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/126016
00 ..... .... IlJ ..0 E u ;;. o Z There was but one classic bottleneck Making silhouettes in the season 's only dese rt National enduro. would have saved a lot of problems and official protests to ponder over. Most riders were anywh ere from one to 10 minutes late at the next check. The win ner of the enduro will be determined by whether that check stays .or goes by the wayside. The third loop was much th e same as the second. Tough, but if you had it all together it was possible to zero the loop. The nature of the la yout was a t times, you were two minutes late, but able to make it up before a ch ec k. 'The club could have placed the checks to catch the riders late , but laid them in so you had a chance to get back o n time if you really wanted to . A co uple of 3 0 .1\Ip'H averages kept everyone r moving righ t along because they were not on roads. In fact in a co uple of places they took you righ t up into the hills o n rocky trails, and that's really a bitch at 30. One section stands out in my ~ind. The check was located at the top of a challenging hill. Naturally what goes up must co me down, and down the riders came. Not a motor was stirring. except for Honda Trials Team Manager, Bob Nickelsen who ' was mounted on his trick TL-350 trials/enduro bike. One rider was bulldogging his bike down the hill and glanced over to see Bob jumping o ff of a big rock on his way down the hill at a moderate pa ce. That just plain blew" !ti~ out; . ~ob .qip pre.tsy. g oo d, Not recommended for C riders , th e last two loo ps kep t everybody on the pegs or on the gas. wit h a top 10 p lacing p retty well assured no matter what th ey do on th e bottleneck check. Bob's no t known for his timekeeping prowess and freely admits that he navigated off of Team Honda's enduro riders Jay Tullis and Mike Adams. The last secret check faked a lot of riders out. It was lo cat ed about seven miles from the finish right on a dirt road in plain sight. It was so obvious that some riders thought it was just someone camping there and burned it . After that check it was free territory all the way to the finish, but the club had one last devilish section fo r the riders. The co urse turned into the L ~ sged h}lls ~~ i~~ bo ~~er ~.dfrson Dry Lake and the riders had to ma ke thei r way down a couple of more steep hills before the course came down at last next to the dry lake and turned in. Riders who circumvented and went straight in to the pits will be surprised to know th ere was an observation check located at a critical po int to make sure that they. stayed o n course . Those who didn't will find their names in the results under the heading of "Disqualified". At the finish , instead of receiving the traditional finish ing pin the Checkpoints took each finisher 's p icture and p lan mounting it on one's very own pin. Sounds like a neat idea to me . Hope n turns out OK. • . .. . . . .... .... 9