Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

i Local hotline ~ ! 00 c-r Shee ts (Ya m) was the king, running in tip-top sh ap e. He zap pe d ou t front and ran away with the first race. Moto two turned up a new leader. J eff Springman was first o ut fro nt and first to cross t he fini sh . Sheets was held to a distant fourth in m o to tw o but not for lo ng. Richie Vo lk was pressurin g Sh eets for the front position and he made one last try for the win at the finish line. Ron held him to a tire tre ad and chalked up the overall win. • l-< llJ ..0 o ... u Special night o at Elsinore By And i Gangewe r ELS INO RE; CAL., SEPT. 20 Two spe cial m otocross classes were arra nge d Satu rday nigh t and a gro up called the S & S Spe cial was one . Ed Steffen walked away with the first place tr ophy and his Ifi-year- old so n J o e was second . Mo to one went to Earl Park er with Ed close behind, followed by J oe. Ed , a regul ar winner in th e Open Expert cla ss, to ok another second in moto two. J oe again had to play second ,fiddle to Dad . Gary Kaitukoff was first to take the chec kered , after a fourth in moto one. Joe Steffen led the last moto wire-to-wire fo llowed close ly by Ed and Gary. All the S & S Specials were Yamahas, varying in size from 250 to 400. Gary Kaitukoff was the only odd ball , on a Honda 12 5. The MX Special is becoming quite a popular class at Elsinore . Charlie Oliver took the fir st m oto easily. Tom Hoole (Yam) had a li ttle trouble with second from Mike Shomsky wh o wasn't about to let it 'go without a fight. Bill Ful ton wheeled his Bul around the track and came u p wi th a Special Novice win t he first time out. Fu lton didn't do so hot in the second moto, Robbie Loomis, the youngest guy in this class , was first off the line, and across the finish . In t he last race Bill and his Bul headed for first , held it every lap and Fulton took home the troph y . • Riverbottom GP '75 By A. H. Tellier TEMPE, ARIZ., SEPT. 21 Cleverly timed in conjunction with the full moon, the RBGP '75 brought out the best in everyone. Also the worst . As the culmination of many, many minutes of exhaustive effort, the soci al! sporting event now ranks with the neoclassics of human co mpetition, 26 e.g. dance m arath ons, goldfish swallowing, etc. The two -day event was unavoidably expanded into an extra day by th e , premature appearance of several Californians, who wished to prerun the b omb . In addition to p roto-liming, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Depar tmen t was ins trumental in directing racer s to Gu adal upe Acres. Also instrumental in awarding several ci tations for violations of t he Arizona helm et law (s). Apprehe nded astride a lime-bag-carrying WaspfTri was Baja-bre d Bill Shi pley, wh o is expanding hi s horizons into the wonderful worl d of MX sidecars (ie, sissies). Sunday dawned hot and brassy, with a hint of Arizona au tu m n in the air lo wering temperatures to 100 degree F. For the first time ever, it ap peared t hat the RBGP would host full classes even up to and including Open, with the advent of numerous Triumph rigs . Twenty kegs of Coors were on hand to loosen the River b ottom silts which could fin d t hei r way in to the parched thro ats o f th e gladiato rs. With th e waterh ole filled to the brim and t he I- ~ :I: Z o .., Gary Denton sets a stiff u pper lip and leads David Taylor out of a turn in CMC 125 Pro action at Irwindale. co urse manicure d to perfection , the race was impatiently un derway after the riders' meeting, where Saturday 's overall winner V. Hangschtelure was presented the coveted No. On e plate: California license plate from the Cad jumped at RBGP '74_ Th e 125 class started with The Duke of Mesa dropping the hammer on a full field . The race was somewhat marred b y the appearanc e of several 400 Maicos (H. Kirb y) , which , nevertheless were un able to hold off the calcu late d ons la ught of the winner. Slipping into second place was J.D. Painter, who took advantage o f the well-bermed course to n ip Bill Vogelsang at the flag. The 25 0 class was a clo se co ntest be tween overall winner Duke and Tom Williams. Tom, riding with a rear flat, found the well-watered co urse to his liking , putting Duke aw ay in two out of three motos. It 's agai nst the rules to win more than one class, so racers disqualified! Looking out of co ntrol was Don Brownie and Good 0 1' Ro d Bowsman. Sorry guys, close only counts in h orses hoes and nuclear devices. The Pena Brothers, out o f Tucson, filled o ut the top four riders. Action was provided between motos by a multit ude of pit sq uids, show-offs an d the like. A bisexual streak by E. Dingus an d J oann ie brought t he SRO crowd to its feet. Fully filmed by Proto Cinema, it will be a feature at Hopetown. Several side car in terlu des provided comedy relief as a variety of riders/passengers were spit off. Th e 500 class was run with 15-20 entries, most of whom overcooked the . mudhole jump and t he subsequent 180 degre e tum. Hanging in there for the win was Tempe 's own Geno Branagan (Ya m). But it was n o piece o f cake with th e pressure ap p lied by L'il Kirnba an d Victor Clark. Trials ace Gary LaPlante entertained t he crowd by riding over the top of a '52 Valiant. Show off! Overall winner, Th e Duke of Mesa, was presented the big p urse as advertised. Complete with , shoulder strap and secret pocket, it was a thing o f beauty (and a joy forever). Th e final even t, th e Buddy Race, was a runaway by Billard Shipley and Leslie HiII_ Several ac cus ations were put forth due to the methods used by the winner(s), but as there are no ru les, the results stand as posted! Cameo apperarances by ou r Cour se St urgeon, P. Herwick, and Sub-Sturgeon (T . Waitz) guaranteed a safe and sane race. Thanks, doc . Coverage by The Arizona Repulic and radio station KD KB co mpleted t he publicity. A ta ped program co mparing the RBGP and a Saturday n igh t MX will be aired so on . Truly a meeting of mi nds, o RV-proponent Phil Briggs, Sierra-clubber J an Herwick and geol ogist Kevin Kenny all agreed that the enviro nme ntal impact was kept at a minimum. Bueno, bu eno, buena! _ Results ran last week. Gary Denton wins 125 Pro at Irwindale By Jon Hayt IRWINDALE , CAL., OCT. 10 Gary Denton has bee n a regular crowd pleaser at the night race s this season and has had many hotly con tested race s with Dave Taylor and the other Pros. Denton made a clean three m o to swee p o f th e 125 Pro class . T he first race of t he nigh t was to prove to be the norm for -the night. Denton (Hon) . go t the holeshot with Taylor (Hon ) and Don Bongiorno (Hon) hot on his tail. Denton and Taylor pulled out ahead of the pack and got down to some serious racing . Denton seem ed to be enjoying the competition as he wheelied down th e back st rai gh t and won the mo to with Taylor right behind. The second moto was a carb on copy of the first at the start but Bongiorno got the second position and Taylo r was left with third. Tim Lunde (Hon) made it his business to take home so me money as he rod e to a third in the last race and a third overall for the n ight. Taylor took second after a poor ride the week before because of a change in mo torcycles. Jeff Vidi c (Mai) has been nearly un beatable since the Night Nationals, picking up his sixth 250 Pro win in a TOW. Vidic seems to never miss the holeshot and once he takes the lead, he doesn't lose it. He won all three motos while Jeff Jennings (Bul) and Bill Rubly (C-A) tried their best to get by, bu t with no success. Jennings took two seco nds in the last tw o races fo r the second overall while Ru bly tookthird, Rubly (Mai) was on an off nig ht in the 500 Pro class . After winning the fir st mo to , he took a go od spill in th e seco nd moto, got up fr om the crash an d ho pped onto his bike to bu mp start it. The nex t thing the crowd saw was Rubly flying in to the storm fence WFO _ His throttle had stuck wide open and Bill sur e got a surprise. T he fence will never be th e same. Luke Messer (Mai) showed up tonigh t and decided to get some exercis e, wi nning the las t two motos afte r a second in the first race. Lu ke p oc keted th e firs t overall money an d went away sm iling. Ro bert Zingg (Suz) too k second overal l. • Resu lts ran last wee k. .

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