Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

• : Biggest Baja · ~ bike bash eve U2 g ":I" r--- O"l A. C. Bak ken winning - wit h a little help from h is friends . like Mit ch May es . Mitch Mayes, A. C. Bakken beat the cars for overall win By John Huetter BAJA CAL., MEXICO,jULY 26-2 7 Husqvarna played their Baja racing theme song: " One more time, gimme one more time" while Mitch Mayes and A.C. Bakken gassed it ras their bike won the Baj a Internacional overall an d "bikers" took the first six places in a race around th e s.c.a.R.E. 8 peninsula that was 99 % dirt and 100% tight and fast. No t all of those " b ik ers" were o n two wheels. Fo rmer D-3 7 desert racer Bobby Ferro was thi rd overal l o n elapsed t ime in an SS·I and Male o 1m Sm it h team ed up in another huggy contraption to take fifth overall and second fo ur-wheeled th ing. Even more amazing, an d certainly a mind-blowing tr ip for Dan ny Robinson an d Steve Sterner, was the ir privateer effort with a bike built o ut of Co m petition Cycles. It, was go'!.d enough for second overall , be ating o ut all th e ca rs an d being beat only hy go -fas ts Mayes and Bakken. Those two Hu skie s als o ac counted f or fir st and second Open class bi kes. First 25 0 was a two-stroke 250 Honda p iloted by Al Baker and Steve Ho llad ay. Nils-Arne Nilsson n ursed a dest ro yed rear wheel in t o the halfway poin t, ridi ng the 125 Hu sky very gen tly , but he and Mickey Quade still combined to win the 125 class agai ns t a very larg e an d relatively talented clas s of sma ll-bo re riders . Private efforts were second in both of these classes, too. Adent and Messer (Pen) in t he 0250 ; jasper and Pad illa (H us) in th e 12 5. In the im po un d ar ea the nigh t before, everybody was repeating the ru mor that S. C.O. R.E. Int erna tional president Mickey Thompson had u p ped his bet that a bike would wi n ove ra ll to 520 00. He m ust have fel t confi dent in that prediction, in part , because it is th e nature of these Baja races that the promoter ca n determ ine what o r who will win, within a broad ca tegory o f vehicle an d tal ent , by the nature of the co ur se and what the specific ru les of the .race are , such as rider trade-off and allowed repairs. Based on parts of the co urs e observed first-band, the tightness of the trail, paraicularly up in the central highlands of Baja made the difference which allowed the Mayes-Bakken du o to build the critical five minutes over fast Bobby Ferro , net ti ng th e first overall motorcycle wi n since the first running of a Baja even t. It was once agai n an off-road race . The bikes left , (t wo each minute ), early in t he already-warm Mexican morning. Al Baker led ini tiall y, twis ti ng th rough the dus t aro un d the San to To mas vineyards do wn to th e Paci fic coast, th ro ugh the furnace heat of rocky ca n yo ns an d back n ea r t he coas 1 ag ai n on to the beach . Bu t by Camalu, Mit ch had taken th e lead. Hu sq varn a chose th e availab le o pt ion"o f t rading o ff rider s a t this point so that A .C. Bakken came into l\like's Sk y Ra nc ho fo r . the mandatory o ne hour do wntime fo r repair ,..ith a massive lead of .07 sec on d. The private team of Sterner and Robi nso n had also been on t he th ro ttle of th eir lI usqvarn a jus t a little bit an d were tied t o the tenth of a sec o nd at th e halfway po int. The difference between these I wo bike s so m e 20 0 miles later a t the finish was a whole minute, a ft er 3 95 mi les of racing. (T he course had been shortened somewhat to elimina te th e last stretch o f pavemen t where h itting a spec tator was more likely . As it was, Parnelli j o nes, a many t im e Baja and Indy wi nn er, hit a mo t orcycl in g spectator who was ri d ing backward on the course and ki lled h im . jones withdrew from the race .] T he absence of lon g st re tc hes of engi ne-ea ting pavement that plagued former Baja ru ns may have been the reason th e two-stroke sin gle-cylinder Nils-Arn e Nilsson nursing a destroyed rear wheel into t he ha lf way point. He went o n t o w in the 125 class a few hours lat er.

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