Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1960's

ALL THE WAY IN SAN JOSE Q> TR IALS Niclcelsen Piclcles 'Em By Gary Bartoo nr·,.. '"'I; Joo sete, 235:<, shows tho crow how to pt.w.r. Story and Photos by W.H. Spencer . , SAN JOSE, Cal., Nov. 30- There was a new face tn the crowd at the third indoor short track event of the year here in the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Maybe 11 was an indication of renewed Internal trouble for professional AMA racing. It was the face of the new dir ec tor of " Professional Competition" for the AMA, Tom Clark. Clark, In two appearances, has not crea ted a favorabl e Impression for many. In fact, so me riders are talking about a rider s' asS oc1ation, somelh1ng along the llnes of the Motor cycle Riders Inc., of Southern Callfornta. At any rate d1tf1culties for the AMA are r ising ~. Big Trouble s tarted over the decision to declare the first event Ulega! and carry over the purse money to the s econd. As reported earUer (Cycle News, Dec. 19) the offic1al in charge allowed compress ion r eleases , when accor ding to the AMA they were illegal. So at the second event comp ression releases wer e declared Ulega! . This decision was protested because of the r ullng made the week previous. As 11 turns out, the compr ession r elease is legal for 1969 but that doesn't help the pr esent situation. Brelsford Breakdown The r acing format was changed to confor m with other AMA profes s ional racing. EUmina tion events comb1n1ng all classes is now the setup for short track racing. In lh1s case. nine ellminatton heats, four heats, two semi's, one consolation and one main event. Gregg Hndges, 2l6z led 11 of! and gUded to an easy win in front of Expert 2lly, Ron Wlsler. The Los Gatos flash also won his heat with fastest time of 48:30 sec. In the semi he got ahead of last year's champ, MIke Yarn, and Russ Powell, 58z, and was chased hard by these two. In the main he again led Yarn around but Butch Corder, 92y. had aflne lead from the start and won the big marbles. National Amateur Champ Mark Brelsfor d, 47y, continued his bad luck streak by leading his elimination heat for two • SCRAMBLIN AROUND By Maureen Lee Hope to see as many as possible th1s Sunday at Per r is for the Lightweights run. If a whole bunch of us turn out and lhlngs get hectic and develop into one of "those days" let's not complain. Th1s Is a doubly -Important event as It will benefit Clyde Lltch who was seriously injured at Ascot at the end of this season. A lot of you might not know Clyde, es pecially If you haven't been around the scrambles scene long, but Clyde came up through the ranks the same as all of us have or are trying to do. A nicer guy or a more challenging racer would be hard to find. We' ve always subscribed to the theory that we have to help care for our own. If we don· t help each other when in trouble then no one else will. Although Clyde was hurt on a pr ofes si onal track we're still all motor cycle racers, so let's pull togethe r on th1s one as we have on others over the years. It looks def1n1te that F r ed Edwards will carry the number one Ughtwelght plate In '6 9. We never Uke to say for s ure until the final numbers are tallled by the steward In charge. The heavyweight number Is still wandering around. John Rice could have It again next year but when Ben Fakke ldy 1 1:1,'..£ laps and tIIen stopping In lap three with mechanical! d1fflculties·. Pete Franclnl, 107z, won this heat-over Paul Bostrom, l5y. Nick Theroux, 104y, won the lh1rd eUmination over the eventual main wln ner Butch Cor der , which jus t goes to show that lh1s system gives everybody an equal chance. The four th eUm1na.tion brought up Na tional 1120, Gene Romero, the San Luis Obispo streak] Com ing from the outside back row, he won 11. Together with h1B new tuner , n oli Carlisle, he s hould be a ci nch for the top ten. Rich Faria f1n1shed second behind Romero. Faria has been the s ubjec t of a lot of discussion because of his part In the r ecent outbur st of protes ts . The s ixth eUminatlon was won by Chal De Cecco with BUl Fle tt a distant second after a first-lap restart. De Cec co went on to a lh1rd In his heat. When the semls started the r oof fell around De Cecco. He was beat on sever ely In both of the first two starts, The third time around finallY got them all going but De Cecco was In noshape to be spec tac ular and was left . out of the money. In eUmlnation eight, Ray Vaine, all the way from Carmichael, won over Ph11ly Cancilla, the San Jos e flash. Cancllla is a great crowd favor ite. The last el1mlnation br ought out the cham pion, Mike Yarn. He won easily over Russ Powell. In his heat he beat out Valne and Faria, H-D and Ducati mounted, respec tively. Yarn' s ab1Uty to ride a short track as well as he does Is largely because of how he goes deep Into the cor ner s . The compression release Is the secret and without It his timing changes, throwing him off beat. This slows him down by about a tenth of a se cond. A consolation event was run for the fif th and si xth place fini s her s In the heats. Ed Garza, looked good for the first ten feet but was bounced around and left back. Ron Davies, took the dough in this event. The indoor races will move to the San Fr anc1sco' s Cow Palaces soon. (Res ults on page 16) gets s hook enough he can pull rabbits out of hats and just wall on everybody. He th1nks he'll still be an Ascot amateur next year so he can s till r ide scrambles. But he did well at the TT 's this season, so we' ll walt and see what theAMA says. Adelanto has finallY recei ved Its per manent lease so the " locals" ca n no longer do anyth1ng about getting the track closed. That·s quite a victory for our side. The Reddin 's now have to install runn ing water and other facUitie s that are going to amount to no small piece of change. The Dis trict fought alongside them to get the track opened in the fir s t place. We feel that mor e of the District clubs could throw runs there to support the track. We are well aware that It's way out but let's not let a track get into financial trouble becau se of lack of s uppor t. There are clubs bes ides the Des er t Phantoms out there whocould throwr uns there rather than clos er In. For those who li ked Bay Mare, ther e's a chance that may re-open . December 12th there's the scrambles clubs re ferees meeting at the Poplar Street Playground . Be there If you want a voice . Pres ident Ron Sloan made 11 quite clear the other night at the District meeting that two meetings already held were poorly supported. Yet scrambles clubs say how much they want things done. You have to work for what you get, so le t·s have a good turnout and try to clear up som e of our pr oblems . LITTLEROCK, Cal ., Nov. 24 - The sun rose over the deser t community of Littlerock, Calif. and the motor cycles come to life within the next few mfnutes . The fi rst ones up are the youngs ters who had enough sense to get to bed early. Other r iders begin to appear in the . cool deser t air, ready to join in the fun staged by the Southern California Trlals Assoc1at1on. All told, over 90 r iders participated. At the riders' meetingS.C.T .A. Pres ident Bob Grove explained the rules, then everyone dispersed, r iding off to their selected traps. There Isn't a mass start In English Tr1als . Riders can s tart at any trap they want. Amateur traps are separate from expert and Masters . Kids under 12 and the ladies use traps that are usually ' plac ed close to the camping are a . Bob Nlckelsen found that the course and his new Bultaco Sherpa T pleased him. He lost but 12 points to second plac e finisher Ja ck Ward (230 Ossa) . who los t 31, in the master class. Only three exper ts f1n1shed. Firs t place honors v.-ent to Ed Davenport on his well set up Hodaka. The amateur llghtwelght class saw rider Bill Batzloff (250 Cotton) edge Bultaco-mounted John Mu r r a y , nine points to Murray' s eleven. Gary Lane won the ama teur u1tra-lightwetght class by losing only 11 marks . Nancy Walters wasn' t far behind with only 14 against. Both rode Hodakas, Jim Kayser (252 Bullaco) head ed the list in the amateur heavyweight class. In the women's class Doreen Portner just edged Moille Jones by one point. Portner' s lighter Hodaka, as well as her experience at tr1als, may have proved to be the difference. Moille was handllng the heavier and longer Gr eeve s. In the ldds class , Debbie Evans on her 100 Yamabats u (ask her dad, Dave Evans, about th1s bike) took the wln . , (Results on page 16) YOUR CLUT H C G A BAINETT CLUTCH AND GO ET NOW AVAILABLE JAWA 125. 175 T ria l s. 250 Trail Put #J 2 50 HUSaVARNA 250 & 360 Put#H250 · Your Bamelldealer hu thorn now. AlumInurn Allor. Corpr. no Bonded. W do not o SIll rot.lI. SEE YOU RBAR NETI DEALER ,-Bj fI'IIIRV -'-L!-l B'.. 1t.1~;;r --= E ~ - 11915 Pacific Blvd., Vernon, California, Phone: 589-5488 Ri dgerunners Moto-Cross Sanla Cruz. Calif. Nov. 10 . 1968 100cc A.lEx. Cl ass lst Jack Jenson - M/ B M B SPORTCYCLES'311 E. ALEXANDER AVE., TACOMA, WASHI NGTON 9842 1 MOTORCYCLES ONLY SALVAGE We buy Junk.. & Sell Fine Used Parts Also tons of H.D. Obsolete Stuff. 45's-Knuckel-D1sh Pan Complete Service Frame. & Fork Straigh tening. We Servi ce what they sell. Bob R 126 Wesl4 lh St. San Pedro. Californ ia TE 2-6124 oss '" ~ ~ c.:: ~ c.:: ,.J ~ U

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