Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

~M~W~~~~V~",W'..,.·~~VV~w-C},~ M Opinion Keep on pressin' The Isle of Man IS like Catalina with a patchwork quilt laid over it. On its 500 miles of twisty , tunneled road (only 200 miles of which are paved) , the fam ous Manx IT course is proudly marked with signs showing the names and shapes of the famous 14 co m ers - Kate's Cottage , Gov ernor 's Bridge , Creg-ny-ba . The few thousand residents of the semi-independent British tax haven are uniformly wealthy, and unanimously motor sports m inded. They still remember how recent as the Battle of Britain that daring young men not unlike these 6·Days co mpe ti tors fought each other in skies overhead. The Isle was a perfect prisoner of war internment c am p during World War II , and that fact alone probably hastened the surrender of the Italian and Gerrnar armies who hoped they'd be luck enough to pull duty here . _ Lenk and Morey report back from the headline front: Death and casualties ; bike perishes in flames; holes riddle pistons; American Vase teamer nailed by car. I didn't raise my boy to be a war corresponden t. "Slow Down in town, " the promoters begged the team managers, "Or we'll stop the Trial." No one could remember when the 6-Days had a de ath before. A pall of gloom de scended like the ra in o n Douglas Head and it is only Wednesday. I noted that a 3·Day T rial might be bett er under the circumstances. Thursday was the worst. The American riders . relieved o f tens ion as well as an y chan ce of winning, cu t loose and had fun , and paid the blood y penalty. "He 's ligh t ," a native bystander ob serve d as one American strafed the beach to th e Lighthouse checkpoint. Sure en ough , he had ate-i t racing with Malcolm Sm ith. Like some hotshot pil o t flying under a bridge in co mbat , he crashed and his nose was all b loody. Another American dove off a road and fell 15 feet and lu ckily lan ded in wa ter, but was still hors de combat. On top of all this, on e Briti sh motorcycle factory was in liquidat ion, workers had sei zed the: remainin g tw o , the only Greeves in the Trial was sho t through the piston. The Isle of Man , where development has be en writt en in headlines through out mo torcycle history , grew more depres sing th an it des erved. It wa s lik e some vile tru e, Con serv ative fantasy co mi ng wher e n oth ing ne w co mes out of t he land, wh ere th e best break th em selves o n obstacles, and the survivors scrounge in du stb in s for spare par ts . What a differe nce a day makes ! By Friday th e world seemed ros y agai n. We saw a new Triumph twin on th e Island like some beau tiful b ird on ce though t to be extinct suddenly landing in our midst. May be th e Meriden co mm unal factory has it s act to geth er? Maybe Ay n Rand is m ist ak en? The local sho ps arc sudd enly fu ll of new 750 T riu mp hs, assem b led without a blemish by employee-owners who obviously take pride in their work. The surviving Americans dig in for the serious trench struggle that remains. Our opponents' luck was as bad as ours, as it turns out. The island has beaten us all somewhat. Even the "invincible" Czechs tu rn o ut to be human , after all. The civilians come out of their shelters to cheer. There is a fine sense of pride in accomplishment as we all stand up to applaud th e Trophy and Vase winning teams, and a minute of silent reflectio n for our dead, and we can report now why the 6-Days is as lo ng as Creation. It has to be. Charles Clayton it may, they st ill hosted th e scramb les and perhaps each District ca n take its tum as host. That would keep it even. For mysel f, I offer th ese suggestions, only to impro ve the program, no t to nit pic k. As to the p rogr am , it wouldn 't hav e been that hard to incl u de the Distric t eac h rider came fro m as th at was the fun ction o f th e race, to ma tch them off agai nst eac h o t he r. Makes it mor e in te res ti ng fo r all co nc erned , and o f co urse, get the wh ole show o n th e road in tim e for everyone to get t hei r list s to th e promoting club to ge t th e whole list to th e prin ter in time. Getting a co rrec t program is reall y getti ng o nes' act toge ther an d it ain't easy ! . We'd like to see an anno uncer who puts himself o ut to obtain more on each rider on his own and not wai t for the host club to provide it . If top-notchers lik e Roxy Rockwood and Sandy Reed and Larry Huffman waited for so meo ne else to d o their spade work they wouldn't be where they are now. At Tulare the District 36 officials really speeded t hings up for their riders by setting up sho p right by sign-up, p ulling their riders out of line and getting th em on their way and ba ck to th e pits. As it happened both o f District 37's scramb les stewa rd s h ad re asons for not attending but sur el y some representative from ea ch District co uld be o n hand. It sure wa s a ste p in t he . right direc tio n , though I wan t the Tulare T rac krnas ters to know how delighted our District riders were ... and no , not ju st th e ones who won ! AMA scramb les are in dire shape down here and it made me , for one, realize ju st how bad things are , hearing other Dis tri cts talk abo u t t heir racing season ! I gue ss one District 35 official hit it on the head wh en he said, "Well , most of y our races are outlaw, aren't they ?" Must admit that put my b ack up a bit although it didn't sho w. Outlaw rac es in olden times were bad an d the AMA ban on its riders riding in th em was justified. But to say that our ex cellen tly-ru n races like Corona, Elsinore and Perris are " o utl aw" I don 't much care for . They arc non-sanctioned so I guess the label fits. Still, our "outlaw" races sure produce some very q uick people ! I co uldn't completely fatho m where we finished o n poin ts, I t hink the three races we d id n't win were all District 35 but by the end o f th e eve ning it was co nfusing as to what Dis trict so me of the riders came from. If I'm correct, it was District 35 with three and District 37 with three and considering We were o ut-of-towners we lived up to o ur reputation. Some of th e fastest shoes in the West co me from District 37 so hold up your heads, gang! 'Specially Charlie, T·Bone andJim! Maureen Lee RIDE Tul are was neat. It's been way too long since we've had a big scrambles and hopefully we'll have th is as an annual thing. It's amazing, though, how yo u can almost count on the same things happening at big races, and riders seek you out to either bitch a bit o r, grinning lik e Chesh ire cats, say it's the neates t race the y've e ver ridden. To th e riders who complained abo ut th e or gan ization, it wa sn't that bad. I have seen a he ll of a lot wors e and so have yo u guy s. In ch ec king I found o u t tha t Tul are T rackrnasters are a new club and one - rid er fro m thei r District co uld n't wait to tell th at th ey were th e w or st o rganized and the o the r Distric t clubs were much better. \l' ell , be th at as O~~ Bob is ed ito r of our on -road co usin p ublication Bik er, and as such , is a confirmed pavem ent po under. Ill' tried riding dirt once here is his repo rt . . . Edit or On e day I was puttin' down th e main drag on my scoot when the tr affi c sto pped fast in fro n t of me. My brakes ' being in their normal condition, I co m menced to center pun ch the van in front of me. Not a real goo d cente r pun ch, just eno ugh to jar me awake. As I pulled my face off t he rear window of the van, I saw t h is sign. It said " Do it in the dirt. " Now I've been seei ng thes e signs around for qu it e aw hile , so I decided to tr y it o ut and see wh at it was like . Afte r all riding o n the street is fun , so I guess d oing it in the di rt wo uld be almost as mu ch fun. Th at was my first mistake. I had this frien d (or so I thought) th at o wned a Suzuki Sh op, so I dropped by one da y to talk to him . He suggested th at we go riding on Monday, wh ich is the da y all bike shop em ployee s hit the hills. He said tha t I co uld use a 400 that he had laying around the shop. Now fo lks, I've been riding a long tim e , and there ain't no man go ing to tell me th at a 400cc 2 stroke has enough power for a 300 plus pound man. So I proceeded to try and talk hi m into a bigger. bike, but it was to no avail, he said that it would be big enough. Five o 'clock ' Monday morning, which is th e "normal " starting time for dirt ri ders (I never did find o ut why) we headed for th e hills. I had all the paraphernalia that was expec ted for a dirt rid er . Helmet, boots, gloves, sunglasses, first aid kit , splints, morphine, etc. When w e arrived at Gorman Family Park we unload ed the b ikes. I co uldn't believe th at I was su pp osed to ride thi s thing, it felt so light th at I co uld have carried it up the hills . It co uld n't have been more than 200 pounds total. Oh well , they say it will do, so I thought I would give .It a try. I prepared to kick it over as if it w ere a ho g. Whoosh. My foot almost went thru the ground, and the air was filled with the sound of pop corn makers. Ratty-tat-tat. Ratty-tat-t at , Yech , what an awful sound. Knowing th at it was just a 400cc engine, I cranked it up to about 6.000 RPM and let the clutch out. All at once the fron t end came up, the rear end went sideways, and I went flat on my butt. Jesus, what the hell hap pened ? Leo told me that I should try it again , but this time feather the clutch . Feather the clutc h ? What the hell is th at. All I ever d id was let go of it , wh at am I supposed to do , tickle it . Oh well, I t hought I would try . . rLetting th e clu tc h out slowly, the bike started to take off, and I me an take off. This must have been a joke. The damn th ing had to have a jet imbe dde d in it. It seemed to have more power than a do uble engined fuel bike, but it weighed less than a chopper rear wheel. Hey , this ain't too bad. Whoopie. Over sand hills, di tches, hills. anything that I aimed for it went over. Th is was reall y going to be a gas. Over at some hill th at 100 ked like a cliff, there were a bunch of kids about 9 or 10 years old. They were going up the hill like it was nothing. Being a natural born showoff, I decided it was time to let them see how a man could do it. I revved up the popcorn maker and headed straight for the hill . By the time I had gotten the bike in to secondI realized my problem. I was going to die . The damn hill must have gone over 50 feet in height, and it was all straight up . I kept th e throttle wicked WFO and stood o n the pegs, the crowd cheered as I made it past the halfway mark, they cheered as I h it the ro cky area near the top, the y screamed with delight as I watched my front wheel leave the ground and head for open spa ce. They -' cho ked with mirth as the bike fell ba ck into my waiting arms. By the time the bike and I reache d the bottom, in o ne big ball , th e res cue sq uad had to be called to help the pe ople breathe , they were lau ghing so hard. I didn't see the humor in it. As I load ed the bike hack into the tru ck , p iece by piece , I thought ba ck on the bumpe r st ic kers . Nex t time I do it in th e dirt , it will be parachuting or something safe . Bob Bitchin

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