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/125841
anal Observed Trials bottleneck. By late afternoon the weather had gotten into the spirit of things and turned from bad to really snotty. Of course there were (an d are ) scoring disputes. Some were naturally due to inexperienced observers, but the Badgers M.C. made up for it with enthusiasm. There were some friendl y discussions between rider and scorer on the exact location of that "imaginary line " outside of which one must not tread, or even wheelie. The course markings were insufficien t in places. The weather was bad everywhere . As could be expected, the rain troubled the Europeans less than it did the America ns, and the delays, especially for th e earlier starters, h assled some of the best from both continents. The results mayor may n o t stand as pos ted , pending t he FlM de cision on pr o tests filed by Rob She pherd, John Hemingway and Ro b Edwards, all o f whom did well on obse rved sco res bu t finished over th e ti me limit. It was no ted that Martin La m pk in an d Mick Andrews we ren 't real hap py either. Mar ti n, cur re n t European Trials Ch ampi on , started seventh; winner and brother Alan was number 46. Malcolm Rathmell finished second with 79 marks, five m ore than Lampkin. Fin land's Yrjo Vesterinen was third wit h 80 m ar k s, finishing with less than a m in ute to spare in his grace period. Yrjo ad mitted that California m ud is different than Finnish m u d, but when as ked if he found ours m ore difficu lt to ride, he said, UNo. n Rounding out the Bultaco sweep of the first four positions was French champion Charles Coutard, who also dr op ped 80 marks. Coutard Was allegedly five seconds late, but the scorers said what-the-heck. T h e Anglo-] apanese teams were rep resented in sixth place, as Eng lishman Dick Sunter brought a Kawasaki 250 in at 89 marks, and in seventh by Gordon Farley on the spiffy new Suz uki 250 with 98 poin ts lost. Fernando Munoz dropped 115 points an d put another Bultaco in at seventh, followed by the first American, Yamaha-mounted Steve Graham of California. Steve n ow has th ree po in ts towar d t he Inter national T rials Cha mp io nship, officially the FIM Prize. J oe Guglielmetti of Washington gained two international poin ts in finis hing ninth wit h 126 marks. Colo ra do 's Bob Nickelsen was tenth , on a 125 Ho nda. That 's right.A 125 Honda. Two more Americans were in at eleventh and twelfth, the last two positions to finish within the ti me limit. Geo rge Smith (Bull totaled 136 marks, followed by Guy Van Gaasbeek (Bul) with 429. As any observer of observed trials can see by t he results, something went wrong. Several things went wrong, first and foremost being the weather. It is surely a co lossal bu mmer to co me all the way fro m England only to find Englis h weather, in a place totally unacc us to med to such saturating dreariness. It co uldn 't have happened o n a worse day. • Dick Su nter hangs out in the easier part of t he da y 's m ost problematic sectio n. Mick And rews and Dick Sunte r compa re m iseri es. Kawas a ki entered t hei r new 250's, developed by Briton Don Sm ith. (More pixs next page) Lane Leavitt and Vrjo Vesterinen looking for sun. 7