edit is deserved by the AMA . who provided the stru c ture of th e show , a nd by P a c e Management who promot ed it, and by the fans who are fi lling the ' Dome nearly to it s ca paci ty , an d e s pe ci a ll y by the ra c er s who a re going to make .the best of t he only se rio us ly bad fe at ure of th e Na tio'nal the track . It i s a sca ry track , no t enti re ly up to Nation al c alibre . Most fa ns won ' t notice the differ enc e , ho we ver. Thos e who cam e to see· s pill s a nd a c cidents wi ll not be disa ppointe d . T he one s who app re c iate the beauty of power under control will not be di sappoint ed e it he r , for the Exp er ts ha ve a hard re s pe ct for the rou gh corne rs and the s li ppe ry spo t where track prepar a tion missed s ome di rt . It is e a sy to see wha t wa s l acking in pre pari ng the tra c k . Th e dirt fl oor of the Astrodome ca ll s for a sca rifier of s ome kind to bre ak up the s urfa c e uniformly a nd take out the ruts. In future races we ca n expect the tra ck to i mprove , and the records s e t here toni gh t wlll be eas ily brok en. But t he track is the same for all. and the 'sho w wlll be goo d thanks to the s kill of t he compe ti tors , Transc en din g T he Gene r ati on Gap It was s tar ti ng to rain a s I carn e in to nig ht, and now it i s pourin g outsid e. The ra in might hurt the rhubarb . but it won't fall on the parade this night. Unde r the snug dome the houselights come on at 8:03 and with them an a lmost e ndle s s parade of sbnners , seven groups in all, e a c h compri s in g 16 or 18 men in jaunty fezze s, with tassles streami ngJn the bre eze created by the s pe e d of the.lr Hondas , Mustangs and Cu shman Eagles. They ar e dressed in tuxedoes of eve ry ba s ic hue: Red tu xe does on snow white Hondas, gre e n tuxedoe s on ye llow Mustangs , blue tu xedo e s with red Cushmans, e tc. T hey fllled tbe floor of the dome and ea ch group rode through some prec ision drill team mane uver s: whe el s within whe el s . fi gure eights , fl yin g we dge s . Some had red li ghts on. Some had sire ns and li ke to us e them. It wa s t ni ly a s ig ht to be hol d!.A ll the shrtners, me n on the fa r s id e of the ge neratio n ga p wheeling a nd flowin g with the s pi ri t of the bi ke s! La ter I a s ked so me of th e men if t he motor cycles se rve d a ny purpos e other than fun and games in th ei r mystical orders . I s us pecte d the y might s e rve a co ns cio us purp os e to- : wa rd self- mas tery . They lau ghe d a t the Ques ti on. -They he lp call atte nti on to our charities" (c ripple d c hildre n, mo st ly ) . · W rid e so tha t o the rs may wa lk • e they all said . -Be s i de s, it is a l ot of fun , " they confessed . • At 8:28 the Sh ri ner s yi el ded the fi eld to the ri der s p arade and R oxy Rockw ood , ou r t ripl e- t hre a t co lumnist. introd uced the 12 natio na l c hampio ns who ha d mad e the s how. T he fa ns we re e a ge r. T hey even applauded the (Continue d on page fij" .... . .. Nationa l Anth em!

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