Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

the minibike. During the awards ..... presentation David was off playing 1l. somewhere. When someone herded him :. over to the grandstand and told him he was a winner, his first comment was - ~ honest to gosh - "You've got to be kidding!" He hadn't even collected his N chances; some one else had put them in ~ the barrel for hirn! 0 Last year, Jim Wilson, who was one III of the primary instigators of trials in S this area, .donated a perpetual trophy ~ about four feet high to be given to the ~ young rider who makes the most u improvement. The award is based on ~ sportsmanship and such, as well as tri.als-riding ability. Last year's recipient of the award was Mark Eggar who more than demonstrated the wisdom of the choice. This year, Mark passed the trop~y to Jeff Koskie, who has in the past year gone from Amateur to Master, an impressive achievement. The winner of the Spanish trials bikes was John Wood, a San Diego Trials rider who was unable to make the trials today. Jonn reportedly campaigns a very old Bultaco, so he should have a rather nice Christmas this year. By any standard, the day was a huge success and of course many people contributed to that success, but two organizations and one individual deserve special mention. Escape Country turned all their gate receipts back to the club as their donation. Mortorcycle parks with this attitude, that of partaking as well as taking are greatly appreciated and should be supported. The SCTA ran the event and extremely efficiently I might add. And of course EI Trial de Espana would not exist without Fred Belair to put the Spanish in the trials. had to make his fmal run, there was a hole in the middle of the trap deep enough to bury a cow. Tony watched a few riders go through, walked down to the tra!?, went back and got his bike, rode down along Side, couldn't seem to make up his mind which line to take. Finally he rode down, wen t as wide as he could and charged up the left side in what appeared fo be second gear. When he hit the mud he flicked the throttle off and on, on and off, like he was urging a willing horse to do its best. At the edge of the hole he faltered just an instant and the crowd watching tensed as it looked likely he'd fall in, but he "ved g, -!!,gained control and made a stylish exit. Tony not only cleaned that section, he cleaned the entire contest: no points lost. This reporter, using up about a year's worth of luck, finished third, effectively sandwiched by two of Bultaco's finest, Doug Yerkes, second and Tom Patton, fourth. Bruce Brown, who is becominR a good motorcyclist after his triumph of "On Any Sunday", finished a creditible eighth in the class. While the Press bunch was doing their thing, the regular trials riders were riding a fun-type trials in which no points were at stal,.e. At least that's the way it was intended. However, Senor Bulto's prize made the Master's class considerably more competitive. Even though it was quite nerve racking, it wasn't all that much of a contest. The lim, young boy from San Francisco, Lane Leavitt had come down for today's event and he scored a clean victory over second place Rich Bledsloe, eight points to 15 points. Bob Nickelsen was third with 22 points. In both the Expert and the Amateur classes there was a runoff for first and second places. Experts Geroge Smith and Jim Redenbaugh with 10 apiece did one additional trap with George emerging the victor. Martin Belair was third, Amateurs Marland Whaley and H. Rasmussan, 13 apiece, had it out and Marland took th.e first place trophy. . After the trials thet'e was the trophy presen tation and the press gang found out they weren't finished yet. Someone, 110 doubt inspired by an over-zealous women's libber, decided that til ere would be a beauty contest in wh.ich the Press guys would be the contestants. After an initial lookover the choice was narrowed to myself, Ivan Wager and Bruce Cox. Bruce, who had just last week received a trophy for second-best in the girl's class at the Nortol;l-AjS Press trials, could hardly contain h.imself. As it turned out this was an asset. Alas, I was eliminated on t~ first round of measurement. It seems that stupendous girth and magnificence of overhang were the critical features and I was found lacking. Unseemly stature was also taken into account. After three measurements and several prolonged huddles, the four women ,judges were unable to make a hoIce between 1\"3n and Bruce so they decided to resolve it with a kissing contest: A suitable voIul)teei from the audience, Mrs. Nancy Walker, was selected to be kissed by each contestant. After several steamy embraces and torrid kisses, everyone in the audience including myself became so involved that we lost complete track of what was happening. I think Nancy Walker was declared the winner. It's customary in these trials to hold a kid's class with easy traps that youngsters on any type of bike or minibike can ride. Today in addition, the kids were given chances on a nice new, top-of-the-line Kawasaki minibike in proportion to where they finished in their competition. The trials was won by Guy Van Gaasbeck, with Kim Koskie and Randy Rader second and third, but , none of them won the minibike. David K~nned ,who laced about 20th won

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