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/125849
Too many generals: 'The biggest wasn't the best Greg Soko l finished first in 250/0pen, th ird in 125 in Rancho's best performance all night. By John Ulrich Photos by Buzz Baty/Creative Images, Tom Corley and Ulrich IRVINE, CAL., FEB . 23 It was right after w e ran the "How to Promote Your Own High School MX" fe ature that the call came In. The VOIce on the other end of the lin e dropped a dream right into our ear canal: The City of Garden Gro ve Division 0 f Recreation and the Gar den Grove Un ifi e d School Distr ict were I co-sponsoring a seven high school interscholastic motocross at Orange County International Raceway. Riders would be competing for individual plaques as well as team points for their schools. The highest ranked of the seven Rob in Roberts (Miss Garden Grove) checks ou t t he camera as an unide ntifi ed - racer tries in vain to check her tee th out. Little boogers loo k on in amazement. "What are they do in'?" " I don't kn ow, but it looks Yecchy ' " 8 schools (Bolsa Grande, Garden Grove, La Quinta, Los Am igos , Pacifica, Rancho, and Santiago) was to receive a giant perpetual trophy. It sounded great. But no matter how fin e it sounded or looked on the pre-race publicity posters, tonight it didn't tum out the way everyone wanted. The City of Garden Grove, the 120 racers, a lot of parents, and Cycle News wanted it to work out fine , dazzle non- believers in high school motocross, wow the spectators. and set a new trend in high school sports spectaculars. It didn't. Vic Wilson, owner of the OCIR track, wanted it to serve as a test of spectator appeal for high school motocross. (He wants to set up a CI F-type league and pit local high schools against each o ther in the n ea r future. ) It did, a nd hig h sc hool motocross at OCIR is here to stay. It's a shame t hat the in it ial progra m was blow n. In spite of several m onths o f planning, the Garden Grove Division of Recrea tio n learn ed the hard way that the re's mo re to running an MX th an saying you're going to do it. T he American Motocross Club (AMC) was cal led in at the last moment to handle the mechanics of scoring tile race, but it was too little too late. The blatant lack of organization fouled up the show. The deck was stacked against a smooth race program from the start. One school didn't announce to the students that the ra ce was even going to be held until the night before, and then scheduled a dance for the same night in spite of having known for over a month that the race was coming up. . No numbers were assigned until the racers signed in. The city had compiled a rider's roster, but left the numbers blank for unknown reasons. The bizarre and close-to-uninteIligible elimination system left over from the defunct Pro Bowl got in the way all the time. Instead of running motos like everybody is used to, this incredibly confusing system runs a series of heats, last chance rno tos, semi mains. consolations, and mains. It just wasn ' t needed for only 120 riders. It could in theory wor k, but only if everyone understood how it worked. There we re no programs explaining the system, n o rid er info rmation explaining the system , and mass confusion reigned. The announcer tried to clear it up a little, but it was improbable that m o re than a handful of the over 2000 spectators present knew what was hap pe ning. Nobody standing aroun d knew which race was running at a given time. an d racers kept asking, "What race a m I in? Whe n does it start? How does this crazy thing work?" Many of the spectators h ad n ever been to a motocross before, an d those surveyed liked it better than football despite the fact that they didn't know what was going on. Unfortunately. some of the football game mentality that brings stoned kids and fistfigh ts to any CI F clash also surfaced at this race. Turkeys lining the fence between the OCIR MX track and the OCIR drag strip were tossing bottles on dragsters shutting down after running through the lights . Over-rea cting security people started hassling anyone they didn't like the looks of. They evicted veteran There were real tootsies, the kind you go t o d umb foo tb all games to meet. And this t ime you didn 't have to watch all th ose weird d udes run into each other while chas ing an inflated pig bladder. pho to gra pher Buzz Baty with h is Hasselblad from the infield while lea vin g kids with Instamatics alo ne, and threateningly pointed flags like daggers at the unidentifiable.but-probably-bad person maliciously taking notes while wearing a Cycle News jacket during the race. (Dam n hippies . . . Ed.) Racers threw dirt clods at the stands during the riders' presentation, and spectators razzed slower riders even if bike troubles had slowed them. One dude wandered in from somewhere, picked up an official clip board and rider's list, and started telling racers when they were to be on the line. Noone questioned him because they thought he worked for either AMG, , OCIR, the City of Garden Grove, or the school district. Trouble was, he di dn't wo rk for any of those. and he assigned a bunch of racers to wrong races because he didn't know what he was d o ing (or else was a trained espionage agent). Four races had to be re-ru n , the whole night started going downhill , and spectators started flocking away from their first motocross in chilled d roves. The advice of AMC people was brushed asi de as the govern me nt pe ople tried to pull it back together. T hey d ecided to give out awards afte r each class fi nis hcd! It was incredib le. All the time, th e racing was fo r rea l. Usually the dices centered in the mi d d le of the pack. With no sk ill level s d efin ed (and all racers lu m ped b y bike size o nly) one or two guys usually smoked away from the pack in each race. Santiago Hig h School won it overall with 131 points. Miss Garden Gr ove (Rob in Roberts) handed out the plaques, even though he r school Tom Leffler (Rancho) and Tony Mocer i (La Ouintal were this close lap after lap in the first Mini/loo race.