Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

:Four Named As Utah MX Champs M By Larry Knop SALT LAKE CITY. LEill. UTAH. Oct. z 10-11.1970 - The Utab Motocross ~ Championships! Two days of motocross w racing. on two completely different z tracks. sponsored by two clubs. the Lehi w Challengers and the Continental d Motocross Association. It was a ~ demanding. all around test of man and machine. and the winners truly earned the title of Utah's Motocross Champions for 1970. Saturday's racing was at the Challengen' coune in Lehi. Utah. The track runs in and around an old gravel pit and it's a big big coune. There are some long loose uphills. deep coarse sand. and a fast-as·you-can-and-dare downhill. For spice there was some slippery mud in the bottom and a little puddle only a dozen feet long but a good foot deep. Starts were in gear. over a jump. and up a hill to the coune. During practice Saturday there was rain mixed with snow. which drove riders off the coune to shelter. but by noon the skies clear.ed and there was sunshine for Saturday's racing and all day Sunday. Sunday's racing was at CMC's course in Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake course is almost the opposite extreme from the Lehi track. but equally challenging. It·s the kind of a coune where a good small bike rider can beat an average rider on a big bike. There are no big up-hills or down-hills. but a multitude of bumps. jumps. and whoop-de-doos. in addition to soft fme sand the super·gooey mud. The only safe time to sit down on the coune is on the starting line waiting for the previous moto to fmish. For variety. ~ hand-on-he1met. out of gear starts were featured. Champions were crowned in the 100. 125. 250 and Open Expert classes. and competition was fierce in every class. Only in the 100 Expert did one rider completely dominate his class. Frank Myers. riding a Suzuki. won all three motos in his class Saturday. and then repeated his performance Sunday. He generally wasn't the flTSt rider off the line. but within a lap or two in every moto he was out in front and not slowing down a bit. Behind him. Del Brown. Bryan Shafter. and Lamar Walker had a real contest both days. with none of these riders having a c1ear-<:ut .uperiority over the others. When the points were totaled however. it was Brown in .econd. followed by Shafter and Walker. In the 250 Expert class. Don Fuller tried. and .lmo.t duplicated Myer's feat. He had a bit of luck in the fust moto Saturday; he had built a big lead when halfway through the last lap the downpipe on his Yamaha broke completely in two. Fuller won that moto by a scant two feet over' Steve Burgess. With a new pipe in place. however. he was un.catchable in the next four motos. Chances for a clean sweep were ruined in the last moto Sunday. though. when he fell twice. His previous rides were still enough to crown him the 250 Motocross Champion of Utah. Burgess. who generally has things his way in this class. had to settle for second; and Pete Crandall. riding his flTSt mo tocross since breaking an arm Preston Gerber (14) chases Dave Crandall in the Open Expert class. HodaU lIoat... Gne.. Y-eln ••. .·1 W.st.ilst.r S,.rt C,cI. Rlcknn . .tl... Guy R. Louis (114) 893-1051 7574 W ••bolnlte, A.... W ••t_lnll•• Ca. ~J\ . timichrome .~·_-/$b ..es SUd_IJ ~ ;hCcl.... ~\ 1/1 • • . 51 ",I

• Cover