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/125851
EA ride in the sun in search of the -= IlG ~Candy ~ Ass tO) ...... This kind of silhouette is much better than the kind you drew in kindergarten. "Man there was this mean-ass d onkey out th ere, and he just bit my bars right in half." By Larry Langley TJ:!ere weren't any Candy Asses, o nly sheep. BARSTOW, CA L., MA R. 10 The big question was "Would the great American gas shortage k eep people home?" T oday 1000 riders said "no w ay!" and with a tank 0 f gas and hope that th e desert gas stations were indee d filled wit h gas, ventured o ut towards Barstow for th e CRC's Cand y Ass End uro . 10 It sure was nice to pull into a gas station with n o line an d no odd/even " marketing p lan " awai ting . All you had t o d o was p ay the p rice. Re gul a r ranged from 55 ce n ts to 60 cents pe r ga llo n with n o limi ts . I eve n took 15 gallo ns home with m e. The enduro d idn' t get off to a good start as the sched u le o nly had 49 m iles on it. J ust a lit tl e over two hours of rid ing time. Kin da short. Ten clubs had e ntered teams for the club challenge in which a gian t 5 foot tro phy was at stake. The idea was for each club to enter 15 members and the 10 best scores 'w ou ld count towards winning the trophy. Each club had three different starting numbers. The plan called for the club teams having a three different minutes and gave orders to the other riders to just stick tight if they could. The first lo o p was typically easy family stuff. Lots of easy 18 MPH over flat terrain, 21 MPH over fire roads, and a few little hills towards the end. The only problem was the start and finish ran righ t nex t to each other and a good many of the riders took off backwards on the course, incl ud in g Team Bultaco. We w ere lu cky, we caught the error within 100 y ard s a, d got back on the right co u rse. Some weren't so lucky, they went seve ral miles. As a result the first check, wh ich was located j ust 3.7 m iles o ut was thrown out because most of the riders who got lost didn't get back in time and were late to this check. Since the next check wasn't until about 19 m iles o u t, t hey had ti me to get back o n sched ule by then. The only h alf way sneaky check was located just three m iles fro m the finish a nd ca ug h t a few riders early in cluding those dummies who mis read their clocks. It was ni ce ridi ng early, th e air was cr isp and th e gro un d was still dam p from the rains a few days p rior w hic h kept th e dust d ow n. After finishi ng th e 26 mil e lo op and taking a short break, it was time to separate start o n the second loop an d tac k le th e h ill righ t o ff th e b at. So me clu bs protest ed b ecause they figu red this gave th e riders in their class who weren't riding on a cl u b team an adv an tage as th ey didn' t have to ru n th e hill and migh t m ake be tter t ime . CRC th en changed t he se tu p to having the clu b teams co me in after th e finishing a nd try th e h ill a nd lo se two po ints to ward th e club trophy if t hey co uld n 't m ak e it up. Change three coming up. CRC finally d ecid ed to have all A an d B riders go u p the h ill at the start of the second loop. Everyone else we n t around. Whoooeee. Who was o n first? Finally after all the administrative wavering, the enduro got started. The club teams had the fir st 3 0 numbers or so . There was quite a bit of inter est generated in winning t he tr oph y. The Shamrocks M/C sh owed up with Te am Bultaco leading the way. Mo st cl u b s split up their good timekeepers on th e tackle the hill at the start of the second loop. It proved t o not be as bad as it looked. Some teams made it up real smooth and others it looked like insects shot with bug spray; they all just flopped over and twitched. It made enduroing a spectator sport for o ne afternoon anyway. The second loop was even shorter than the first, (only 23 miles). Just a little over an hour of riding time. One rider co mmented that his shocks didn't even have a chance to warm u p. The saving grace of the loop was the speeds were high enough to keep you humping to stay on time. It was an OK ride I guess, b ut it wasn't o ne of CRC's b ette r en duros. In fact I had the distinct impression that it was a "quickie," laid out as quickly as possib le. CRC did h ave a lot of checks w hic h ke pt us fro m loafin g, about l Oin all. Maybe a little m o re ti me spent sco uting next tim e will m a ke thi ngs a little m ore interes ti ng . A t th e finish we received o u r very nice finish in g p in s and waite d for th e o ther teams to co me in so we co uld see how everyone d id. GRC scored the team me m b er s righ t after t he en d ur o so th ey co u ld prese n t the Cl ub T rop hy wh ich was made u p by Majestic Tro p hies just