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/125863
ers VALENCIA,CAL .,JUNE 1-2 ,..; In the best traditions of Gonzo ...... journalism' and mainly down on the Q.) range fun, I invited my lawyer ยง a ~ o n g . to hi~ first up-front - , mtty-gntty mo'sickle race. But did we peel our brains off layer by layer with illicit and highly punishable drugs like Hunter Thompson ? No! We are d efin itely of the Gatorade for lun ch bunch (w ith maybe a co o l Miller's or a Heineken 's aft e r th e fac t ) but we were , L assure y ou, still o u t of sigh t, o u t of hand, and out of town. , Way out t o n ot-so -nearby Saugus, even. Tinseltown ? Not really, b ut it w as still happening. Never has a motorcy cl e club had so many members with m an icu red bodies and j us t the right hair but still serious, you unde rstand, and the tans n ot too much and hardly any sunburned ~oses and the ladi es, omigod, the ladies, Jus t perfect. S o many of them that cou ld take a screen test that very minute and jus t being themselves, pass, or whatever the sign of su cces s is in a scre en test . Bea utifu l pe ople, but far b ey o n d th e definition of b eautifuJ pe ople in any s o ciety c o l u m n sense. . .th ey are incredibly and w onderfuJly motorcycle ra cers. and en th u siasts , and (if the wom en didn't fit the first two ca tego ri es which many of them do), their ladies who ar e too something o r other to des cribe. All over the place, e xcept around my van. Don't all us mere m o r t a ls with humdrum lives as newspaper edi t ors and the like feel left ~ut ? You b et we do! Everything did a p p ear in a d ifferent light, not necessarily the bright June sun but ~erhaps the brighter than day klieg hgh ts of a stage. The sign-up ladi es smiled, asking if I were an Old Timer. I laughed because I felt like one th at morning and they smile~ ! o o . The V iewfind ers ' Grand Prix Motor cycle Go -fast Thi ng has ambience . . .lo ts of it . Even my dog liked it and she's a pretty fine lady herself by A merican Kennel Club standards. There was even some serious racing. For District 37 points and N umber One p lates and everybody to advance in class and the like. Hooboy. This was serious . So were most of the competitors, including me. But after two days the whole thing ended up with the impression of a mass of co ntrad ictions . There were CZs that broke and w atered out in the not all that deep w ater crossings and Bultacos that didn't. There were smooth, fas t Experts that abnormally crashed and still fi n ished fourt h in class like Jim Co nnolly (Bul) an d Powder Puffs that di d giant endos an d fin ished the same like Marcia Holley an d Trudi Beck. Those riders are n't supposed to do that. Then t he re is the inherent contradiction that m igh t never be ob vious to many; that of a beautiful lad y wearing o n ly cu t of fs an d a b ra top attending a frie nd lay ered under n y lon , wool, leather, and fiberglass whose only visible skin area is a nose . But the ambience was right. My pit crew : two young ladi es (Thanks, Chris . Thanks, He len.) who proved surprisingly competen t and w ill ing and help ed more than any other pit crew in a year or so, continued the con tradic tion s. In T -shirts and jeans, they were working on this hairy 500 class bike b ut then, all the pit crews were like th at! Who . of these ra cing support types' office co -w o r ke rs, would believe o n Monday that they were sign aling, gass ing , rebuilding racers on Saturday and Sunday , often w ith more success than t h e mul ti -th o usand dollar In d y 500 efforts they 'd watched on T V the week before ? Imagin e how go od 6 The big number Sunday was between Tom Brooks (Bul) and A.C. Bakken (H us}. They swapped leads t hree or four t imes with Tom in f ron t The starts were all get in fron t of t he du st or be burie d affai rs. Some of the fastest ladies aro und: Janene Turton ; Marcia Holley and Cherry Stockton (L t o RI got butterflies and good starts. you are as amateur professiona ls. like the racers. I st ill be lieve that Desert Novices can' t turn and 'm o t ocross race rs wo n 't fly low through ze ro visibility dust like ]"p m Brooks will. Maybe third from las t at the start of the 500 Expert race and third at the end of the first lap be hind Holeshot Bakken and Jim Fishba ck. But Jim 's CZ broke (T h is CZ thi ng was getting o ut of hand. Nobody could believe it.] and A.C . and Tom swapped the lead til Tom knew h e had it w o n , popping a fifth gear wheelie down the sand fl at s o n the wh it e f1a~ lap after a very lon g pi t Stop . Everybody w h o saw it fell o ut of the chairs o r off t h e bank. "Wow!" t hey said and " Gaaaw w d da m ." and other wo rds lik e t hat. Broo ks' Bu l d id n 't break and n e ith er di d "Crash" Connoll y's and the other "old m an ," Jim Rice , had one of Nick's Greeves , th e fas tes t this side of Belfast n o d oubt an d he too k third w ith maybe 15 years in age sep ara t in g the first four an d two min utes tim e. Con trad ictions had been building fo r two d ay s , t hough. AI Baker p ut on lime sherbet leathers and w o n t he 250 Expert t h in g o n a green -tanke d Husky while Mark Adent was second o n a Ho nda afte r Pentonizing t h e IS DT qualifiers . Fourth Expert was so me Hawaiian kid named DeSoto on a . . .Ya maha? A nd th e fas t guys 0-1 75 class wasn't wo n by a 28 h orsep o we r KT M or Bu l or e ven sc reamyfas t Yamah a. It was won by Larry Roesele r on a 98cc Harley-Davi dson Baja. Who could be ready for that unless yo u'd seen Larry finish like fifth Overall in the Moj ave on that sam e b ike? Da na Wilson, who w o n the Great Bear Senior C iti zens race, too, won the Old Timers' one hour go but the p ilot with th e go od , tight inside lines was Kookie who, at 84 hu man yea rs old easily qualified as an Old T imer: Co-pilot John McCowan was hanging o n