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P-atricilBowers Win Adelanto 200 > ~ ~ W ~ ...J ~ C.l By Ron Schneider: ADELANTO, CAL., July 3, 1971 There is a cross-country motorcycle race held almost every weekend of the year in the California desert. Sportsman clubs put on the races, riders pay 3 or 4 dollars a piece to ride and the money collected is used to buy trophjes and pay expenses. Sometimes there's enough This is a bad angle from which to watch Mike Patrick winning a race. He gets pretty close pretty last I left over for the club to hold a party after the race but not always. And ever since it began, people who are at least as interested in money as in sport have looked longingly at the phenomenon and wondered how to make it pay. All that machinery, all those people, all that enthusiasm, there just had to be some winning combination! There is one significant differenc.e between desert radng and any other kind of racing: There aren't any spectators, thus there is no "gate. n The only potential for making money (so far) is from the riders themselves and from the manufacturers with products to advertise. So now there are a whole bunch of races based on the formula of "big entry fees and lots of publidty for the products". The latest venture is by an outfit called the American Cross Country Racing Assodates. ACCRA tried to stage a race once before but a multitude of problems forced them to cancel the event. Today they tried again and this time they were successful to a degree. The Adelanto 200 is just like a mjniature Mint 400. Bikes go the first day, four fifty-mile loops, and the cars go the same on the following day. The course is lajd out on BLM land in the area bounded by U.S. 395, Shadow Mountain Road and Highway 466. Marvir. Beard, a long-time desert racer and sometime-member of the Prospectors M.C. did the layout work and apparently did it very well. While the course contained no horrendous obstacles, it was a tough, choppy surface all the way. Gene Cannady came up to Beard after the first loop and said, semi-seriously, "I thought you said the course was going to be fast. It was rough, chop-chop-chop, all the way. I could have gone faster over 75% of the course on my Sachs!" (He was riding a Yamaha this trip.) Beard told him he had averaged over 50 mph. Cannady considered that a moment and then walked away, shalcing his head. But it wasn't Cannady's day. This was strictly a Mike Patrick Benefit race. There were three classes, up to 125cc, 125 to 250 and over-250. Patrick was in the over-250 class along with 14 of the 25 entrants. He was teamed with his regular partner Phil Bowers and there just wasn't any real competition. Their closest competitors were Gene Cannady and Tom Gamer. Cannady, in fact, turned better times than either Patrick or Bowers, but Gamer, although he tried his best and did very well, just isn't in the same class with Cannady, Patrick and Bowers. In the last lap Garner managed to hit something so hard that he bent the rear rim halfway to the hub, but the tire didn't go flat! Cannady and Garner finished second, about ,15 minutes total elapsed time behind Patrick and Bowers. Third, running 43 • CONVERSATION PIECE OVERHEARD AT OSTEEN'S RECENTLY 'lU,~ for afew dollars more THE LATEST 250 STOR~'ER minutes behind the leaders, were Lee Hamby and Demby Dailey on a 400 Husky. The 250 race was a much more exciting event, although it was more difficult to keep track of the competitors because they were mixed up in the pack. The top four teams were Larry Bergquist and Gary Griffin (Bul), George Walker and GeorgeZuber(AJS), Tom Poteet and Wes Anderson, Jr. (Ric), and Armand Capprio and Tom Newgent (Mon). For a while it looked as though the Poteet-Anderson team might just win overall. Tb eir times, 1: 02 and 1:06 were as good as Patrick's and Bower's. But something on their chain guard came unglued and it started acting as a chain derailer. After losing the chain several times they were forced to retire. Behind Poteet and Anderson, waiting for the break which came, were Bergquist and Griffin. They won the class in 4:42:00. Capprio and Newgent were second, 30 minutes later, and Zuber and Walker were third, an hour behind the winners. The 125 class left something to be desired - like about a dozen more entries. There were only three entries total! Two finished and Steve Hurd and Eric Jensen triumphed over the meager field on a DKW. A couple of relative beginners, Dale Conners and Rod Eric Jensen: First place money was less than the entry feel Roderick on a Rickman Micro were second, (about an hour later) due to misfortune on the part of the very quick Baja team of Earl and Larry Roeseler. The bikes got their revenge over the cars this week. The Patrick/Bowers team beat the winning car's time by about 3 minutes. The car was driven by no less than Bobby Ferro, winner of the Baja 500 of a couple weeks ago. The car was a Sandmaster, as were about half the entries. ACCRA is allied with the American Legion and is seeking to promote the sort of county fair, apple pie, and beauty contest aura that the American Legion has been seeking to perpetuate WHICH JUST ARRIVED "Hey, how come you got alloy rims on that Ajay?" "NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, THEY'RE ON THERE NOW AS YOU GET 'EM STOCK". "'s that so? When did you buy this little scooter?" "JUST YESTERDAY. MY DEALER SAYS IT'S THE FIRST OF THE '71 MODELS TO HIT THE WEST COAST. I'M RIDING IN THE DESERT TOMORROW AND NEED TO RUN A TANK OF GAS THROUGH BEFORE I RACE IT." "Good idea. How do you like it so far?" "JUST GREAT MAN! I HAD A 250 STORMER WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT ,BUT I MUST ADMIT IT LET ME DOWN A COUPLE OF TIMES. SILLY LITTLE THINGS MOSTLY." "Yeah, I heard that. , always liked the looks of the Ajay but I held off till they updated the model. What else have they done?" "SEEMS LIKE MOST OF THE SMALL GRIEVANCES ARE SORTED ON THIS MODEL. THINGS LIKE THE REAR SPROCKET FIXING, THE FILLER CAP, THE CHAIN GUIDE. THE FORKS ARE SOFTER, THE SPOKES ARE HEAVIER, AND THERE'S A NEW 10 FIN CYCLINDER WHICH REALLY HAULS ASS," "Hmmmmmm. What did you payout the door?" "I WAS IN A HURRY SO I COULDN'T SHOP AROUND. MY DEALER IS PRETTY STRAIGHT AND WON'T DISCOUNT ANYWAY. I PAID ABOUT TWELVE HUNDRED BUCKS," "Was that for everyth ing?" "YUP, THE LOT. SALES TAX. SET UP, EVEN A MUFFLER. AND HE GAVE ME A NEW SET OF RIDING BOOTS," -"Sounds good," IT CE;RTAINLY DOES ])ll\ll .... fKO\1 ~()Kl():'\\lItllK (ORP .... /,711'JI'HI11l0ultlK'o(: I OIlJ.:HI'.llh {Jill AND THE 410 IS COMING ( i • E~~~~~!m~,~IR expansion chamber with integral "tuned-cor." muffl.r to32 W.-:JOKS ST.·Of(fAMO,CAUF "1ll2 -11. 1U-a1l StuI4... fro. NEW "MOLL Y·BLUE" chain lube and a new 2 cycle oil. They're worth waiting for. said, "There was just about five miles that required much skill. The rest was just hang on with the throttle wide open. Still it's probably about the best they could do in that area." Just hanging on can be painful. Jensen's hands were so blistered after the event that he was unable to tide the Dual European poin t run the following day. Eric's attitude is probably typical of most of the riders who are basically still sportsmen. But if I were ACCRA, I wouldn't count on that attitude lasting too long, If th e thjng is a business and malcing a profit, then riders might just start expecting to make something too. Re.alts Oil page 2-8)--