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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125858
; Shamrocks /SDT Qua/Hier: DQ ; The toughest ever = g By Ron Schneiders ":t' BARSTOW, CAL ., APR. 2 7 O"l A Penton team consisting of Bill Friant, Steve Hurd, and Eric Jensen won the Manufacturer's • Team award In the Shamrocks l'- ...... ISDT qualifier this weekend, a qualifier th at might well stand as the toughest o ff-ro ad event ever to be held in California. Carl Cranke, Northern California ISDT veteran beat desert racer Cordis Brooks for the best individual performance, but neither the Penton-sponsored Cran ke nor Brooks, a member of the Bultaco team , were on the winning teams. The best club team effort belonged to a Desert M.C. group, only two of whose members finished; both were on silver . The field o f 160 riders was the strongest and most geographically diversified group imaginable. Riders came from New England (th e Yankee group of Cutler, Latham and Vin cent) , from Ohio (the Pentons), from Texas (U.S. Army Fort Hood Team), from Indiana (Ron Lam ast u s}, from Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington. Out of all that talent th ere were precisely 29 finishers and 12 gold medals awarded. The course was supposed to be the same both days, a run out from Barstow generally parallel to U.S. Highway 40 to a central pit area, followed by two loops north into the Cady Mountains. Then , return by the same path. Altogether it Was 225 miles long. Most of the normal types of desert terrain were represented including deep sandwashes, narrow canyons, and difficul t uphills (Push-ups for the little bikes.). The desert was at its best with relatively cool temperatures, bright sunshine and quite a number of vivid wildflowers and flowering cactus to brighten the normally harsh landscape. But most riders remember none of these t hings: they re m ember only 22 5 mi les of re lentless rocks . Virtually the first word to reach the pits was that Dave Mungenast, several-times gold medal winner in the ISDT, had broken his hip in a remote spot. After several hours effort by Rescue Three, he was removed from the desert and taken to Barstow. He had a cracked pelvis which will keep him out of competiton for a couple of months. Not long after came word that Dane Leimbach had suffered heat eiaustion and was out of the running. Then the same face (but a much worse case) befrell Cosby Chestnut, the Overall winner of last week's National Championship enduro. Jack Penton smashed his foot against an unmovab le ro ck, broke most of his toenails and possibly somes-of his toes. When T o m Penton 's engi ne blew, that finished the en ti re Eastern Penton team. The Hodaka team from Oregon : Chestnut, Canfield, and Wilbanks was also eliminated the first day, while on e of the Husqvarna teams, one of the Bultaco te ams, and th e Yankee team lost on e man each. While mechanical problems and injuries were hurting many o f the teams, th ere were many riders who jus t plain quit, some to save their equipment for other runs (The Trask Min. Qualifier is nex t week.), some be cause th ey were so tired they were afraid they would get hurt, and some b ecause th ey just weren 't having any fun. To put th e finishing touch on a grim day, some rider banzai-ed through Barstow engine screaming and head down on the tank. This invoked th e wrath of the CHP, who then proceeded to stop every rider coming in from then on . Many riders received warning citations, or equipment violations, but the most importan t thing was that they were delayed up to 4 5 minutes. The Shamrocks managed to establish an uneasy peace with the CHP and a promise to leave the riders alone as long as they were behaving themselves. Then the gave all those riders who had been stopped the same time at wh ich they h ad appeared at the last check . By the evening of the first day m ost of the riders we re so despondent that it seemed q uestionable if there would be a second day. There were about 40 riders who were still eligible, b ut some of the machinery was pretty beat up, and about half of th ose were talking about not continuing. One team however Was not at all d e s p ond e n t. The Moto-Bultaco "A" team, with Cordis Brooks and Mike Hannon running first and second in their class , Dave Ekins running second in his class, and allan gold medals, seemed a pretty good bet to win the Manufacturers Team award. One team member from each of their At 6 :30 in th e morning these kids are watching and practi cing wheelies. The ob ject of the ir attent ion is Bill Friant , one of 4 125cc riders t o finish. 6 Carl Cranke and Jack Penton talk over the Special Test which Carl is ready to star t. Jack is out with possible bro ken toes. most serious co mp eti to rs (the two remaining Penton teams) was already on silver. Among those who did not show up the next morning were Gene Cannady, who was still on gold, and District 37's top enduro riders : Jay Tullis, Carl Price, AI Lunde and Ed Farrell. But most important, Lars Larsson, whose two team members Carl Cranke and Mark Adent were on gold quit. Lars had about two pounds of wire wrapped in his rear wheel but that could easily have been fixed in the 15 minute work period allowed. But he was also down 21 points and flatly disgusted. "No m ore of this!" he said angrily as he load ed up his bike. He explained that the course would run for m iles thro ugh six-MPH canyons and then they would have to go 80 MPH to catc h up . It was impossible to develop a rhythm, and very dangerous. In the work area, Billy Uhl was saying m uch the same thing. He asked Bob Steffan what the speed ave rage would be. Steffan to ld him there was n't anyone speed average. Billy p ressed the point. Steffan said gently, "C'mon Bill, you don't even have a speedometer." "I can feel it, n Uhl said , UI know how fast I have to go to average 27 or 24 MPH." Bill must have found some way to cope, though, because he finished second in his class and earned a gold medal for Can-Am/Bombardier. There were other significant events in the work area. Cordis Brooks went to the line and couldn't get his Bultaco running. As his minute expired, Dave Ekins hollered at him to push it. Cordis did and it started, but he lost 20 bonus points. Then Dave had problems of his own . He disassemb led his carb ureto r on a white hankerchief in th e best Czech Trophy Team tradition and was initially joking with onlookers. But time passed and he didn't get it back together as easily as he had expected. Finally, into his m in u te , he got everything frantically buttoned up and started pushing his bike o ut of t he work area. Then he stopped and Was going to fire it up ! Steffan to ld him not to , and Dave sho ted angri lly "!t 's legal, damn it l" But he pushed it o ut of the work are a anyway. Almost everyone had so me farily serious job to do by the second day. The two remaining Rokon riders disassembled their belt case s and one had to leave the area car ryin g this big alum inum s i de c o v e r under his arm. T he Rokons have n o clutch; turn on the gas and the rear wheel goes. J im Hollander didn't have time to w arm his bike up at an idle, so he got the rear wheel up in the air by balancing the bike on the front wheel and the kickstand. Then he revved the engine up to some ungodly number of revs, dropped the rear wheel into the sand, and took off, throwing gravel twenty feet in the air and digging an 8-inch ditch away from the starting area. For on ce, Dave Lathem was not riding his personal OSSA and as luck would have it , he had to fix a fiat. One of the Yankee people 'c oa ch ed him in disassembling and reassembling the front wheel, but it still took about a minute too long. Most of the riders were sponsored and had all the help and spare parts th ey needed, but so me were not. You couldn't help feeling sorry for someone like Ron Platt, who instead of simply changing his air cleaner ele ment, had to wash' it out (and his hands as well) in gasoline. You must come in with th e same ex haust system that you leave with. Hence th is artistic wiring job. For the second day the Shamrocks dropped one loop .r'about 60 miles. of the co urse. They did not d rop the tougher loops, however: they dropped the easy one. O ne of the first casua lties of the morning was Northern Californian, Ben Bower who was still on go ld with a good score as of Saturday nigh t. Ben got out 10 or 15 miles and his engine died . When he he got ti red of pushing it, he took the primary co ver off and dis covered th e low sid e coil ground wire had broken in an inescessibl e spot. Ben fixed it by j amming a stic k in the magnet o and limped back to th e start , only moderatel y unhappy at having to miss th e rest of the Sh amrocks Qualifier Trial. T he n .lim Spark es, another