Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Down at theArmadi110 (Continued from page 15) That isn 't hard to believe because Stacka ble really is one of them and is the epitomy of the smiling easy-going Texan. Austin Motocross Park lies on the banks of the Colorado Riv er in a tree lined valle y w ith a small grassy knoll commanding the view. The track is not exceptionally long and I cursed the Texan who told me that Lone Star tracks we re " so long that two lap motos were sometimes called on acco unt of darkness." I cursed when my knuckles galled in to the teeth of "the special 40 tooth sprocket I had brought. T he track w asn ' t long, but it was rough. It h ad a full sand first turn with 57 vari eties of lines and a whoop-dee section down the front straight th at co uldn ' t be b eat. T he track was en tert ain ing during practice, if a little muddy , then during the race it go t serious. The whoops go t worse and riders were exp lo ded out o f the saddle as if by some unseen de t onation. Suddenly I looked up on th e knoll that the track encircled and i t was co vere d with people, not people dressed in leathers, but people dressed in dresses, a1bei t some in leather dresses. I had th e urge t o ask th e neares t p erson what those people were do in g th ere, then it struck me. These must be th e spec tat ors that the old ti mers talk abou t , I'm so used to racers racin g for o ther racers and promoters making their proceeds by raising en try fees that it ne ver occu rred to me th at p eople would pay to watch a local motocros s. Yet th ere th ey were si tting o n the hillsid e like a smattering of Southern Cotillion an d motocross chic. And I was enjoying it. Ea ting dirt and wearing out the seat of m y pants crashing, but di ggin g it as much as th e spectators. In th e pits people offered me help , tools, and refreshments. When my bike broke someone came along an d , offered t o lend me th eir b ike . Young Mark Wheeless wasn 't there th at day as he had b een involved in a bad accident the week before. Everyone was upset and Texan Dennis Cox said , "Seems like everybody is go ing too fast; First it was Sh awn Smith ge t ting hurt at Whitney and now Wheeless. Maybe it 's their wild style, but I think it is the end of the old joke ab ou t motocross being a sport of 12 mph get-off's." Austin had been fun, it was like back in Punkin Center or 1973 revi site d , but it was 1975 and they were going fast. And they were enjoying themselves. Somehow all that had been lost back in Los Angeles, Lost in traffic jam sessions, concre te tracks, and an overdose of seriousness. Something about Texas motocross , was intriguing. The Austin track hadn't been that much better than a good California track, but I came away satisfied. Cox told me as 1 packed my bags that Austin was j ust the tip of Texas motocross, the rest of the giant iceberg lay submerged in North Texas. It was time to move North, but the next stop was a chiaroscuro in black and white from progressive country Austin. This was real coun try and not the least bit progressive I thought as I drove through the town square of Hillsboro, out past the rodeo ring and stock car _ trac k. Three ' old men resting in white lawnchairs under the courthouse statue to the Confederacy gave me direction to ~ Lake Whitney Cycle Ranch. The , youngest of the men, whose face looked like a hard country road raised the furrows of his eyes and said, "They havin' one of them -big motorsicle races I!' this week?" "No, just a regular ra ce," I replied co o lly trying to put enough twang in the tremble to sound at home, "The Trans-AMA was a coup le of months ago." "Boy h idy , I've seen a bunch of them bikes go by today," the man said when I finished. He said it with j u st enough starch to let me know that a regular motorsicle race and a Trans-AMA were abou t the same th in g to them, Maybe 1 expected mo re than a fing er poin ting down the two-lane b lac kt o p, but i f I d id it was cut short by the ch aw of Redman pinging in to th e Dixie cup three feet aw ay. Lake Whitney Cycle Ranch is o wned by a bi g frie nd ly bear of a Texan named Harvey Evans. Harvey runs roughshod over the 500 ac res of land set aside for motorcycles and ch oreographs tri als, hillclimbs, cr oss co un try an d motocross even ts o n co nsecutive weekends. With Harvey and th e Evan s family mot orcycles ar e a way of life. The mon ey has been lean and fa t, ' bu t th e long lis t of fri ends more th an fills out the ledger. Trans -AMA time brings the greats fr om Europe t o th e Ranch . T he 25 0 Natio nal Championship was decided here. There's a spot in th e fe nce wh er e th e Eur o pean Sidecar Ch amp ions crashed through , but th e p lace remains the stomp in g ground of-T ex as giants. As k Harvey abo u t th e greats and he'll tell yo u what a "nice kid Har ry Everts was when he stayed at th e r anc h , then suddenly he'll d rift into talking abo ut some local kid. To a dyed-in-the-w ool mote-freak us in g World Ch ampion Harry Eve r ts name in co n tex t w ith a 250 Novice is blasphem y . T o Harvey th ey're both the same - a co uple o f good hard rid in g kid s. You walk the track with a lo cal and thi s isn' t the first turn th a t Ake Jonsson fe ll in during the 19 74 Tran s-AM A, i t is the place where Wyman Pri ddy slip p ed in t he mud af te r get ting a 50 fo ot holesho t in the T ex-AMA. At the en d of th is long swit ch back th e talk doesn't turn t o DiSt efan o and Howerton co m ing through lik e a layer cake, bu t ra ther about the ti me th at Bo b by Pic kard fell over all by him self. Aft er th e lo ng walk down th e straights to th e bu t not too much because th e gu y in fro n t of you is throwing a better ro ost th an Miss Budweiser. The coff ee brown dirt is excellen t. It was worth the drive from the Sh akey City of Los Angeles to shake o ut the cob web s in the rich Tex as so il, This is real motocross! The track is only used once a month. The purse is $1 ,0 0 0 every time. The co mpet it io n is intense , bu t here even more than in A ustin the riders we re more lik e schoolboy s lusting after th e las t few days o f summer vaction. Although the names of T exas motocrossers would mean n o thing to th e Southern California set that cu t its teeth on m edia stars th ese are p eople worth em u lating. The m o st rap id and rapid ly r isin g star in the Lone Star st at e is Bobby Pickard . Formerly a 125 Ex pert who spen t two years eating Danny Doss ' dus t , Pickard came in to his o wn after moving to the b ig b o re classes. T his m ove was fu n . T hey aren' t prima d o n n as. As though the_ sweat and grit that tamed this barren landscape is passed on in to younger generations. The old van is burning oil and the nearest Dodge dealer is 100 miles away from Hillsboro in Dallas. Dal las is th e epicen t er of bigness . A sprawling megalopolis grafted to its country' co u sin Ft.' Worth. Dallas and Ft. Worth carry on a word war that makes them th e Mutt and Jeff of cities. The en terp ri sin g, businesslike Dallas and the rural cowtown of Ft. Wor th dice at each other with sayings like - " There is something th at Ft. Worth can say that Dallas can' t. It ' s 30 miles from a major ci ty." An d nestled in be tween this civic war lies Mosier Valle y Motocross Park. Mos ier Valley is th e proof of what the Texan had told me about at Saddleback, It was a ri der's track. Owned and op erated b y riders who took " Z ll.l j ll.l Z ll.l > ., Ul o t- o ;: L.. ';O"' ..... left-hand downhill tum only the most ne cessitated by a painfully slow 125 starstruck say this is where DeCoster Pen ton provided by his sponsor, it was the best thing to happen to him. Bobby spun out, most say, "I'll bet Johnny Kimbrell broke his leg here three can win in th e big time with a little times." The big news isn't wheiherornot work and he knows it . " I learned a lot : from the few Mikkola will switch to Honda, but did Nationals I got to race last year. you see that Jady Foust was on a Every time I ride with those guys I learn Maico. Richard Nixon could be crowned th ings. When I get out of high school tomorrow if he cou ld raise as much this year I hope to get a chance to ra ce attention as the long awaited and now aga ins t them all the time ." Pickard says he aled Danny Doss does simply by it with such earnestness and humility riding fast. _ that you have to believe , h im . I know Lake Whitney also sits by a river, the Brazos, and utilizes the varied Central that if he was a California hotshoe and had won half as many races he'd be Texas terrain to provide a electric demanding t he world on a platter. The layout. The track sprawls across a field Texan o nly wan ts a ch ance. at the base of the hillclimb, levitates itself in and ou t of a bac kwater ravine , Maybe it's th e wo rk e th ic , or a down and all th e whil e th e surface looks to earth p hilosophy that is m issin g fr om the mech anical. rhurry up, west coast life lik e finely-ground ch o p ped liver. T he ,w h? o p s h ave you . talking to yo urself, . st yl e, bu t the Tex an srac e hard-and h ave I- .what was once a narrow cowpath of a track and turned it in to the finest dirt in Texas. The dirt in Austin was go o d , Lake Whitney was excellent, but - at Mosier Valley you could feel the earth shake. Throughout the co nst an tly changing , serpen tine were loose berms com p osed of Texas chernozen so il and sand. Bright red nylon fencing defined the track where the trees didn't. The dirt at Austin was good, but Austin is a sm all city. Lake Whitney was excellent, but sat in an iso lat ed small town. Mosier Valley is amazing and sits right in the midst of one million people. Mosier Valley 's reputation as a tough demanding and serious track is highlighted .by a row of ambulances. Yet serious injuries remain few, even though as many as 13 ,brim full classes hit the gate on Sunday. The spectators have to be hardy as the track complies to the wishes of the riders, not the watchers. The track is tough and many riders prefer to skip it because it is "hard on machinery, y ou can't win there and the classes are too big ." Mosier Valley regulars, of which there are normally 300 on 'race day, say that most r acers are ' sp o iled. Young kids come up as superhumans, faster than anyone at their local track. They have been coddled, cheered and had their butts wiped, but at Mosier Valley when the gate drops . the bullshit stops. If the whoops don't get you then the 40 other supermen on the line with you will. With the van fixed and time running out I hit the road for California. Glad to be going home , but sad about what I'd seen in Texas. When you go looking for the perfect wave or the perfect track you en ter in to an approach-avoidance situation. It would be nice to find, but hard to leave. The motorcycle racing fraternity of California is better off nev er riding on a Texas track because they could never go home again, As for me I pu t the peaal to the metal and try to m ake it b ack in t ime- to go down to Car lsb ad . After all it ain't the tracks o r th e work y ou enjo y , it 's the pe op le y o u run into. • • -- - - •- - - - - - - - • -39 /

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