Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Doug Winchell Buls D-37 killer Hare &- ound H By Ji m Stewart STODDARD WELLS, CAL., JUNE 23 For the first time this year, the D-37 race was held at Stoddard Wells, well known for its rocks. The Huntington Beach Me's Wild Hare and Hou nd will be remembered for endless rock fields in I DO-degree-plus weat h er. For the few rid ers wh o like rocks , huge whoo p-de-does near the fin ish m igh t have do ne the m in. T he n t here was also th e choki ng sli t, a nd th e roc k hi lls. Free co ld bee r at the fin ish helped the riders fo rgive Hunti ngton Beach - for th e murde rous course th ey laid out. Doug Win ch el, after not really b ein g a threa t fo r the Ov er all win at the sta rt of the year, is now winni ng qui te regularly, an d looks to improve on th is year's nu mb er , whi ch is two . Winchel , wh o started racing desert at the Pondero sa a fe w years back, br ough t his Bul in for th e Over all an d 250 class win, an exact replay o f h is rid e last weeke nd at the Ri rnru nners race. Bo b Balen tine pulled in to th e fin ish fir st Open b ike, sec ond Over all. Not b ad, co nsider ing that at th e Ch eck Ch ase las t year he was a Novi ce. A.C. Bak ken was next at thi rd Over all , second O pen , and looks t o be in co n ten tion for the number o ne pl at e in this class, afte r trying for two years. Another 250 LOp finisher is Wayn e Co o k, wh o has been finishing second behind Winchel in this class th e last couple of weekends. Behind Co ok at fifth Overall was Bob Romine, who won one of the first rac es at the beginning of the ye ar , then got hurt and rode a 125 Suzuki to stay in shape. He now lo o ks to be back in form . Romine was third Open . Andy Kirker also recovered this year from a broken co llar bone, and since has been winning the 175 class qui te frequently, a lso finishing in the top ten Overall. This weekend was no ex ception, as Kirker on his Fairway Yamaha was sixth Overall. Dwayne Carter on his 350 Honda four stroke, riding with the streaking Stumpjumpers, won the Novice class several times this year, and now seems to be doing the same in th e Amateur class, finishing seven th Overall, first Amateur. Fo llow ing Carter to the class finish were P. Cloward, Steve Eckardt , .W. Swartz, and Stu Goodell. J oe Polyja nc ew icz , (with a name lik e that y o u hav e to be fast ), didn 't w in a lo t as a Novice, but he is now m aking up fo r it in th e Amateur class. He was first 25 0 Amateur on the very d emandin g cou rse. C. Mills and C. Reese fo llo wed. Brother of third Open Amateur Steve E ckardt, Mike Eckardt was third Division H Expert, with Gary Conner on hi s DKW from the Antelope Ramblers separating Eckardt from Kirker in the class finish. At the Rimrunners race last weekend Gary Conners took first ahead o f Ernie Mahoney. Bruce OgiJive look another Trail Expert win on Barley in the competitive Trail Expert class. G.H. Bamell kept going for second Trail Expe rt. The Novices go t their chance at crash ing in th e ro c ks right after the ' Amateurs a nd Experts did. At the bomb there was a Srurnpjumper o n a 250 Honda four-stro ke in th e lead . with a Ro ver o n a 400 CZ in second, an other CZ fro m S po ke henders t hird. T he St u mpjum per rep or tedl y hit th e tank wi th a very sensit ive spot , wh ile the Rover got a fla t and the Spokebender, who was none other than Bob Wad low, won'. This is Wadlow's eighth Overall w in in t he Novice class, so he should have been an Amateur this weekend, much LO the d!s~pp'.'intment of Dan Novices to finish. Decker, Baker, and Nakamoto were the top three the 175 class, and were all way u p in the Novice Overall fin ishing positions . E. Mo nian of the Buzzards l\IC fin ished fi rst O pen No vice, qui te a ways ahead of Art S tevensons on his 400 Suzuki , wh o reall y di dn't care as second was good enough fo r him . B. Hill was third. T. Ke lly. O. Martin, and J. Darland worked hard to finish in these positions in the 100 cl ass, on a very long course. But as many o thers would agree as these Trail No vices, it was wo rt h it. Especially when Bernie Rice from Mr. Cycle U.S.A. supplied all the finis hers with free cold beer. Since there we r e on ly 14 5 finis hers, several non-finishers got a fro sti e one also . As it al ways is d u rin g th e hot sum me r, o nly th e die-hard d esert rac e rs wh o are reall y af ter th e po ints wiII show up to ra ce under su ch con d it io ns , over su ch a co urse. It al ways see ms when the course ge ts to be its wo rs t tha t you see riders like Charles Gates finish third 250 Ex pert, just outlasting the other riders. m Superbowl Continu ed from page 6 passing a bou t eight riders. The firs t four were runni ng very fast and very tight. Way back in fifth was Jim Weinert (Kaw) riding h is best of th e night after rotten luck with lea ky gas tanks and poor starts in the first two motos t hat left him wit h reall y nowhere to go, in terms of overall placing. But he was riding seriously , to o. this last rnoto . This lime Zdenek Ve lky (CZ) was the fast guy with breakos . In the firs t moto it had been ~I ar t y Tripes with no footpeg, finishing sixth . Velky had no shifter. With Tripes in front. the commentary got outrageous and I got tired of the obvious favoritism on the scoreboard which always flas hed "Go Marty" but never flashed "Go Jaroslav" or "Go Tony" or "Go Roger." Roger kept on coming anyway and finally outexperienced Marty, putting it inside him on the pit turn and then motoring away pronto. Falta then passed a tiring Tripes, who had held up well in the first two rnoros but couldn't keep up the leading pace, while going up the ramp and the race out front was again what it had been, really. the whol motocross : DeCoster and Falta, Then, for maybe the first time ever, certainly the first time that evening, peop le got to see why these two racers will very likely be 1974 World Motocross Champions in their respective displacement classes. Roger he ld on to win th e final rno to , ensuring a second o verall wh ich he had pretty we ll in the bag anyhow. It did lo o k like J aroslav rea lly was tr yi n g to catch him as t he two were ci rculating at " Belgia n" speeds in that last 15 minutes. Tony DiS tefa no ma de a rush at t he last m in ut e t o get past Tripes and into third o verall b u t missed by a bike length and didn't get on to the rostrum to get kisse d by a dar k-hai red girl tha t had " O-U-I" written on he r wide belt buckle. He w as fourth by a po int. In sixth ove ra ll, little noticed, as usua l, and running in the to p bun ch, as usual , Was Du t chman Gerrit Wolsink, who knew jus t why he was in the Coliseum and rode just t ha t serio us ly. He was narrowl y outpointed by young Belgian nash , Raymond Boven, riding for the first ti m e in Ameri ca for Montesa, The promise of the fir st 250 moto in wh ich Roger got one of his classic ho leshots, then got zap ped b y youngsters Fal t a and DiStefano wh o CZed on to fir st and second was pretty well fulfilled. It was in that first moto of the evening that eventual overall pl acing for the 250 w as completely screwed up by a big crash behind the Coliseum peristyle uphill in which Bill Grossi, who could h ave been the spoiler o f the even ing , broke hi s righ t leg. A number o f bike s were in a big stac k and riders like Peter Lamppu, whose. bike was near the bot torn, just had to wait as the others were frantically torn off. Grossi lost the 250 Nat ional Championship along with the broken leg. His was the worst of a number of foot injuries on the tight course. caused b y cem en t and hay bales. Raymond Boven, whom :llontesa had flow n over for this event, sho we d hi s promise in his first m o to with a fo urth behind Roger but neve r got tracked on the short. indoor course even though he impressed with speed most of the time. He apologized, "Me no good condition." That didn't seem very likely after the GPs he's run. Gary J ones never got it tog ther the whole evening, though th e race may have worked to his benefit now with Grossi out. He had banners wrap in his rear wheel the first moto and ran al most last in the last round. Rich Thorwaldso n was getting over the flu and couldn't sustain his good starts. Swede Nils-Arne Nilsson had his throttle stick open o n the 250 Husky - twice. Ron Po meroy had the throttle stick closed on the 250 Bul - and dumped it in the b umps. He wasn't ha pp y all evening an d missed dinner besides, As short as th e co u rse was, it was still rough o n m ach ine ry and there was a very h igh incide nce of broken machinery in the 20 ·b ik e interna tional field. Visiti ng Swedes Jan Sallqvist an d G unnar Ni lsson motore d aro u nd fifth or six th all even in g without at tract in g anybody's atte n tion excep t their m ec hanics. The first ro de a Kawasaki; th e second a Husky. Gunnar , a Baja winner, brought it all toge th er fo r me. He stood on a bike stand, watch ing the last 5 00 mo to bemusedly . as th e announcing go t literal , lo ud , an d uninformative. Then he turned with a gr in and parodied, "And no w dere 's going to be a big yump." And sure e no ugh there was, and abou t then Rex Staten flew in the air and the fl ashbulbs popped like a horde of crazed lightning bugs. Before the last moto was over, the erowd o f rowdies was spilling onto the track for rid ers t o dodge which led to a rather mindless response by a goon squad of enforcers wearing "Concert Se curity" T-shirts and flexing their arm muscles and making you equally unsafe whether you were a rowdy. press, o r ra cer and people were screaming rudely for DeCoster's autograph and the 1974 Superbowl of Motocross was over. • Results MOTO 1: 1. Falta . 2. DeCoster. 3. DIStefano . 4 . Boven. 5. Weinert. 6 . Tri pes. MOTO 2: 1. Falta . 2. Tripes . 3 . DeCoster . 4 . Wols ink. 5. D iStefano. 6 . Boven. MOTO 3 : 1. necoster. 2 . Fa lta. 3 . Tripes. 4 . DiStefano. 5 . Weinert. 6 . Wolsln k . O VER ALL ru nofflclal b u t close e no ug h ) : 1. .rercsrav Fa ta (CZ ). 2 . Roger D eCo ster (S u z ) . 3 . Ma rty Tri pes (H u s) . 4. T ony D i St e fan o (CZ). 5. Ra ymo n d Boven (Mon) . 6 . G err it W o lsink (SUZ ). 7. Jim Weinert (Kaw) . S. J an·Er l c seuc vtst (Kaw) . 9. Z dC!n ek Velky (e Z) . 10. Peter Lamppu (Mon ). Ma rty Smith passes Don Ingels on his way to winning the high school race. z o ;: a: III '" .J

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