Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125813
.. if N 11. N .... en en' ~ C ~ w Z W ..J U >- U The incomparable Sammy Miller demonstrates his over·the-log style. Montesa heir apparent Jordi Permanyer competed successfully on one of the family products. Other Trials riders merely contemplated their wretched luck as difficult sections, cold and mud<:overed 'o.gs pushed up their score. by Christopher Ostlind TRABUOO CANYON, CAL., Dec. 10, 1972 - Sammy Miller is just incredible! That is the only way he can be described as he put on one hell of a show today at the Third Annual El Trial de Espana held at Escape Country. But don't make any mistake about it. This was no cake walk for Mister Miller as two of California's top riders were hot on his tail in the standings all during the day to make it an interesting battle righ t down to the last few sections. Those two California riders who were pressing Miller were Lane Leavitt from up north and SaJ;l Diego resident Ricl)ard Bledsoe. All three riders were Bultaco mounted which definitely says good things about the new 350 Sherpa T. In fact, the scoring was so close that after the three regular loops in the morning, Leavitt actually held a one point lead going in the afternoon's competition. The outcome was very much in doubt all through the last eighteen uexhibition sections" until Leavitt crashed while going over an extremely difficult mud-covered log; received five and broke a pair_of "unbreakable" Renthal bars: This gave Miller a little breathing room and he took advan tage of it to pull ou t a well-deserved 11 poin t victory over Leavitt, 34 points to 45. . Richard Bledsoe firushed with a super score of 46 to fill out the Bultaco sweep. With his performance today, Bledsoe sewed up the SCTA's number one plate for the second straigh t year. Fourth place Master with 54 points was Canadian Champ, John Ranger, who rides a Kawasaki 250 mounted in a Sammy Miller frame. That bike is really sanitary with a yellow and black fiberglass tank/seat and the way Ranger rideS it is something to behold. This year's EI Trial de Espana was by far the most successful and well run English Trials even t every held in this country. The actual competing riders numbered very close to 300 and the spectators on hand to observe the difficult and sometimes very muddy sections were up in the neighborhood of 2000. And that was 2000 people who didn't leave un til every rider had completed his riding for the day. With the proceeds of the even t being used to send the best Southern California Trials riders to Europe to compete, there probably will be no problem with' having enough money to take of their expenses while they are competing with the long established Trials stars of Europe. . Expert Trialer Bernie Schreiber took the top spot in his class with loop scores of 22, 19 and 15 points for a total of 56. Bernie really deserves to be moved up to the Master class very sooo as there is nobody who tries harder to improve himself than Bernie. This Expert class is really an all out battle between Schreiber, Elmer Norman, and Jim Laudeman. Norman took second today with a 62 and Laudeman was third with an' 89. Speaking or moving up in class, there are a few Amateurs who are just about due to go up to Expert. They are Steve Graham, Mike Griffitts and Guy VanGaasbeek. Today they finished in just that order with respective scores of 15, 18 and 19 points. All three of these guys have boen consistently high fmishers in the past few mon ths and con tinually show flashes of brilliance that practice and experience will improve. At the awards ceremony, Marland Whaley walked off with the biggest trophy in creation for being the outstanding young rider of the year. It is an award that is well-deserved as he has put it to the established riders time and time again this year and ended up with the Number 5 plate for ne,,"t year after missing a good number of the events earlier in the season. The trophies for the best finishers in each class were donated by the th ree Spanish factories with Montesa proving a far·ou t modernistic design of a motorcyclist cast in bronze on a marble base. Bultaco sent a three dimensional metal figure of their th umbs up trademark and Ossa had a real neat·looking medallion to be worn Olympic medal style. This year's EI Trial de Espana was oTj;\a.nized by Vic Conaway and sponsored by Mr. Fred Belair. It is because of their very hard work and efforts that this event was the success that it was and a lot of credit goes to these two men and those who helped them. According to Fred, this was his last year to promote the Trial de Espana and you could tell his reluctance to let go by the amount of time that that he spent at the microphone talking to the totally frozen audience at the awards ceremony. Mr. Belair has plans for an Ipt~rnati9nal ,pqipts, ~OIppe~\i91' of " English Trials to be held iA Ihis"'9IlDtry~, l. Is this the beltinninl{ of a Trans-AMA