Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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Page 6 September 11, 1973 CZ For the rider who wants the, best;· our new and improved 125. 250 & 400 down pipes. add our new CZ ignition and you have an explosive combination . •\\i11·'~111'·1 . 1550 Balli" Blvd, .,.~~ . . . . . . .~ Van Nuvs, Cal. 9140& • Darrell Packard does this every year. 213 - lSS-SUi Bonne.ville: Streaks on the· Salt By Don Woods WHITTI. HONDA DSS~ A V Motorcycle Trailers WHITTIER HONDA 14324 E. Whittier Blvd. (213) 698-0065 Complete stocl(·· of parts and ' accessories :* RADICAl RICHARD'S *: RACING RAP is her. fre,e info: Progreuive Products. BOle 1051, La Meu. Ca 12041 * NEW * DODGE * USED VAN - TRUCKS4x4's - CONVERSIONS Leasing Available, Most Makes Call For Appointment * Ask for M,HV Sigman 86R or John Knowles 0-37 Dependable Dodg~ ~ 1S 1..1 Roscoe Blvd. C/ll1oga Palk. Calif, ')130.1 :' 13·883·9060, (LA) :" I )·8 13·-109~· .~t" 10J2 W. BROOKS ST· ONTARIO.CA 91762'714 983·5811 Listen to a bunch of bench-racers who've never been there discuss Bonneville and you'll hear all sorts of ~magined.and hope-for records. "All you've got to have is honepower and two wheels." "Boy, I could bust that 250 record wide open." "Yea, Bonneville's easy." Cal Rayborn, probably the best road racer this country has ever produced, thought that way in 1970. Anyone who's seen the movie ''On Any Sunday, knows what happened to Cal when he thought he'd just go up and set a world's record in an afternoon ... In August each year a small group of car and bike speed nu ts, who realize the challenge that is Bonneville, congregate on the salt flats for their annual record attempts. It is the last place a motorcyclis~ can race that he doesn't have to think about noise, ecologists, and the bassle that we seem to generally get in our everyday live,S. You can ge.t your head in to what you're doing and a week will go by before you know you've started. You get to playing a numbers game that has your whole soul in it. The only way you can produce those big numbers on that daily record qualification shee.t is with lots of sweat, concentration, more' sweat and if you're on something with some big inches, you better have some hair. The 25th running of the Bonneville National Speed Trials, as the event is called, produced 35 new records for someone to shoot for in the future, which is a good number considering that almost half of the event was either rained or blown ou t by high winds. Although the trials start on Sunday, if you get there the day before you can get the tech inspection sticRer and have that chore out of the way. The AMA officials, headed by Earl Flanders, are a dedicated group of people who spend the whole year thinking about what they're going to do at Bonneville nex t year. You don't have much trouble remembering any of the officials' names because all of them answer to Flanders. Earl and his family live for Bonneville, and when you get tech inspected instead of hassle you get complements for good ideas and workmanship and suggestions on how to change things if it looks to them like it is not going to work. The Flanders are not scared off by an unorthodox looking bike, but they will never let a machine pass inspection that displays the slightest trace of shoddy finishing, or that appears to be in any way unsafe. I've never seen officials who take more in terest in their work, and who are ready, if you are having problems with your machine, to offer some good suggestions drawn from years of seeing just about everything that can he designed to run fast on two wheels. The salt is better this year than it's ever been. Sunday's first qualifying runs bear this out. Of the 115 entries that are ready, 38 qualify I to run for records the next morning by posting a speed better than the record for the class they're competing in. Warner Riley, whose claim to fame is hi~ engine building and tuning ~fforts on the curren t world record hol'ding Harley-Davil!s<>n streamliner, unloads his single-engined Harley Sportster and promptly goes 163.04 against a class record of 155.883. He's running without a fairing and on gas and even though his sportster has 1507cc's displacement, if you adde.d lights to it, you'd have a hard time telling it from somebody's street bike. Dale Alexander set lots of records. He's assisted by Pops Yoshimura. New for this year is a production class, where the en thusiast can compete with his street machine. The rules on modifications to me engine :ue fairly liberal, as they should be. bu t your bike has to look like it did in the show room. You have to have stock pipes, but you 'can modify the baffles because 1)0 one cares how much noise you make. Whoopie! Most of the production bikes entered in the event are Kawasakis. SinGe the factory has offered a contingency prize of a new bi~e of the same displacement for anyone who sets a record. 'it's easy to understand. Fastest production time is posted by Dale Alexander with 133.53 on his 900 Kawasaki. Since there are no records in this class, most of the competitors think they will have an ,easy time exceeding the minimum qualifying speeds to make a record attempt. but this is not the case, as 'some of the new competitors find that the thin air at the mile high al ti tude of the salt flats is not conducive to getting the,engine to put out. Fastes t time of the day goes to Carl Morrow, running a partially streamlined (which means he has a fairing) 1250 fuel-burner. Carl zaps a 141.041 clas record with a speed of 181.81. Carl brought his oxygen with him, it seems. Unfortunately, Sunday is the last day of beautiful salt The rest of the week is spen t in trying to get record attempts clocked in the morning and some qualifying runs in the afternoon. It's frustrating and wears on your nerves when you just know that if you can get The'sun keeps the' salt hot and dry.