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/126248
Mitch Payton (4491 rode with Jeff Kaplan and the duo won the 125 class. Most of the Arizona loop was this dusty. RoeselerlTibblin win Parker 400 overall By Dale Brown PARKER , AZ, FEB .·12 A large crowd waited at the Blue Water Marina for the first finisher of S.C .O.R.E.'s 340-mile~~ "Parker 400" off-road race. Rolf Tibblin h admoved into the lead on the California loop" , j I (Above) The "We won nit" picture. Roeseler and TIbblin (wearing hats) are all grins. (Below) John Hateley overcame the Arizona desert/Astrodome interior difference and led the first loop. 8 givi ng the 390 Husky to Larry Roeseler to com plete th e race a fter a clu tch cha nge. Roeseler stayed in th e lead to finis h with a tim e of seven hours. two a nd 34 hundredths of a minute . The tim e held up as the fastest of th e day. The race had been sta rted in the early morning darkness outsi de of Parker. John Hareley. rid ing with Al Bak er on a 410 Honda . reportedl y had ignition problem s in th e first few m iles, but they apparently cleared up, for he moved out in front to break trail for the 103 ·mile course . ' . R iders had hea vy dust from th e start and visib ilit y was further hampered by riding straight toward th e rising sun. Entrants ducked th eir heads as low as th ey could and som e slowed wa y down . Roeseler didn't slow down as much as some. moving up after starting two minutes and 20 seconds behinds the first bike. The Arizona loop was in credibily fast. Hateley averaged 57 mph for the distance, with Roeseler three miles an hour slower. In their wak e they left a few crashers, like Brent Wallingsofrd (390 Hus), whose engine seized in a turn . highsiding him. He'd gotten back up 'and was leading the pursuit of th e first two . Cordis Brooks (400 KT M) never m ade it to the first ch eck afte r hitting a rock and bangin g up h is hip. Tom Kell y (250 KTM) was the first . of the lat e entries to start and he moved up past the 125s toward th e front of the pack. There was mandatory half-houri downtime for riders to get their bikes over the Colorado R iver to the California start. That loo p was 134 mil es long and considerably rougher than the previous one. Al Baker was the fi rst rider to start . but he reportedly lost fourth and fifth gears sometim e after that . When Tibblin passed him wher e the course crossed Highway 95 for the first time, Baker had also come up with a rear flat tire. , He dropped out of the race. Tibblin was holding a conservative pace, wanting to finish . Also the clutch had been starting to slip when Roeseler was riding, and now it was worse. Behind them . Jack Johnson had taken over from Wallingsford but the engine quit at the end of "T hu nder Alley, " an l I vmile -Iong fireroad, straight and flat. That put the team of v Mike Maze and Richard Bunty (250 KTM) into second place physically this was a timed event - about six minutes behind T ibblin. In third was Bob Balentine. ridi ng with Kelly. Midway or so through the loop, Bal entine had broken his rear shock springs, but he was five minutes faster than T ib blin on th e loop. Right