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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125730
- "' DESERT KNIGHTMAR£ ,... " Cl It; c: .., " ~ w Z w -' (.) ~ By Dick Wright and Ron Schneiders Photos by Dick Wright and Ellen Schneiders RED MOUNTAIN, CAL., June 6, 1971 - The Desert Knights punned their club's name for this week's race, and gave birth to a "knightmare" but by the enel of the first 20 miles none of their 550 entrants thought he was asleep. You don't get that much pun·ishment even in a Knigh tmare. From th e green sheet that was given to you along with a litter bag when you entered the camp, you got the impression that the Knightmare would be a technically difficult and possibly dangerous race. But in fact it.-turned out to be a very demanding, physically punishing type of course with no real technical difficulty. And while the colifSe was one of the safest this rider has seen for a while, quite a few riders did manage to require the services of Rescue 3. The starting area was a slightly downhill open valley where power was not as important as hair, the secret trails, mostly pretty well worn, that pounded riders in to jelly and bikes into junk. There were more broken·down bikes littering the trail than this rider can remember seeing in quite some time. Flat tires accounted for a lot of DNF's. There were more than a few casualties among the riders, too. Duffy Hambleton, who carries Heavyweight Number 16, took a tumble off an off·camber tum on a slippery razorback and found himself 100 yards down the first hot race of the season and riders aren't acclimated yet. An hour and 5 minutes after the start, averaging a fantastic 41 mph, J.N. Roberts came streaking through the pits on his Tracy-tuned Husky. Just behind him was Tom Muto, but he didn't last: Somewhere out there he got passed by Rick Thorwaldson on his ThorwaIdson·tuned Suzuki. Rich came in second, a good ways behindJ.N., and was in tum followed by Muto and Pfutzenreuter, who took lst 250 honors. Dave Hernandez, the smokebomb leader, was sixth, right behind Bill Bogner. Proving that fast things come in small packages was Terry Clark who bounced his Baja cross the rocks fast enough to take eighth overall and naturally, first Trail. Spectacular as his performance was, it w'as just barely good enough because Mitch Mayes, also riding one of the orange·trimmed black beauties, was only four places behind him. ThirdTrail was only 18 th overall, Larry Roseler. Following Terry Clark was the first AmateuT of the day, Larry Mahoney, on a big Moniesa and right behind him was the first 125, a Bultaco ridden by Ken Buckspan. As can be seen from these results, it didn't seem to matter what size bike you were riding; the sand and rock are no respector of engine size. It took a while but a Novice flOally arrived. His name was Tim Ryan and ne was riding a Bultaco. He was one very happy 20-year-old Buzzard. It was his ftrst win and he did it on a 250. First 500 Novice was Le Roy Davis, a Husky rider. The course wasn't badly marked, but it wasn't all that well marked, either. There were a number of places where more lime or some turn arrows would have been much appreciated. The course was marked with flouTescent pink ribbon but there was a good quantity of red ribbon around and its kind of hard to tell the difference when they both ingredient that makes you hold the throttle on when your wheel is only touching every third bush or every 50 yards, whichever is farthest away. A lot of the ligh tweights came through the smokebomb with the leaders following Dave Hernandez who was on a big CZ. J.N. probably got a bad start because he was only second at the smokebomb. Fifteen minutes later, when the dust had not quite settled, the Novices came through like a herd of slight drunk jackrabbits. First through was J eITy Kopp who had about a mile lead on everyone and was really making it. Beyond the smoke there was an endless series of whoop·de·doos and rocky slopes for about 45 miles, punctuated by 4 checks strategically placed at 10-mile intervals. There was no uphill or downhill worthy of mention, nor was there any tight wash that was particularly difficult to negotiate. It was all just normal desert T'. Winningest 125 il t'e West i~« ~~ formerly Sachs slope with a broken nand Mild heat prostration put him out of the picture for a while and wnen he awoke all was under control with the aid of Rescue 3. Rescue 3 had their share of work this weekend with quite a few broken bones and a number of cases of heat prostration. It seems that this was the Husqvarna Penton Sale u.s. Distributor for DKW DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED loehn Sales & Sen;e. 6624 At'ntie,"",C., (213)581·3983 New desert demonstration rides: Suzuki 400 MX; BSA 500 MX; AJS Stormers; Montesa Cappras SUZUKI CITY 728 So ~9030~) LaBrea, Inglewood, Calif. 213) 674-1431 Busqva...a Choice of ClwapiODS Eastern Distributor: Penton Imports, 1354 Colorado Avenue. lorain. Ohio 44052 Western Distributor; MEO International, 4790 Palm Avenue, La Mesa, Calilornia 92041 . ~ " 8 ~' J . ~ .