It's said that when it rains in Southern California, everything stops! And that was almost the case at Saddleback Park on a
stormy January 6th ... the occasion of the first-ever World Championship Trials round in the United tates.
Torrential rain and glutinous mud stopped 80% of the world's best trials riders, including the big-money challengers
from Japan. But it didn't stop Bultaco, current holder of the European Championship title and winner of more trials
championships than any other make. There were just 12 finishers out of 60 starters in the Saddleback event, the first one
in the 1974 World Series. Seven of them rode Bultaco Sherpa T trials machines.
Four of those seven filled the trial's top four places: Alan Lampkin, Malcolm Rathmell,Yrjo Vesterinen and Charles
Coutard. Vesterinen and Coutard also combined with seventh-placed rider, Fernando Munoz, to scoop the Manufacturers
Team award for Bultaco.i.the ONLY team to finish intact! To round things out, American riders, George Smith and Guy
Van Gaasbeck emphasised the Bultaco blitz with eleventh and twelfth places.
The winning didn't stop there. In the National class awards, Bultaco riders took the tro phies for the Best British rider
(Alan Lampkin), Best Finn (Yrjo Vesterinen), the Best French ma n (Charles Coutard) and Best Spaniard (Fernando
Munoz).
In 1973, Bultaco riders captured the European, British, Fre nch, Spanish and North American Trials Championships as
well as the outright win in the toughest of them all, the Scottish Six Days Trial.
And the way things are shaping up, 1974 will be a Bultaco year as well.
Bultaco International Ltd . 5447 Greenwich Road, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23462.
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