Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Cycle News 1974 01 08

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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.. ~.. . ~.~ ...•...•... - came too fast, were too frigh tening. Harry could only hang on, go along, and finally, endure. What on earth was happening? TIMESCAN BREAK! ALERT! REPEAT. TIMESCAN BREAK! ALERT! Barton Rogers shut down the alarm bell and waited. He glanced again to the console message, then looked up and around. He waited for someone to come in and yell at him. "Bart! What the hell are you doing?!" Jerry Madigan, the senior operator, entered the room in a mild panic. "You can't be playing with that timescan. You're not that dumb. .. Bart looked back to the console. "How do I tell if he's through or not?" "Bart!! Quit playing with it!" "How do I tell? Quick, if he's through I've got to know. Can you imagine what it's like for him right now?" Jerry swallo wed hard, paused, then asked. "Who?" "A motorcyclist. Quck, how do I tell? " "Give me that!" Jerry pushed Bart away from the console and quickly typed a ml!ssage to the computer. He had an answer in a second. "No, he's caught. You can send him back now. You'd better hurry. If they catch you... u "I know, I know. Forget that. I'm bringing him on through. Now what's the message combination. .. Jerry stopped action for a moment, letting the urgency of the situation hang for a moment. He spun his mind through, then turned and looked up at Bart. "What's a motorcyclist?" ••••• Harry's head ached until he thought he would lose consciowness. His ears pounded and the pressure against his forehead was nearly unbearable. He had to be dying. Nothing else could do this. Sensations so intense they hurt, every possible nerve ending touching, feeling a thousand times too much. The colors were blinding. Blue so vivid it brought chills; red so true it brought pain. Happy yellow making Harry smile; brown dirt, then thick, cold mud. They came at him in streaks and stripes, in swirls wrapping around a long, endless tunnel Down, down he traveled, then suddenly up, straight up, like a fly on the wall. Then across the ceiHng with blood rushing to his head and gravity pulling him and his motorcycle down, upside down, spinning, turning, until he didn't know where was up and what was down. There were no places, no comers, just going on and on, through. I'm dying, Harry thought. And it's not easy. •• *-** , "But 1 never heard of them, "argued Jerry Madigan. Barton Rogers smiled knowingly. "That's because you never bothered to search out thl! dusty corners of our society. It has some pretty weird secrets to it if you look hard and long enough. Like mo torcycles. They're something out of the twentieth century, something that died a slow death at society's hands. They were something for fun. " "How'd you find him?" "[ directed the scanner and localized. " "You are dumb, you dumb kid. Don't you listen? Don't you know why they have rules against that? Can you picture what it would be like here if all the freaks from all the years were here just because somebody got curious on what it once was like?" "Yeah, yeah, but figure most people obey the rules so if you allow just for us who don't, the number offreaks getting through isn't so big. Besides, I'll send him back. 1 just want to ride his rno torcycle. .. Jerry stopped talking. It was too far away to be reaL He stared at his friend and wondered how he ever could have recommended this child for a job with Time ControL "No, Bart, you're not going to. No way. Now send him back quick. He can't i4st out there. " "Please, Jerry. It won't hurt. No·one need ever know. " "If you don't do it, I wilL Now send him back." Bart pleaded once more, thl!n gave way· and- 't;;;-j;';';'s· pia~e at the console. "C'mon, " Jerry urged and Bart began the message. • * •• * The strength had gone out of Harry's body and he wan ted very much to Ie t go, to fall down, to stop, but somehow he knew nothing he did would have any effect. Dying wasn't that way. You weren't in controL The spin seemed faster now, gathering all the colors into a gray blur, sending Harry down the middle. Like a tunnel of fog. His eyes were heavy, they should close any minute now, it should be over soon. •••• ** A rut sent Barton Rogers hurtling backward from his chair, sent pain through hisJace, blood down his cheek. "You little punk! What the hell you trying to do!!" Jerry was at the console typing the message, trying desperately to undo the damage and reverse the time sequence. Once entered, there was nothing to do but watch the screen and wait. Would it counter the first message in time. He doubted and so he watched the screen. Bart ·was still on the floor wiping blood from his face. He stayed clear of Jerry but looked to the screen to watch his rider's progress. Slowly the figure emerged from soft shadows, slowly whites became grays, darker and darker. Then the face. Eyes half closed, mouth agape, cheeks hollow. "He's not going to mo.ke it!" Bart screamed. "Look at him. .. Jerry stared at the gray ghost of a man. "Shut up!" he sold. The eyes opened wide and drilled into Jerry. He held the gaze. "C'mon. Hang on. YOlf'll make it. .. .• . • Built into every Bultaco is one key ingredient t ~ BILIABILITY #1 Randy Myers - Bultaco No.1 CMC rider for 1974 •***• Harry was at the tunnel's end. He hung there, suspended, unmoving, waiting. He could feel the moment coming so he opened his eyes to get the best possible view of death. It was a one timer, he wasn't going to miss a thing. Eyes, staring out of nowhere, then a vague face and an almost whisper. Harry flashed back a hundred years to a day in Sunday school and a story about a man and a .God. He was there... The motorcycle slammed into a solid wall of nothing and took Harry along on its cartwheeling ride back up the tunnel. Back through the colors, the sensations, the sounds, the sigh ts. Back through it all but this time it was too mucb for Harry. Where was he headed now? He hadn't the strength to keep up anymore and he let the handlebar's grip slide from his hands. Then nothing more. Harry Daher coughed and tried to breathe. There was dirt in his mouth and pain in his head. He kept his eyes shut and waited for the spinning, but nothing more happened. Instead, voices and the almost foreign feel of hard ground beneath him. Get him off the bike, he heard them say. Easy now. He felt hands on him, then movemen t and at last a place to stop. He opened his eyes. Hanna's hill loomed up beside him, a long jagged scar down her side. "Hey, dad, that was some ride. Never seen anybody take it all the way to the top and back down too. Only next time try ridin' instead 0 f fallin'." The crowd laughed and so did Harry but he couldn't really figure why. Putting it together was slow. uYeah," someone continued. "Next time let go. Look what you did to the run." Harry sat up and tried to clear his head. He took it all in, the crowd, the hill, his motorcycle and tried to make it fit what he had just been through. He didn't just fall down a hill. He was somewhere else. Where? Somewhere. "Hey. dad, you alright?" Harry looked to the voice and found one of the punks he had met earlier. "Huh, dad, you okay?" "Yeah, I'm okay, only...only I was on this... this...trip..... "Right on, man. That was some trip alright." He looked up and down the scarred run on Hanna's Hill. "Yeah, some trip." The crowd laughed and so did Harry. He couldn't find the words to tell them that's not how it's supposed to be. .. Bultaco riders such as Randy Myers are proving Bultaco reliability in all forms of racing. Randy's effort in 1973 proves Bultaco builds in the reliability you need to race and win motocross. Riding three CMC motocross events per week that took Randy from the Snake River Canyon to the coast of old Mexico. Racing night motocrossers (at Ascot and Irwindale), and every Sunday, the AI Anders prepared Bultaco in the final five months stretch run had but one DNF. We at Bultaco, congratulate Randy and all other Bultaco riders for the success of '73. Bultaco Pursang 250 sweeps TRANS-AMA Motocross in Puyallup, Washington. 1st Bryar Holcomb, 2nd Ron Pomeroy, 3rd Tom Rapp. Bultaco International Ltd. 5447 Greenwich Road Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462 47

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