Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

I Desert hotline ~ E Th e Roesele r/Husky co mbinat ion had it di aled o n for ano ther spectacular win . Roeseler does it again: This time it's Soboba By M. Thunderpussy SAN JACINTO, CAL., FEB . 15 Once again the weather gods smiled kindly upon the Soboba :\I.C. for their sixth annual Soboba Indian Grand Prix: The rainy week prior to the race left the course with traction up the wahzoo, and just enough wat er, mud , canyons, rid ges, hills, rocks, 16 and fire roads were thrown in to make things interesting. The rac e consisted of five 25 mil e loops run on the Soboba Indian R e s e rvation and surrounding U.S. Forestry fire roads. The race , however , almost ended be fore it began, thanks to th e Sie rra Cub, spelled B.L.M. It seems the original ra ce co urse crossed two or three mil es of publi c land, un be knowst to t he Soboba M.C. Part of t he Reservation is checkerbo arded with public land, and th e bo undari es are vague. The public land to be used for th e race co urse co nsist ed of existing ro ads and trails, and had been used by the Soboba M.C. for th e past five years with n o p roblems whatsoever. This year , though , the "S.C. " BLM in formed th e Soboba M.C., six days before their sched uled GP, that a permit was required 90 days prior to th e ra ce date, and therefore this small piece of public land could not be used. The Soboba M. C . accepted the challen ge and re-routed th e course (this re -routing was still taking place the morning of th e race) . The irony of the situation is th at the re-route by necessity had to cut through nearly 10 miles of virgin territory instead of the original three miles of existing roads and trails. Th e resulting erosion potentia l i s tremendous compared to th e origin al lay-out. The BLM·Sierra Club street figh ting ta ctics backfired, and th e incredible bureaucrati c red-tape meddling caused infinitely more harm th an good. The race was run an yway, Sierra Cub: are you listening? The riders were started five to a row every 20 seconds. The 147 Experts started fir st, followed by 90 Amateurs, 45 Old Timers, and 160 Novices. Halfway thro ugh the first lap Malcolm Smith (360 Hus] held the lead, hotly pursued by the other front row starters Jim Fishback (400 Yam), Bob Ballentine (4 00 KTM), A.C . Bakken (360 Hus) and Dave Aldana (400 Yam) . Mitch Mayes (360 Hus) , st ill recovering from a serious shoulder inj ury and vowing he was going to "take it easy" this race, had made up a 60 second deficit from a fourth row start and was righ t on Aldana's tail. Malcolm did a spectacular endo for the fan s a mile from the scoring tower, and before he could re cover, Ballentine flash ed by for the lead . This gave a first lap tally of Ballentine, Malcolm, "Bak ken , Fishback, Mitch A-Mayes-ing, and Aldana. S omewhere o n th e second lap Ballentine fouled a plug and lost five minutes getting re-start ed, Malcolm re-to o k the lead and got in to a heavy di ce wi th Bakken , who even tually muck by. Larry Roeseler (250 Hu s) and Morgan Malocco (4 00 Yam) were haulin' freight through the pack to make t he co m petit io n of th e second lap read Bakken , Smith, Mayes, Ro eseler, Aldana, and Malo cco. Also chargin g thro ugh the pack and gaining t im e were sm ilin' Rick Lee (4 00 Yam ), Bill Conroy (400 KTM) , Lars Larss on (400 KTM ), Dallas Baker (Mo t), Ballentine, and Doug Gr ant (350 Bul], Poor J im Fish back managed to run o ut of gas on the course and had to scrounge eno ugh gas from a spectator's V.W. to ge t him back to the p its . He was never in contention for th e lead after th at . Bakken stretched o u t a go od size lead into the third lap after Malcolm went on his he ad agai n ("that o ne hurt ; I landed on m y face"), but A.C. met his fate ' sh ortly thereafter when he collided with two incredibly stupid idiots riding backwards on th e co urse on one bike , ca using his th rottle to stick wide open and blow his motor in to th e next cou n ty . In the meantime , Roeseler was doing some seri ous racin' an d aft er the third lap, the order was Malcolm, Mayes, Roeseler, Ald an a, Malo cco and > UJ .J .J o J: al III o ~ o J: a. , ...,._~_~ ___"",..=~=~~~ _ _~ _.......J Mit ch A-Mayes-ing zings his Husky th rough a dam p section of the Soboba. Conroy . Mayes really was out just to have a good t ime, because on the third lap as he passed me, haulin ' th e mail on th e fireroad and setting up for a corner , he took his hand off the throttle and slapped me on th e back and waved. Not b ad, Mitch ! There was no sto p ping Roeseler on this day though. After the fourth lap he had taken over the lead with Malcolm seco n d, then Mayes, Aldana, Malo cco and Conroy, and th at's th e way they st ay ed throughout th e final lap and into the f inish . Roe seler's Husky ran flawlessly , an d his only mishap 0 f the day was wh en he had to ge t on th e binders hard , narrowl y mis sing a woman spect ator who wandered ac ross the tr ack on an 80 mph ro ad sect ion. Spe ctators have go t to learn to stay off the race cou rse! Post en tra n t flo b Rutten (I 25 Hod) p u t in a re mark ab le performance by star t ing 14 7th and being the 20 th bi ke to take the checkered . It see ms Bob is destined to o nly finish races longer than 100 miles! On th e distaff side, Dawn Grant (175 Hu s) fi nished first' Expert Woman after being hotly pursued by Wild Cherry Stockton " (125 Bul) and Lorie Watson (2 50 Su z). Cherry 's dice with Dawn ended with a crash , an d Lorie, who was determined to take the win, fell back late in the race when she lost a masterlink. She was ab le to make rep airs , thanks to another sidelined rider, and managed a second, with Wild Cherry coming in for third. T o m Lamar (250 Hus) led the Am ateurs wire to wire and showe d a very high placing overall. Gary Mays (3 6 0 !Ius) and Charles Beck (360 Hus) were right in th ere for sec o n d and third, but at the fin ish it was Wayne Martin (25 0 Hus) taking over for second. First Old Timer to tak e the che ckered was n on e o t her t han J im Fish ba ck, Sr.

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