Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.. • .' fI1 Peru, DI:II . DI:II ...:I g Gary g -:t' Bailey l'- en ....... ~ 0 and eo l-o 0.. < Motocross • Bailey lectures his Peruvian class. Peru has pit tootsies. too. Richard Elias learns jumping technique while crouching Professor Bailey checks his student's style. Dirt Bike publisher fixes CZ shocks. By Chuck Clayton LIMA, PERU • Horns and whistles In the street. Forty-three Sales to the Dollar. A desert that comes to the se a. Honda Elsinores and Huskys and Gary Bailey teaching twenty rich Peruvian kids how to motocross. It is spring in the U.S. and fall in Peru. The first Gary Bailey Motocross School in Latin America was arranged by Robert Booth, a multi-lingual Braniff Airlines Vice President who lives in Lima and commutes to work in Dallas, Texas. Bobby, as wife Marta calls him, is the MX connection in Peru. He brought Wyman Priddy to .the Motocross of the Americas last year and imports Bultacos on the side. poor country, b ut Peru is not m o tocross is still a rich man's sport there, like polo. The MX course at Manchay, in ' the Lima suburbs , is spectacular. Especially the lo ng, steep down hill. Bailey leads the Peruvians .aro und their co urse , showing the quickest, safest, fastest lines and how to ride them. He lectures in English, which most understand, and demonstrates his points on a Bultaco 250. Bailey's gesture. are clear, claro, perfectly. The Latins learn rapidly. How to start. How to brake. How to nail a berm and ble nd it all in to a smooth, sudden a • .. 36 lap . Everybody wants to kn ow ab ou t the Downhill, which Bailey saves for last. Finally, with the sun settling in to the Pacific ocean, Gary leads his studen ts to the moun taintop and, before their astonished eyes, lightly wheelies halfway down, stops, gasses it the rest of the way, turns around and drives the Bul back up with the front wheel lofted and cocked in the air. Shouts of " Ole ! " Before, the locals had all coasted down the bumpy hill, throttle off, rear brake nearly locked , fighting tank slappers and wheel hop . They were leery of the front brake, and afraid of the hill. Bailey marks the brake point, "both brakes always," and runs the class t hrough the sectio n single file . The riders practice in the {athering dark, discovering the fro n t brake, reveling in the technique that teaches them can trol over gravity. Even the ancient Incas knew about the wheel, but in mountainous Peru it was useless except on children's toys, for they had not discovered the brake. The night waves lapped the beach of Ithe Braniff Hotel Santa Maria outside Lima where motocross movies unreeled to the breaker swish , blown in o n salt breezes. Showered and fresh, Professor Bailey answers the questions of the Peruvian motocrossers on team strategy. Robert Booth translates for those whose English is rusty. But Gary's favorite gest ure , right fist e xten ded and twisted back, needs no translation . It becomes th e official greeting of Motocros s Clan Braniff: '~Gassit!" In the morning, Gary heads a follow -the-leade r trail ride over the vast desert wasteland behind the beach. I th ink that even the Peruvian Sierra Club, if there were such a thing, would agree wi th my calling th eir desert "wasteland. " Nothing grow s there, but it is paradise to a dirt rider as the briar patch was to Brer Rabbit. Fallowing Gary and his class on a merry, 50-mile cha se around the distarit mountains soon leaves me panting in the sun. I turn ba ck after 20 miles and order a cold beer beside the hotel pool, where I am soon joined by Rick Sieman of Dirt Bike magazine and his actress wife , Marylin and my wife, Sharon, the Publisher of Cycle News. Towards noon the rest of the pack dwindles in, bearing new lege nds of two-whee l deeds in the desert. How Gary topped the m ou n tain previously co nsi dered unclimbable an d then ordere d son David up the sa me hill o n his 125 an d how David made it an d th e place wo uld hence fo rward be ca lled David Bailey Mountain. Back at Manchay again, Second Grade started where they lef t off, on top of the long m o toc ro ss Downhill. The class was confident now, but they were still fighting the handlebars over the bumps. How to smooth out the Downhill? Gary again twisted his fist in the familiar gesture. "Gassit l .. echoed the Peruvians, and they did. And it worked j ust like Professor Bailey promised it would. The drive wheel bit in and lightened the steering wheel and the students glided to the brake point just like their teacher, lopping maybe a couple of seconds off their times. They were tremendously pl eased with their new expertise. . Nothing would do now but to race a . m oro, putting together all they had learned in the thrill of real co m pe ti tion . But first , Gary ran each student through timed laps, to check their progress against the implacable clock . Gary made a blazing lap in one minute , 46 seconds. Guy Booth (Bul) turned next fastest at I :49 followed by Miguel Seminario (Ma n ) in I :52, after "Super Hunky " Siernan spent a morning setting up th e bike properly. Every student shaved two to five seconds off his best time. All but four were u nder two m inutes and two of these were on 125 s. Braniff is , pla nning to package a Bailey School Peruvian Vacation sche d ule d for the dead of winter in the U.S., when it's summertime down there o n the other side of t he eq uator. As one wh o has j ust returned from the ten-day fiel d test of the Brani ff Clan p lan, I recommend it . Take a choo-choo to Macro Piccu in the An des while you're at it and marvel at the sacred city of the Incas, the chief wonder o f the western he misphere. Interested readers may write to Robert C. Booth, c jo Braniff International, Box 35001, Dallas, Texas 75235 for information. •

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