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/125999
There is always that exciting moment just before you go over the bars when you ask yourself why . The SRA featured suspen sio n crushing jumps at their Grand Prix . SRA Dust Fest at Riverside " I've been standing here for 20 m inutes an d By Larry Langley RIVE RSIDE, CA L., JULY 12-1 3 16-year-old Dean Cates totally dominated the 0-200 Beginners race Saturday, at SRA's semiannual Grand Prix. Dean, mounted on one of Yam ah a's new supe r fast 125 mon osh ockers, ea rne d his transfer to Nov ice and promptly entered Sunday 's 0-200 Novice pre tty bad by th e ti me Sunday 's races ro lled aro und. Th e smart rid er s u sed thei r practice tim e wisely by sco u ting th e chuck ho les and da ngers ver y carefully . Th e last race o f the weekend was th e unadvertised Tea m Race . T his was o ne of t he mo st popular with th e rid er s. T wo riders tea me d up o n o ne b ike and switche d riding every lap . Th ere wer e a lot of side bets go ing. Discu ssions o n Some people got confused during the team race and did not know when to let the other guy ride. "But you promised that I could ride this lap." race . Running against a very co mpe ten t field of Novices (in clud ing a lot of sand bagging Experts ), Dean ran away and left everyone fighting for the runner up positions. The talented y ou ngster is go ing to be a force to be reckoned with in the lo cal racing scene. 16 S RA Grand Prixs are m ore in the fun category than the super serious. A eight mile course with a lot of pavement thrown in was run ni ne ti mes for a tota l of just about 72 m iles. The fast races were finishing in we ll under two hours for ' a very high average speed. There we re a couple of straighaways where you co uld go we ll ove r 100 miles per ho ur if your bike co uld pull it. Some did. Knobby tread life was rat her sho rt. All starts wer e of the Le Mans ty pe with th e rider s run ning abo ut 25 yards to their bikes. The wide start area qui ck ly fun neled down in to th e narr ow firs t tum and down a ra t he r cobbly st ra igh t lead ing hack to t he tu n ne l. If you didn 't ge t a good start yo u ate d ust fo r a co up le of lap s. Th ere we re some pretty bad crashes as ride rs co llided while th ey were rid ing blind. On e p oor d ude had the m isfortune of havin g his Triu mph Me tisse land o n him wh en he unloaded. The amb ulance too k h im to th e ho sp it al. The co urse got che wed up w hose hike to use we re heard , so metimes with so me rat her pro fan e language th rown in . Finally all t he hard deci sio ns wer e m ade and ha lf th e en try had to get used to a strange b ike under raci ng c on dit io ns. Th e raci ng was full o ut th ough . All displaceme n ts raced in the Team Race and so me o f th e sma ller h ikes did surpris ingly we ll against th e bigger bikes. Team Hon da Enduro rider J ay Tullis tea med u p w ith Bruce Ke ssler o n an ~ IR-1 7 5 and we re really smoking unti l Bruce cam e up ov er o ne of the up hill e mban kme n ts in a rat her awk wa rd positio n . up sid e down fro nt w hee l first . Bruce escaped w ith scrap es and brui ses . but the Ho nda never ran the same afte r t hat an d quit o n th e eig h th lap . Ro y Sheridan and Terry Swe ts teamed on a Mon tes a V 75 25 0 End uro and did pretty well. Th e Montesa Enduro was really q uite