Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

By Ron Schneiders BARSTOW, CAL., Aug. I, 1971 - The desert was quiet. \!) By decree of the A.M.A. and District s: 37, all cross country events from August ~ 1 to forever are to be quiet. Silencers w shall be affixed to pipes and the dear-splitting ring-ding-ding shall be >- heard across the land no longer. It was U long overdue. The first effect of the new rule was that the desert in the area of the pits was peaceful before the race. One could actually enjoy one's breakfast without listening to someone tune the mainjet of his trailbike on the tailgate of his truck 15 feet away. For some reason, the silencer rule seemed to inhibit the pit racers, too. In all, aside from the heat, it was the most pleasant morning I can remember spending at a race. All manner of silencers and frauds showed up. Many bikes showed up with factory type silencers, particularly the A.J.S. and Husky contingent. For most of the rest, especially those with custom expansion chambers, the little items manufactured by J&R and Bassani were the answer. Others had obviously manufactured products, but of ':'." _ "" ru_n_k_n_o_w_n_o_n_·gm:;.'_._S_o_m_e_r_id_ers_m_a_d_e_th_e_ir_~R..:;iCh Thorwaldson (arrow) moves out fast, o c:il ~ Qu ick Gla nee at Silence own. These ranged in workmanship from painted beer cans stuffed with half an ounce of steel wool, to a little gem that looked like it was machined out of a chunk of solid brass. At the starting line a member of the Barstow M.C. checked to make sure that everyone had some sort of silencing device or at least something that looked like it. As always, there were cbeaters. One fellow had what looked like a stock Yamaha enduro pipe but he had removed the guts. You could look in the end and see clean through to the carburetor. But, by and large, the riders tried to comply honestly with the new rule and it was quite successful How successful? Well the people in the pits half a mile away could not hear the start! That's quite an improvement. That and the vastly improved pit atmosphere before the race (due to a tolerable noise level) made the new rule an immediate success. Now, if District 37 will get on the ball and figure out a fair way to enforce the new rule... Last year the Barstow M.C. got quite a few complaints about their course which was something on the order of wall-to-wall rock and much of it quite perpendicular. This year, they intended to make it a little easier, but still cballenging. They had a neat 35-mile course laid out in the hills and valleys to the east of Barstow. Then, two days before the race the B.L.M. came along and lopped a few miles off either end of the course, allegedly because it crossed private land. What was left was a course of mild difficulty about 25-28 miles long. The smoke bomb run was short, only about 2 miles long, and might have caused quite a problem had there been a large entry, but only 334 riders elected to brace the desert heat this Sunday. Immediately after the bomb was a fairly tigh t and rather congested sandwash, quite full of odd shaped rocks. Quite a few riders discovered that their destiny was that of spectator rather than participant in that wash, as their bikes did cartwbeels over the rocks. There were two hills on the course, either of which should have been a lead-pipe cinch for a 10-year-old on a step-through Honda but as usual they were littered with many varieties of racing iron that had abused into immobility. In between the two hills was a long stretch of fire road that was really fun to ride, although it was probably quite dangerous for the really fast riders. Finishing the short loop was about 10 miles of broken desert trails, rocks, whoop-de-doos, road crossings and small hills. Nice racing stuff. First rider to the smokebomb in the Expert/Amateur go was Bill Saltzman (we think) but he didn't keep the lead for long. Rich ThGrwaldson passed him and held the lead until the end of the race. Larry Pfutzenretuer pushed him but was never a real threat. Saltzman wound up in fourth, behind Max Wade. Fifth overall was Greg Hawks, riding a trailbike and being vigorously pursued by Larry Rosseler, also aboard a trailbike. Both are Experts. The Amateurs started making their weight felt along about 10th place, with lightweigh.t rider Brian Klock on top. Two places later, Buddy Ferro claimed the heavyweight Amateur trophy. It was quite a while before there were any trailbike Amateurs, and then the first three places were spread from 30th to 60th position. In order they were Collen Jackett, Larry King and Lyle Taylor, who usually does a bit better than that in enduros! Twenty minutes after the Expert/Amateur race started, they sent the Novices (that's me) off to do their thing. The wodd is a cruel place for novices. About the only way a novice can get his name in the paper is to write the story, own the paper or get killed. Quite simply, even if the reporter can accurately pick out the novice winners as they pass the line, it's not possible to identify the rider before the story must be written. Novices quite often have numbers in the thousands (that's what the M's and C's mean) but the press lists never go beyond 600 or so. The message is clear: If you ~eally want to be famous, just go out and win races and somehow your name will, be known, even if it's something like Pfutzenreuter. Meanwhile, Number 343Mx won the Novice Lightweight competition, coming in 59th overall. Congratulations No. 343Mx, whoever you are. Number 536M was the first Heavyweight and Number 636 T was the first trail novice. A complete list of numbers, with a few names, is on the results page. We did find out the winner of the 125 Amateur class: It was none other than Darryl Scalla, No. 342 Mx, riding a DKW. Darryl, your girlfriend loves yOIL She called us and gave us aU the facts. By the way, Jan Ditson was the first girl rider, 109th overall. We found that out all by ourselves. Did any of you out there see "On Any Sunday"? Remember that scene where the guy burned up his Husky? (Please turn to pg. 27)

• Cover