Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

FOU Ol . ... ACES GP & o ..... Ol cD u o ~ w Z W ..J (J >- (J Ken and Darrell Meter, on their way to a second place finish in the sidehack class. Triumph'. (Don't build a shelf for your trophy until' the club confirms these, fellas.) The next event was possibly one of the most exciting and interesting of the year. All the Amateurs and Experts in all classes were run together, even the powder puffs. Pick your hero and there he (or she) was: Thorwaldson, Byers, Poteet, Rice, Martino, Fields, Clark, Domay, Morgan and on and on. In the first lap Doyle Fields, on a Triumph sled, was leading but as an indication of things to come, Rich Thorwaldson had already moved up from 75th place to 2nd place on his Victor Metisse. And even more fantastic, Tom Poteet moved from 133rd place to 13th place on his 250 Bultaco. Also moving up, but not so spectacularly, was Jack Byers, No. 66. The next lap Thorwaldson took the lead and started thump-thump-thumping away from the madding crowd. Poteet continued to move up at a steady two places per lap until lap four when he was in third place. By lap 5, Poteet was out and Byers (remember Byers?) had moved into third. In lap 6, Wllltey Gregory, No. 65 who had been in second, made a brief appearance in frrst but tben he suffered some unknown fate and was out of the top runners on lap 8. Thorwaldson blew his transmission on lap 8 and retiTed and Jack Byers, a yard wide grin on a Victor Metisse took the lead and tbe race_ Second and first open class was Doyle Fields on a Triumph. Third was Jess· Goldberg on a BSA Victor and fourth, Uust so the two-stroke boys wouldn't feel too bad), was Whitey Martino on a Husky. Inside the larger race tbe trailbikes were doin\! their thing. And as usual. doing their thing the mostest were Terry Clark and Jack Morgan, who ran 1 and 2 for the first four laps. Then in quick succession Clark and Morgan dropped out leaving the field to Tom Brooks on a Hodaka. Number 2 spot was held for a while by No. 264, Craig Forney, but in the eighth lap No. 285, Randy Waldon got by him. By the ninth (and final) lap, all the places had changed again and Forney was in the lead with Waldon second and Brooks third. Sorry, but we don't know the 125cc class winner as no one was keeping track of that class except the Four Aces and they aren't telling yet. Just for fun, however, I predict th at Joh n Rice won. His Sachs was going so fast it was ridiculous and John was passing in places where there wasn't room for a good-sized jackrabbit. The climax of an already full day was the sidehack race. Absolutely nothing tops them for pure guts-up excitement. Although there were about twelve hacks in the race, most of them didn't count. Tbey all started off in a tremendous The course had a little of everything, including this motocross type jump. Rich Thorwaldson led seven of the ten laps before retiring with gear box problems. - A Four Aces M.C. flagman waves riders out of the pit. Organization was a highlight of the two day event. -- roar (souding more like Indy tban a cycle race), and bit the first wide sweeper at about 75 mph. At that point Jack Moffitt and Nick Sotteros were running first while Red Dots Ken and Darrell Meter were somewbere back in the pack about 7th. Tben came a sandy hill. Moffitt made it over the top; the Meter boys made it over; Jerry Person and his partner Al Denenberg made it over; and that was all. The rest tried but couldn't make it. To keep them in the race the Four Aces Referee led tbe rest of the pack around the hill and took the hill out of the course for the remainder of the race. It didn't make any difference thougb. Moffitt and Meter were so much faster than the rest of the field that they lapped the third place hack. Moffitt's Triumph was a little faster on the l'avement (of wlllch there was a lot now) while Darrel and Kenny Meter on tbe special Nick Nicholson Greeves back were much faster in the dirt. Eacb lap the Meters would pick up a lot on the dirt and lose half of it back on the pavement. It was just a matter of time until they caugh t the Triumpb, but (Please tum to pg. 25)

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