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...-4 C'J ~ II) The American £' team ~arranty= 5 ... II) Six fJays or 1,200 mi.les, which ever comes f'irst! , , ,. By Charles Morey her e are lo ts of stories surrounding the American ISDT effort , particularly concerning the eight event AMA Two-Day Trial Championship Series. Some of them are of su ccess and celebration ; some ar e of fa ilu re and d isappointm ent. .So rne are so hard lu ck that they're funny. . Take Mike Hannon's radiator tale, for example. Mike 's in fine shape now ; he qualified OK and ~s chosen to ride on the U.S. Wo~ld Trophy team. Bu! thc:re was a night back 10 May when he must have had his doubts. He and his wife Theresa were on their way to the Ol ympia, Washington Two-Day qualifier when, as he told it : . "At two o'clock in the morning, I hit a deer just outside a small town in Oregon, completely totaling the front end of the van. It kn o cked out the radiator and power steering and demolished the grill. I hitch-hiked a ride to th e nearest town while Theresa stayed with the van. , ' "At 7:30 in the morning, I wa s finally able. to get a tow truck out, o nly to fin d out there was no place in town that could make the repairs. So, we 'were towed almost eighty miles to the next town where we were stuck for over a day. "W ell , they informed us then th at it would be ano th er five day s before they could ge t the right radiator. Desperate, we rigged a makeshift radiator that overheated th e rest of th e way, and needless to say, died of exhaustion shortly thereafter. " I guess the incident had set up some kind of p attern because I was holding the lead at Olympia until the second day of the event when m y b ik e foll owed the radiator. The best part of all was t hat ~rior to hitt ing th e deer, we'd stopped David Ashley -- Wadesville, Ind. It hasn 't been an easy year fo r nine teen year ol d David Ashley. T here' were. as h e desc ri bed . it, " tons of crazy happenings" in t he Two-Day series. He set o u t to ride th em a ll, the n ( I) endoed in a special test in N ew Jersey: still finis he d o n Gold, (2) Finis he d Ft. Hood o n b ack rim ; st ill go t a G old ; (3) Had ano ther flat ncar the end of Cali forn ia Cit y ; took ano ther Gol d , (4) En doed in th e 'ba rna mud (a no ther flat ) : still man aged to score a Gold, (5) St ruc k by a "wrong way rider" in Wash ingt o n ; broke o ne ar m and d islo cated t he othe r __ couldn' t co m pete in th e final t hree even ts . But here he is, all q ualifi ed , sup ported and re ad y t o go agai n. 20 " I especially would lik e to th ank Bill St ew art of Y am ah a , Y am aha In t ern at ion al , and all the peopl e in R& D for their support and co ncern. A I Eames d eserves cre d it for gr eat orga n iza t io n and seeing to it th at we ge t fla t t ires o f te n . Thanks AI ! And of co urse everyo ne in Six Days kn ow s m y d ad J erry an d how important he 's been to me . He's alway s there .': David , em p loyed as a co nst ruc tio n . . . .. . . . .. ...... worke r, explained why it's all wort h it. " The p rimar y reason (for spending a ll t he ' necessary time and mon ey ) is t o m ake the U.S. team an d know that you're re presenting your co untry, and -in my case .. Yamaha. It costs a bund le no ma iler how yo u hack it, and the re war ds a rc self-satisfactio n in co m pe t ing w ith th e m ach in e agai ns t ti me. m e ch an i c al s tr e s s an d th e ele rnen ts.' Fred Bellman - Oakland , Cal. In the forty rider U.S. I line-up, somebody had to be number fort y. This year, It 's Fred Bellm an , ninet een ye ar o ld parts man for Nelson Brothers Mot or s . A s number f orty, with thirty -seven rider s definitely goi ng, Fred's ch an ces is third alternate aren't too good at the time of this writing. Bu t he's looking at next yearalready, "Being on e of the riders selected to rep resent the U .S. in the ISDT is going to be my u lt im ate experien ce, if not this ye ar, then next year for sure ." The c os t of c o m pe ti ng in the T w o-D ay qu alifying series allowe d Fred t o compete in only four events. He in Reno and lost all our money - we had $ 1. 75 b etween us !" And then there's Kevin Lavoie's ey ebro w-ra ising tal e about a traffic jam at a Trask special test. "There were a bunch of us Penton riders all riding w ithin a few minutes of each other. Frank Gallo got to the start of the test and took o ff. It ran up an old woods road with two very deep ruts on both sides. "Well, Frank got all crossed up about half a mile up and got off in one of the ruts. I had started about 20 seconds behind Frank. I must h ave h it th e same thing he did because right where he was , ' I ended up on the other. side in the other rut. • "If that wasn't bad en ough - there were Frank and me, both of us in different ruts and trying to get out - when alo ng co m es Carl Cranke ! Just as I was getting my bike out, he hit m y front wheel and did a great big endo, "So .the~~E_ were, three o f. us in th e same place, all down. You can im agine how we felt! But t hat wasn't all. Jeff Gerber was .next, and when he go t to us, we we re allover the trail trying to get going. And J eff, trying to avoid the three of us as he rounded the turn, went sliding off into th e sam e rut Frank was just getting ou t of. . "I know this must sound a little far -fetched, but you 've got to understand that we were all only 15-20 seconds apart, so it all happened very quickl y Plu s it was very slippery and just aro und a turn. This story gave us a valid ex cuse for our poor test t im es. but Frank, Carl, Jeff and I su re go t some puzzl ed lo oks from the likes of Jack, T o m , Dane and o th ers we told of our exper ien ce." And all that was just in trying to qualify for Six Days. T he A ust r ian stories should be outstanding! We'll try to bring home a go od co llection. finished on Gold a t California Ci ty, n inth in the Open clas s. At Ol ympia, Washington, he tied for third in class o n Gold, an d at Trask he wrapped up the tw o d ays w ith ano ther G old, si xth in class. The final race that his fin an ces Char les Bethards -- Auburn, Wash. "I live and breathe m ot orcycles 24 hours a' d ay . I d idn 't h ave the money t o compete in th e ISDT when I wa s yo unger. T o win even a Bronze Medal would mean a lot to me . T o com pe te also means enj o ying the pleasure o f ridi ng with the best riders in th e world." Thirty-nine y ear o ld Ch arl es Bethards wo uld allow hi m to com pe te in was Bad Rock . At the en d of day one , Fred t ook' second in class. T he n, midway thro ugh day two his Gold winning streak ended. . "I was riding m y best on Sunday until a log wiped o ut my rear brake, and with it, my fo urth in a row Gold Medal ride." His sp o nsor John Nelson , an IS DT veteran from 1967 and 1970 made it all possible. If the y can get Fred to . more events ne xt yea r, he looks like a st rong possibility for IS DT 1977 . - was p resenting his view o n Six Days. Th e tool design er an d fa ther o f fo ur co n t in ued , " Ho w m uch is a med al wo rth? I look a t it ano th er way . How mu ch sati sfaction do I receive fro m co m pe ting? It ' s th e ch ance o f a lifetim e; a goal to wo rk toward." He 's prepar ing for the grueling eve nt with a 30-45 m in ute dail y wor k-ou t s ession wh ich includes ru n ning two mi les , th irt y push up s and fifty sit ups . The train ing program is supplemented with fre q uest ridin g sessions and regul ar com p etit io n. Wife La ura, da ugh ter Kr is and so ns Ken, K elly and Keven alo ng w i th members of the Sea Fair Cit y !\I.C., the Bultaco dealer, Don and Iris Rh odes an d Bultaco em p lo yees Ron Murphy and Mike Hannon all rat e hi gh o n Ch arles' .' th ank-you list. Ron Bishop -- Escond ido, Ca. With the AM A's gain ing two extra berths fo r U.S . riders, and Don Cutler forced o u t of the running with a broken leg, Ron Bish op became first alternate. As it appears at th e tim e o f this wr iting, o nly a week before th e A!\IA tour lea ves ., .