Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

and still wound second-pla ce rider. up easily as th e • AME at night \ By Barney Drake VAL ENCI A, CA L. , APR. II B u It aco m o unted Ro b Roll ins taxi ed h is way to first overal l hono rs in th e 125 Pro Division at this w eek 's' Al\IE night race. Evan Kevin Garl ick , f o u rth in points for V ictorville High , f inished th ird in first ride in Nov ice class. Apple Valley aces do mi nated th e Expert Divisions as the ba ttle for firs t in the 125 Expert was settled in the third mota betwee n St eve Davis (Han) and Tyrone Brown (Han). With a first and second ea ch behind them when the green flag fell, it was T yrone out in fro n t until lap three when Davis sewed it up. Tracy Walters took 250 Expert honors behind hard-driving Hulon Morrow from Lucerne Valle y. R ich Barnes fro m B and B Yamaha withdrew from the third mota giving Karl Wilson the edge he ne eded to wr ap up first on his new Suzuki in th e Open /Amateur class. • Resu lt s in Results Section. Pessy makes it By Joh n Bethea IR WIN DA LE. CAL., AP R. 18 He ma y have waited six months to t ie Tim Hart 's Cl\IC win rec o rd , but Dave Pessy on ly need ed one more week to break the mark and esta blish h imself as an 85-t ime victor. Pessy did it rath er aw kward ly at th e thi rd m eet ing of t he Spring Motocross Championship Series. Jeff Vidic, now Dave 's \Vheelsmith te ammate . won ea ch o f th e first tw o 250cc Pro ro unds with Pessy second. Then, when Vidic flou ndere d in the fin al Pessy scampered to th e lead an d sudden ly emerged as th e overa ll winner for o nly the second tim e this year. Th e victory keeps Pessy as th e to p Pro in th e Series wh ich p its J unio rs, In te rme dia tes an d cash -chase rs in p oints competi ti o n. Dave b rought his to tal of th e series to 7 1 to tie fo r ninth. Tak ing over aga in as lead er was 12 5 Intermediate II winner Vince Va n Hook (Ho n) wh ose total now reads out a t 79. Bill Ru bly (~lai). now ri di ng for Precision Cycl e, won ye t another 500cc and co n t in ues to build an Pro ever-increasing lead in the seaso n-lo ng CMC points race for the Number On e -pla te and a new Ford van at the end of i the year. Curt is Lessel (Mai ) was th is week's runner-up to Rubly. "I Rex Staten, p laying m usi cal bikes after his falli ng-o ut with Maico, trie d an Ossa again this week in the 250 and a mean lo o king Mota Villa in the 500s. His 250 fouled up a gas line just before th e first mot a which caused him t o n o t eve n start. He failed t o appear for t he firs t two 5 0 0s , to o , b u t d id show fo r th e fina l and took seco nd to Ru bl y in t hat one. The 125cc Pro hono rs went to little David Taylor (Han) who chiseled ou t a , pe rfect th ree mo t a sweep to to p the biggest Pro class o f the night. Tim Lunde (Ha n) gave chase in second twice , reg istered a fou rt h in t he o ther Mar cu s (Ha n ) put second overall in t he hag ah ead of Andy J annings by winning the second mota. J annings was left wi th third overall . As usual , l\laico dominat ed th e 25 0 Pro class; however. t his time th e Maic o advocates were Hal Strauss and Don Ha nsen. With reasonably eq ual b ikes Strauss an d Hansen stayed very clo se together. When they began to lap slower riders Han sen got hel d up, giving Strauss wh at he needed to ta ke th e overall victory. Hansen took second with Joe Roo t (Ossa) in t h ird . T he 500 Pros sto rmed on to the tr ack fo r their first m o t a wi t h Dave Haugh (Bul) ma neuvering his way to the front o f the pa ck. Tom Claire (CZ) a nd Randy Stubbs (Bul) battled for seco nd . As t he mo t a progressed, consistent Dave lIaugh ha d ga ined a respectable le ad. " Berser ko " Randy Stubbs had calmed down; however, Claire still held an adva n ta ge over him. That 's how it finished: Haugh , Claire and Stubbs. In their second mota Claire switched the tables on Haugh and pulled away to vict o ry and th e top money. Stubbs ,finished the same as in the first mota, with a thi rd and Haugh with a second. Smooth Mark Hendrix (Bul) won the 125 Intermediate with rel ative ease. Upc o m ing 12 5 rider Willy Simo ns (Ha n) seemed to be plagued with mechanical pr oblems which held him back to • second overall. Resul ts in Results Se ct ion . Spring Fling score: Saboteurs one, SRA one By Ron Schne iders RANDSBU RG , CA L., APR. 13 Over the years there has be en a more or less co ntin uous argum ent abo ut the primary purpos e o f an enduro. Sh ould it be a co n te st among p recision timekeepers? A fun even t w ith de -em pha sized co m petit io n? A mach o sport where the survivors o f a bru ta l jo us t with impossibl e terr ain d ete rmine th e trophy winner in broken-beer-bo ttle an d me at hoo k free-fo r-all in th e p its aft er t he even t? There are infinite varia tions o n th ese th ree basic ideas. and most o f t hem have been tried at on e time or an other. But now th er e seems to he a new type o f enduro d evelo pin g. a t he end uro co m pe t it io n b etween promoters and those who wan t to sabo tage the co urse. The promoter wins when all the entrants make it back to the pits after following the co urse he has ' laid out; t he saboteur wins when the entrants are left milling aro u nd in th e desert. The umpteenth round of this unfortunate gam e was played out at the S RA 's Spring Fling Enduro. The Spring Fling enduro, even by the standards of' fa mily fun runs, is a gentle enduro. T he pi t area was a small tr ian gle o f land defined by T ro na road and t he Trona railroad trac ks. The co nfin ed natu re o f the pits see me d t o cut do wn th e p it raci ng, so it migh t be a good idea to sta nda rd ize o n small.pit areas. ' The co urse se t off in a northeasterly direction p a ra lle lin g the rail ro ad tracks in a little corridor be tween the railroad and th e Southern part of th e Spa ngler II ill s. At abo ut eight m iles, t he course tu rn ed nort h to circle the -C ' 0.. -< VI It UJ a UJ z J: o VI z ~~~~~~s....~~~=:i::.~~i.f.:~~~~G Mostly a Sunday sit -do wn ride. Sp unglers, cutting in to t he fo o thills just a bit, o n the nort hern boundary of th e ran ge. It was here that th e rid ers the on ly significan t en countered difficulty o f the run, a rocky downhill maybe 20 0 yards long. Although I d id not see anyone having an y real d ifficul ty with it . seve ral riders told me afte r th e run th at they were glad they hadn't had small ch ild re n along because of t ha t section. Aft er leavi ng t he Sp an gler Hills, th e co urse. at roughl y 20 miles, entered wh at the BLM is calling the "Rademacher Open Area." The terrain was fairl y easy and eventually we got to th e to p o fa sandy hill with big rocks sti cking up out of the sand, which sort of reminded me o f p ictures I've seen of Stonehenge. On top of the biggest ro ck an S RA flagman was directing people in an obviously incorrect direction. He explained to me th at someone had tom down their ribbon and had rerouted the co urse in a circle, so he was sending th e riders straight in the p its (whic h could be seen fro m where we were st anding). Sin ce I wasn't officially co m pet ing , I de cided to follow the correct trail and see just what damage ha d be en done. N though the ribbo n was a bit sparse I was ab le to fo llow the tr ail and even tually I came u p on Ro n Vincellette SRA's Ch ief, rerib bo ning the cours e, unaware tha t his aid e-de-camp was so lving the problem in a diffe rent fashion . "The bastards are reall y ge tting good , " Ron said while t yin g a ribbon to a bu sh. (Eve n th ou gh h e now knew th at no rider s were go ing to be comi ng he st ill rib bons. lie 's been doing it so long it 's kind o f a re flex : see a handy b ush , tic a ribbon to it. Automatic. ) "We rode this trail at 6 :3 0 last ni ght and it was all right . They mu st he doing it at night with a jeep. " I left Ron to h is fu t ile ribboni ng and foll owed th e tr ail' fo r the remainder of th e lo op . No one had been o n it. ~I y buddy and I we re riding virgin trail on a fa mily end uro . Far out. TIle second lo o p went o ff to th e south, followi ng in a ro ugh sen se th e boundary of th e Rade macher Ar ea. At its so ut he rn most ex tr eme the course - co mes al most in to t he town o f Randsburg. Th e riding was actuall y fairly easy, and alth o ug h I was not attemp ting t o ke ep ti m e. it seemed th at most riders we re going along at a fairl y rel ax ed pac e. Not t oo fa r out of cam p the co urse went up on an o ld ab andoned ra ilroad grade. Northern Ca lifornia ri ders use these grades q uite often but there aren' t too many of th em in t he deser t. A few mi les o n these grades and yo u learn to treat the m wit h a lot o f resp ect because t hey tend t o vanish abr up tly in spots wh er e o nce there was a wooden trestl e which is now lo ng go ne . That 's exac tly what happened on the grade we wer e riding. A section maybe 20 feet long (and 10 feet deep ) was missing. When I !tot there, a ride r had cras hed, To appreciate what hap p en ed im agin e a t " Th ey went that-a-way." ca ny on ju m p where the star -spangled hero doesn't quite m a ke it and smacks in t o the far wall, That 's just what happened, o nly in m in iatu re . Wha t he had done to his bike was unreal. A bike wh ich, a second before, ha d a 5 5 inc h wheelbase now had about 42 inches. The han dle bar s and forks we re a modern art design in scu lptured metal. The frame was tweaked and so was the swingarm. Needless to say th e guy was also tw eaked, bo th emotionally and ph ysically, tho ugh no thing see med to be broken . We talked . • Him : " I was going at least 4 5 mph when I wen t off there! " 1\Ie: "I can see th at." Him : "Wh y don 't t hose idi o ts da nger mark things like th at? A guy c ould get killed. " Me : " It was da nger-mar ked, both sides o f th e trail t h ree p laces." lie doesn't believe me so we walk back t o t he nearest one, ab o u t 50 feet in fro n t o f his unintentional take off. Sin ce he is in obvious pain I don 't show him t he o thers. m ean t h e se H im : " Y o u do wn-poin ted arrows?" Me: " Yep, th ose are danger marks." (It sa id so very clea rly in the rider's instructions too, but I tactfull y avoided mentioning this. ) Him: "They've had those before and th ey haven't been nothin ' !" En d of co nversat io n . I felt like pointing out to hi m that there had been th ose same sorts of danger m ar ks in fro n t of at least two roads in th is ru n, which were similar to the roads o n which two riders had alre ady been killed this year in other runs. If he tho ugh t they were "nothing" he h ad already used u p this mo nth's allocatio n o f luc k, which was wh y he crashed. That , and an obvio us lac k af proficiency in mo t orcy cle fly in g. The res t of th e run was j us t an easy ride ove r some nice but uns pectacular trails. The re-rou tin g geni us of the first lo op di d no t hit the second loop so all he accomplishe d was the loss of one chee k and ro ughly five mil es of trail. In t he co n test of " who marks th e final (Continue d on p age 30) 23

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