Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Elsinore's electrical entertainment beats burning 'bulances By Rex William Reese ELS INO RE , CAL.,J UNE 15 Keith Moss (Yam) put it over Rick Marquis (Ha n ) in a very hot race all night long in the SOO/Open Amateur/Experts tonight, only to have Big Rick take it all back in the Sweepstakes Final. And tonight, even though nothing caught fire, everybody was really -. 30 smoking it as Elsinore Raceway drew a packed ho use of 129 ride rs . Warm breezes wafted through the air, making the night so mellow you co uld hav e rolled it up and t o ked it. Maybe prep was a bit too good (namely th e water truck department), and th is caused many cras hes all night long du e to a fe w slick spot> on the track, here and th ere. But as bad as so me of th e pileups were, hardly anybody got hurt. Everybody must have been t aking Yoga lessons. Sort o f a ne at thing ab out t on igh t 's IT was that it brought out not o nly the hard-core IT fr eaks, but also o th er riders wh o have never ridden this type of ra cin g, and have d ecided that tonigh t was the night to see how much nerv e th ey had ' for some fast sliding. And fo r some of the D-37 riders, t onight served as a warm·up for tomorrow's D-37 point run . In the 250 Beginners Gene Filipon (Yam) put the 01' banzai over a very hard riding Alfred Lord (Ho n) , wh o nearly ran away fro m the pack, himself, until Gene did it to him. One thing th at caught me as son of strange about these beginners was the iron that they brough t up to the starting line - very trick! Especially Jon Sherwood's CZ, who got thi rd. You wanna bet these guys were really Beginners! ? The way some of them rode, I couldn't believe it. The 250 Novices looked lik e a regular night a t Ind ian Dunes as the lin e was jam-packed with Novice bod ies and bikes. In the 250 Novice Main, there was an incredible cras h right af ter th e first t urn , taking d own at least three guys, and it loo ked very bad to say the leas t. Fo rtu na te ly , nobody was hurt, and all the crashers involved managed to go back and make the re start. Cr ash er Steve Baldwin (YZ) got on the restart and at the drop of the flag, he j ust up and stomped everybody else in the pack, winning th e Main easily . He proved that he wasn't easy to be psyched out by a little thing such as crashing. A shocking incident took place tonight. In the 500/0pen Novice second moto, a guy on a Husky crashed righ t in front of me and a number of other guys. As the rider stop ped rolling on the ground, a couple of guys ran up to he lp ou t the rider as he was in a world of hun. The rest of us ran over to the riderless Husky as it was go ing WFO, scr eaming to the t op of its lungs as it lay on the trac k. In trying to stop the beast , the guy 1 w as standing next to pulled ou t th e spark plug cap. At th at momen t, a b ig ZZAAPP! knocked us allover the trac k. We got th e shock of o ur lives. Everyb od y I talke d to afterwards though t t hat th is week's electrical entertainme nt beat o ut last week 's am b ulance fir e. A big crash, and a slide-out in the b ig sweeper tu m, ro bbed Larry Bird (Mon) of top spot, with Louis Parker (Hon) taking it all instead. Larry di d manage to get second, but it wasn't easy as he had t o fight it out and beat R. Kelbel (Ya m) for it. Kelbel hung o n for th ird. In the 500/0pen Amateur/Experts, Keith Moss (Yam) was always one step ahead of ' Rick Marquis (Ho n) as these two were duking it a ll night long. Even though Rick d idn 't get the big win in h is class, he still ha d a chance for the Sweepstakes Final. The Sweepstakes Final invo lved the top three from each class, and have them all p ut toge th er to see who would be winner of winners. This final involved everybody from the Minis to the Open Experts, but t o make things totally fair , ho nes t, a nd pl ain o ld Jeff Vidic leads into the first t urn of the CMC 250 Pro race at Carlsbad. What, Smith lose? CMCWeek's surprise special even-steven, handicaps were put on the riders acco rd ing to t heir class. You jus t co uldn ' t beli eve th e handicaps! The minibikers w ere p u t waaayyy o n the o ther side of the track, and t he Open class was pu t waay y back behind the starti ng line. It lo o ked really strange. At the dr o p of the flag , everyo ne berserked it fro m their respec tive star ti ng poin t. For a w hile the Min is led, on ly to fad e back wi th the bigge r guys taking ove r. Finally Steve Sh illin g o n a 125 Honda was d oing th e leading, and a t one poin t it looked like he might win the Final. Not too far be hind him was Hu gh Williams (Ma i), who w as sec o nd Open Novice , and he was putting lots of pressure on Steve as he chased hi m aro u nd the track. But not too far behind both of them, and gaining fast, was big Rick Marquis (Hon), wh o was blowing everybody in his path aw ay . On about the secon d to last lap, R1 k finally made his way aro und all t he traffic and held o n for the lead an d th e win with Steve Shilling ' seco nd an d Hugh Williams th ird. Within a matter of mer e minutes, th e resul ts were annou nced , and t rophies were given to the happy p lacers , wr apping everythin g up relativel y ea rly co m pared to last week. With t hat, everybody hi t the sack in anticipa tion of so me more heavy d uty racing tomo rr o w. Bu t, ar ound tw o ayem, so me (exple tive de leted) clown was d oin g a tune up on his b ike, an d I was grea tly co nsidering t he tho ug ht o f taking th e tro u ble of getti ng o ut o f my co mfy no cturnal posit ion and pu nc hing the idi ot o u t. But, I o p te d no t to , be cause th at would leave Ted dy alone by himself. And he 's af ra id of the dark. Results in the Results Se ction. Gas it, Kirk , gas it! By A lan Shepherd JU~E 19-23, 197 4 Afte r four mo nths and six days, Marty Smith final ly lost again in dayti me racing. "I've been lucky," was all he had to say abo ut it. Two rider s shared the su nligh t, Mark Tyer and Billy Urban. Since th e be ginning of December, 197 3, they are the o nly riders who have won a 125 Pros victory a t any track where Smith has appeared. ( Urban did it on December 16 and Tyer on February 17. ) They both topped Marty Sunday at Carlsbad. Urba n won the first mo to , which saw Smith crash twice on the slick Carlsbad I surface. The seco n d cr ash wa s most cos tly as he had worked through the pack. won a con fro n ta t io n with Tyer wh ich sen t Mark down and then had' tried a similar maneuver against his teammat e on the fact ory Honda, Bruce ~1cDougal. T hey both tr ied for th e sa me berm just ab ou t three turns fr om the chec kered wi th Bruce ho ld ing a wh eel in fron t. "He tried to pass me o n th e o u tside! " ~IcD ougai sta ted minutes later in amaze ment. "I'd used th at ber m all race lo ng and I d idn't ex pect him to try o n th e outs ide." It resu lt ed in Sm ith slid ing into th e chai n-link fence an d ge tt ing locked up . A th ird of a lap behind, Tyer had finally re fired an d was beginning to rapidl y close as Smith and sp ectators tried desperately to un-wind his Honda. T yer shot by. Urb an picked up the first moto victory. McDougal co llec t ed second, Tyer regained third., Mike Bell got by for fourth and Smith unwound his bike . for a fifth. All on Hondas, too . A $200 bonus (if he beat Smith's factory Honda ) from his D·G Performance Specialties sponsors danced in Tyer's mind as the fina l moto lined up. Tyer b las ted to the lead with Sm ith thi rd as they roun ded the bend into tu m o ne . Suddenly, S mi th 's rear wheel slid out and Bo bby Maxwell, sixth in th e first ro u nd, smac ke d the bi ke. As Maxw ell spe d away Smi th leaped up, got the bi ke to re-fir e b ut was way-way behind. Big, Dan, Tyer's happy sponso r, flas he d the sign to cool it as Mark had built an incredible lead . Bell was seco nd and Urban t hi rd. McDougal, in fourth, was soo n c ha Ilenged by Smith, slamming his way t h ro ugh the pack, expertly pi cking up foes in just about every other tum. Marty got by, took aim at Urban , caugh t and passed him, did likewise t o Bell late in th e race and then he aded aft er Tyer. The last-lap flag appeared and Tyer held a firm 15 second lea d over Smith . The few spec tators at the finish line, awar e of the significance of this day , stared . Down the hill ca me Tyer and then Smith, about 13 seconds separating them. Into the final tum , no more than 30 feet from the waving chec kered came Tyer. Then, suddenly, he fell! A moan rose from the cro wd. Tyer reached fo r the clutch and the throttle, pulled one, tw iste d the other, and the engine revved . He j umped up , gas sed it, hopped on, and dashed acr oss the line. A few blinks of an eye later came Smith, fo llo wed by Bell, Urban and McDougal. Over all it was T yer, Urban, Smith , Bell, and McDougal. "You happy about paying T yer the $20 0 bonus?" w as the question posed to Big Dan. "You bet. I've waited a lo ng time to do it , too." Urban was all smiles. " I quit m y job to just practice. I'm getting in shape . Oh, geez , it feels good." Adding to the spi ce, a three-way tie in the 250cc Pro Overall had to be decided by the best finishes in the final mo ro, Jeff Vidic (Mai) cla imed the win after a dazzling runaway in that second race which ended in a las t lap dust-flying spill fo r Ray Topham (Mai) at the base of the big downhill. Ray was uninjured, got back up qu ickly, refired and finished third. Wha t prompted the crash was pressure by Richard Graf ton (Hus}, who had ju st ta ken over sec on d and Topham di aled it on in hopes of repassing. Had he done it, he would hav e won Over all since he was triumphant in the first round. Vidic won Overall. Mike Yorba [Mai] is ge ttin g settled d own after abo ut four months of bad lu ck. Sunday Mike swept the 500s in conv inc ing fas hio n, but th e real surprise carne from Wes Sutton (Mai) who turned in his best ride as a GMG Pro with a third a nd second for second Overall. Irw indale, Friday . Vidic made it three in a row in the 250cc Pros, setting up a possible tie of the track reco rd of four straight. It was a tight affair with Jeff Jen nings (Hon) goi ng in to the final tie d with hi m on poi nts . Vidic won the fin al with Jenn ings second an d they wer e just that close. Luke Messer (Mai) copped th e 5 00s wi th a sweep over Rick Garrisosa (Mai) in an other tight o ne . It was Ri ck ' s first start as a CMC Pro . In the first moto, he held off Mess er's co nti nue d bids all the way up to the final tu m of the last lap. The three-in-a-row st re a k by Dave Eropkin in the 12 5s was stop ped by Mike Bell. Mike t oo k tw o wins into the final . finis hed second an d won it Overall with Do n Bongiorno (Ho n) ta king second, earned by a win in the fin al. Erop kin took third. Ascot Bell tasted defeat, though, Wednesday n ight a t Ascot when Ti m Lunde ended his three-week streak in the 125s. They, to o, entered the final tied and Lunde pulled out the wi n. Cliff Lett (Hon) took three thirds for third.

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