EDesert
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ORA promoter Ron Burpo (left) talks it out w ith Balentine after the Golde n Bear.
Oa winnah at full chat. w inning on elapsed time.
Golden Bear H & H
to Balentine
.
By Dale Brown
'CALI FO RNIA CITY . CAL. . NOV . 7
Bob Balentine (400 KT-M) won
the 80-mile DRA "Golden Bear"
' poin t-to-poin t hare 'n hound by
16 seconds over Tom Kelly.
28
,
.. Go '
.... .
Kelly (250 KTM ) was actually th e
first rider to finish . but the ra ce was
being run against' the clock. The riders
had started per minute. enduro style.
and when the two -minute ยท start
handicap was figured, Balent ine won.
Kelly had moved into t he lead
(physically, not on time) by rpassing
Amateur Scott Pfeiffe r (250 Yam) at
about the 30-mile mark. Pfeiffer.
riding his' first race since breaking a
collarbone in August. had started in
the first row, Kelly in ' the second.
Pfeiffer lost a front axle nut about that
ti;"e and slowed until the axle could
be firmly wired into place at the pits.
Fro m a fou rth-row start. Balentine
had moved up through .the dust until
only Kelly was in front of him. The
second half of the course was very fast .
but Balentine only gained slightly on
Kelly, -who later q uipped that the
reason he was riding so fast was
because he couldn't slow down due to
an inoperative front brake.
When Kelly finished , about an hour
and 40 minutes after he started.
watches were examined . with theexci teme nt th a t comes fro m a possible
upset. Bu t Balentin e did show up less
_than two mi nutes later. relegating
Kelly to second overall , first 250 .
Brad - Henson (175 Yam) was the
next rider in , and the clocks up held his
third -place fin ish . It was th e high est
finish ever for Brad ," who is currently
second in the 0-200 point standings.
Ahout here , it sho uld be noted that
all the results are - highly unofficial.
Until every rider's time and start .row
are run through the computer. the
possibl ity of a change exists.
It looks like Morgan Malocco (400
Yam) . who spent the early part of the
. .. . . . .
...
