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/126071
! NORtHERN DATElH ~ g t- Spillway Park MX By Bill Morley SANTA :\IARIA, CAL., OCT. 10 Rain and a he avy fog left t he track with a few wat erh oles, but th e weather cleared and the sun carne out for a good raci ng d ay. C'J Highlight of the d ay was the ra cing in the 250 Expert class, with Mar k Gambetta giving a spectacular performance. His bike wa s wo rking. In 125 Expert it w as Kenn y Roush and Chris Haumont finishin g 1·2, with Kenny taking th e second moto and all the marbles. Doug Lawren ce took th e 125 Intermediat e wi t h Fre d Perry gett ing se co nd. Fred ca me up from t he 100's a few races back, and is rapidly gett ing the feel of the larger bike. A close o ne in the 125 Junior class. Tim Wilson go t th e fir st but was closely ch allenged by Rand y J ohns. A go od on e. • 1-< QJ ..c E QJ > o Z Cowbell comes on like a big, mean bull By Mike Kinsella LAKE PI LLSB U RY, CAL., OCT. 16 The Hayward M/C 30th Annu al Cowbell Endu ro was a killer. Ab ou t 550 riders left th e start lin e, so mc 30 0 or so wer e out at (Abo ve and insed Scenes fro m th e Cowbell, as sun slants toward t he horizon. (Below) Subl iminal advertising at the Fool's Gold? the hal fway po int , and of th ose who managed to survive t he e nt ire 120 mile co urse only 20 · had com pe titive scores. District 36's t op rider Ge orge Hendricks finished with a score o f 12 ab oa rd his Husky an d Expert J ohn T rout ridi ng an IT400C dr opped 15 p oints. George an d J ohn left o n t he firs t m inute . Hay ward _clu bm en Rich Lopez and Gerald Lozier la id out the super d iffi cult co u rse and they did an imaginative. hard-core and even slightly brutal work-up for the Northern Californ ia riders who ca me expectin g something a little more moderate . It didn't reall y matter for most riders, but the chec ks were all accurate ex cept for number two which was slightly off and was thrown out by the referee. Course marking was very go o d in the first ha lf, slightly less so in the second where a lot of riders remarked th at some dange ro us spots weren 't marked. The cause of all the difficulty was dust and dry, powdery so il. The little bit of rain this fall has not been en ou gh to saturate the gro u nd so th at it will stay to gether to provide traction. Fortunately, t he woods sec t ion s on the Cowbell were sh aded enough to be a little tacky and a little less dust y an d there were a lot o f woods trails in the course. T he uphills were man y and ne arl y im possib le to traverse, p articul arl y for t h e "C" riders who th is Saturday were pu t a t a heavy di sadvantage. When th e riders with th e latter minute arriv ed at the ba se of the long, t w ist ing u ph ills the ground was so p lo wed up th a t it t ook I 0 or 20 minutes to get to the t op . Then there were rid er s who had just given u p and left t heir bikes ly ing in the be st lines ; or if they were movin g they were being pushed by two o r three other pe ople an d blocking the way. The trails were ti ght and there were many lo gs to get over as well as to gel under. One of those im aginat ive strokes pu t in by the layout men was a two o r three foot high st eel pipe which had to be crossed , there being no access around the ends. The heat go t to everyone . In fa ct at eve ry water c rossin g there were cro wds of rid ers wh o had stopped for a q u ick one. It looked like the Saturday night part iers a t the local d rin king establishment standing aro und swappin g st ories, laughing and as king e ach o t her if they were go ing to go on . There' were a few cu t ou ts that washed out the We-dry riders. If you were making good speed along a path you co uld be sure that soon the path