Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125568
DI I DIGGE S ALL-SI IE CHA PIO SC BLES • ... John HatlllY (Trl) won 500 Novici 10. Mounted on Bultacos for each oullnl, Steve Scott S11l1ed to victory In four classes, IncludInlOpen. II Was Nearly Another Deer Hunt By Maureen Lee P hotos by Maureen Lee , Chuck ·LaGr eca. and Byron Andrus SIMI, Calif., July 6- 7 - We don't know what It Is that makes Corriganville (Hopetown) such a magical place but It Is . We were leery ol this one a liWe bit because It wasn't the big annual bash we all look forward to so much each Fall and we wondered J! we could enjoy It as much or If It would be as good. It was. TIlere's jus t something about that place that turns things on, human Interest slut! as well as the racing. Last Fall Kim Kimball ended up In the bospltal after bashing a deer with his Montesa on the straight. ThIs weekend a deer was scooting around In blind panic at the start ol practice close to the start-finish line and Kimball was entered on the same Montesa he was r iding last November ••• no ••• we're SURE deer don't have that much of a sen se ol smell•••do they? •• s 'pose It was a relative looking for someone with Initials KK? 'Thenthere was Dirt Digger Carl Ra m ma g e nicknamed " Chief" (gues s whyl) who beca me unhappily Involved with a hor net's nes t and got s ome down his boot. Although It wasn't r eally funny, Chief' s rain dance was worthy of the greatIndian Council and the ancient gods appro ved and sent down a li ttle shower Sunday. Not enough to do any damage but enough to prove someone was watchingl Here traverslnl the Hopetown scrambles course In detllfmlned fashi on, the Bultaco sldlhack rll of Marv LIB lanc and Fred Sotores. A Fun Scrambles! We would have to guess that this could Sicond In the 500cc Expert Main went to Ron have been the biggest scrambles In the Nelson (Monti sa) after an excllln i race, United States although they might have lost out to someone else bY just a few entries. Pre-entries stood at 320 plus but Saturday over 100 riders entered and the same thing happen ed Sunday. As we said, the very word Corriganville bas magt c, Everyone wants to ride thereand the circuit the 'Digger s laid out for this one was •••well ••.all we heard was .. I have n't had so much fun r iding ascrambles In years." We'll drink to that! It was a gas! No water but two nice gullies, a real tlght IIWe sand turn which dumped a few on their melons, a downhill with a nice " bank shot" at the bottom and ·_ ' people, people everywhere. Only bad thing that happened was Saturday when a silly twit ol a spectator managed to turn on a sprinkler head and flood what was the old mud hole . He must not have read the advertising as this . was a scrambles, not a .maio-cross . Anyway, the skip loader was brought up Ina hurry, dirt was dumped In and If anything Improved the surface In that section, but it was sure rough for a couple ol heatsl 'Then there was Joe Pyle who ts the current AMA motocr os s champion and who lives up In Orangeville. We also got to have a nice chat with Bill Nilsson, twotlme Wor ld 2500c Champion whocame out with Pres Petty (watch out gang, Bill and Pr es are going "cow- trailing" next week) so If you really want to know how to pronounce Husqvarna, I've finally learnedl With approximately 540 riders It's Impossible to write a .. s tory" so we seWe for reviews ol events this big ••.but although we can't write about everyone we'd like to mention a few. Didyou check the barrel on the 100 Exper t class winners' Hodaka? Has to be the biggest we've seen and Gene Cannady nat flew on It with Kirk McDowell (Bullaco) second. Carl Cranke #2 from Sacramento took second behind Ron Nelson In the first 250 Expert heat but didn't fare too well In the maln , He admits that we don't ride down here the way they do up there and apparently a lot of them ride more endur es than anything else. Wish we could have seen the MaIns Saturday but we were das hing home to cover Ascot which we made just by the skin ol our teeth, but we' ve heard how gr eat they were, expeclally the 250 Expert class. 'They also told us the Powder Puff bad the gals riding "like ther e was a $10,000 purse." 'The lIWe gal from the Red Dots M,C. Patty Domay (Hodaka) who won the class was r eally great. She has Out-o(·To'lillers A bunch of r iders came from out-oltown including Bryan Shannon, motocross champion from British Columbia, a whole gaggle of Northern riders including what looked like all ol Dirt Diggers North and we got to meet some pretty nice Northerners including Bill Verbtscio. " Biscuits " and his charming wife came all the way from San Rafael to ride In a panel truck with the best advertising Ideas we' ve ever seen on It and Bill went home with a first In the 350 AmEx moto and a 5th In the 500 Expert. Early leader of the SOO Expert ..ent was Honda-mountld J ohn Riel, who fended off the herd for sev.al laps before unloadlnl, then cont inued until flat lire put him out. AIrborne on his Montesa dorlnl the 2S0 Expert .'!'ent Is John OISoto; hi took Sth. r idden the desert but never a closed track before and her track " manner s" were Impeccable, expecially for someone who is not used to this kind ol stuff. Hope to see her out again. Sunday, with apologies to all the other riders, the best one was the 500 Expert go. ThIs was without doubt the toughest class of the weekend, and the MaIn Sunday was perhaps one of the best races we've seen In years. John Rice (Honda) got the drop on them and was out front hauling for three laPs with a lot of spectators' jaws hang!ngopen watching him ••• the cream ol the moto-cross boys were behindl •••then Steve Scott got Into first and John fell down and then got a nat tire just a bit later while he was still trying to keep himself firmly on his mac hine from his hard crash ' .' Ronnie Nelson was hard after steve by then but who was coming up through the pack and picking them of! one by one but Pres Petty (Malc o) and with all the talent In that class it was a race to remember and more exciting than some Internationals we've seen••.As col r ider Sonny Nutte r took 4th on a Triumph Metls s e and Bill Biscuits fif th on a Montesa.•.next came Bru ce Jackson (Gr eeves) and then Gary Jon es , younges t r ider In the group with the biggest machine , a BSA Goldstar, but what a comblnatlonl Scott Storms After that Steve Scott went on to win the Open Class on another EI Bandldo making It four for the weekend as he also took the 125-1 75 class and the 250. 'The Bandldo certainly handle d better In the tighter sections than the big Triumphs running In that class which gave a distinct advantage there and while on the subject of that class we though we wer e seeing things •••Terry Dorsch and Gene Smith wearing Checker s colors ?•••they stay on the course too much for that (don't get mad Checkers, the Shamrocks put us up to that comment; let us have one back for them). 'The Sidehacks ran and got quite spectacular. We never like to see endo's but when a hack end o-s ••• ugh•..butno onewas hurt thank goodness . It was the ' Tac o ol LeBlanc and Sotores who won with Steve Sechler and Joe Gardner on a Beezer In second. Hack #7 los es Its passenger In two weeks to Uncle Sam . Tom RidYardls on his way to Viet Nam as a chopper mechanic . We wish you all the best, Tom . Hurry backl Can't wait for the next event at Corr iganville, whatever It is - scrambles or mota-cross. 'The spectators were reasonably careful this time; ·maybe It was those big Ventura County Sherltfs standIng around keeping an eye open, butpeopIe on foot never seem to realize how fast a bike Is traveling, and one spectator goofed up by paying too much attention to the bikes and not to his k1ds•••one landed In the lake and almost drowned before being fished out ••.see what we mean about things always happening at Corriganville? (Results on page 20)