Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

straightened out. He then . set out to make up time and seized the engine, losing more time in letting it cool down. He was still smiling at the end of the day. Jim Smith crashed hard enough to berid his handlebars so that they looked flat track style . Our World Trophy team was going strong in fourth in the standings as all six riders zeroed the course, but picked up 231.06 classification points on the motocross special tests . Tom Penton sustained a bad bang on the knee and was limping but in good spirits. Barry Higgins. by virtue of his special test times emerged as top American for Day One. The medal tally read 32 Gold , one Silver (Cranke) , and on e Bronze (Hammond). Day Two Carl Cranke cranked it on despite Injuries to his foot and shoulder. DayOne 8 At precisely 7:18 a .m. Bob Pierce kicked his bike to life and became the first :American to head out onto the . trail on the opening day of the 52nd ISDT. Dane Leimbach was the next American to head out, seven minutes after Pierce. Five minutes 'Iater Rick Munyon moved to the starting line and kicked and kicked and kicked--32 kicks and almost 45 seconds -- before his Yamaha came to life. " My heart almost stopped and I said to myself ' dam n, this can't be happening to me,' and then the engine started," Munyon would relate after the day was over . One by one the Americans started and left on time. Then the stories came filtering back from the trail. Roy Cook, the youngest American rider on the team , had missed the first stamp check and had ridden through due to misreading the hand signals of a worker who had waved him through instead of in. Luckily the back up system caught his number. Carl Cranke, the last .American rider to start, found himself in a bind at the last check on the first loop when a traffic cop directed him straight in stead of onto the trail to the check. Realizing his mistake after entering the Parc Ferme, Cranke backtracked (somewhat illegally) and somehow hit the check only three minutes late in curring 180 route marks and dropping him to Silver. The problem would go before the -FIM jury, but Cranke would lose and retain his marks. Things began to happen quickly after the beginning of the second loop as Silver Vase teamster Larry Thompson dislocated his knee and retired , crushing team hopes. In quick succession Bob Pierce, our only rider in the 125cc class. took a nasty spill and dislocated his shoulder. At around the same time Bruce Ken ny's Suzuki manufacturers team .m ou n t decided to spit up a ring and stop working. Kenny, using good ole American ingenuity, almost had it repaired. . but circumstances and an English speaking farmer led him to disqualify himself. By the end of the day stories of crashes and close calls were common. There were also stories of perseveran· ce o One such one belonged to Jeff Hammond. Hammond, in his first ISDT after almost being on the team for the past two years , showed the dogged determination that makes an ISDT competitor. Hammond had a flat tire .on the trail and then found that his spare tube wouldn't hold air. In all , he lost 24 minutes which included a four mile ride on the flat before getting' things Dane Leimbach's problems began on Day Two as he failed to start in die required one minute and incurred 60 route points. The marks were the only ones of the day for Leimbach as he zeroed the rest of the route. The course was run on the "A " schedule. The only retirement of the day came when Dave Hulse came up with the same apparent engine problems as teammate. Bruce Kenny had incurred the day before. Hulse's engine expired just after a gas stop and time check. Unfortunately he found himself with a trail marshal to help him back to the check to tum his time card in . It was a bitter disappointment. " Dam n, I'm bummed," said Hulse. This is the third time I've been put out. I'm 33. Do I sacrifice another year to do it again or do I quit? I'm OK on the trails, but what bothers me are the special tests. I gave up motocross five years ago ." Don Cichocki, who almost d idn't get to ride when he couldn't come up with his driver's license at registration , crashed hard on his left hand , bruising but not breaking it . Barry Higgins kept his top American title for the second day in a row. Jack Penton commented that if every day were as uneventful as Day Two then he could go for four more. Day Three Heavy ground fog in the mountains greeted the riders on Day Three. The "A" time schedule was again in effect challenging the riders to go a little harder, a little faster than the previous two days. once again Dane Leimbach found himself in trouble when a well meaning support crew member waved him into a time check only to discover that he was five minutes early. That error in judgement cost Leimbach 300 route marks and dropped him to Silver . The worst was yet to come though as World Trophy teamster Frank Gallo retired late in the second loop. Gallo's rear tire went flat and the spare tube he was carrying wouldn't hold air. Frank rolled along on the flat and finally secured a spare tube from a Belgian rider, but it was too late. He was five minutes out of his hour arriving at the final time check before the special test . The Day Three/Four special test was a long, long sweeping motocross course that covered the top and both sides of a hill with plenty of off camber turns and very little room to rest. It was designed to wear out the riders and it did . Many crashed or stalled . Many did not have the stamina to give it all it deserved on the second time around. The loss of Gallo dropped our World Trophy team to seventh overall with six teams still totally intact rider wise. We moved to l Sth of 15 teams in the Silver Vase standings from our first day bottom of the pile. Die. BUNeson-made-hU move-to top- - - • •• American in the final tally for Day Three with Barry Higgins , John Fero , Gary Younkins, Billy Uhl, and Jack Penton following . Tom Penton, three days 'away from his overall top American placing, was seventh. Carl Cranke summed up ' Day Three. "The fun is over . Now it's like work. " The medal tally read 29 Gold, two Silver and one Bronze. Day Four . By now the alloted work time before starting became of prime importance. • But there seemed to be too much to do and no time to do it in . Priorities took oer: Change the tires , check the chain, fix what needed to be fixed ane hope that what you had done would be enough to get you through the day. For some, it wasn 't. Again it was the "A" schedule and by now riders were showing signs of the toll the competition of Six Days extracts from each competitor. Light rain , ground fog and hazy conditions prevailed early on , but finally cleared up. The trail conditions in the mountain areas were slick, but as one rider pill jt "if you can see running water you better be in the middle of it because there won 't be any mud ." Ted Worrell, the lone remaining rider from the Suzuki manufacturers team entry, struck trouble late in the day when a rock sheared off his right foot peg. He continued with a pair of vice grips for a peg and amazingly lost only three minutes for the day. World Trophy teamsters Dane Leimbach and Kevin Lavoie struck trouble losing 14 and 26 minutes respectively on the trail. La Voie's problem was a broken handlebar with which he somehow managed to make it to the finish . Chain problems began to plague the Maico USA riders. Barry Higgins had his pop off six times losing him almost 40 minutes. Nate Pillsbury was even less lucky as .he almost houred out. Billy Uhl and Lars Larsson were also victims. . Uhl was the guts story of the U.S. riders. He had ridden since the start of the ISDT with severely inflamed ten donitus in both hands. When off the bike he wore a brace on one hand and kept the other wrapped in ace bandage. Somehow Uhl managed to work the clutch, brake and throttle when, at dinner time, he could hardly hold a knife or fork . "It's like someone sticking a pin in your wrist, " Uhl would comment. "The pain is hard to describe except that you 're never without it . I was alright until a few weeks ago when I laced spokes into four wheels for the Motorcycle Olympi ad competition September 17-18 . All the twisting and finger work must have inflamed the tendons badly. " Czechoslovakia remained supreme in the World Trophy competition while the U.S. held seventh. Our Silver Vase team was 12th. Of the 25 riders still on Gold, many were tenaciously holding on . Dick Burleson, Jack Penton, Billy Uhl , Gary Younkins and Tom Penton held the top five overall American positions . There were three Silver and four Bronze medalists making a total of 32 riders still going. . Day Five It will be argued by many that the weather conditions on Day Five called for a change from "A " to " B" time schedule; even if only on the second loop. All reports from the trail pre-riders had said that Day Five would be the hardest day of the ISDT. The psych job that the Czechs were doing was paying off dividends for them in terms of a slow, but steady attrition of riders. Day Five would be the clincher. The rain added to the misery. - - 20 of -t he- 32- American- riders that started the day failed to finish . Of 233 starting riders, the tally was 99 finishers. "We were totally unprepared for the weather on Day Five," said Al Eames later. "None of our riders had enough clothes on to be adequately protected, not even the seasoned experts. Instead of clearing up like it had on Day Four the weather proceeded to get worse and worse . The rain , the cold, the wind, the fatigue all began to take a toll. " Blank looks of disbelief, of "I 'm a better rider than this . The trail can't defeat me ," were common place at time checks and gas stops. I 7 time/stamp checks greeted the riders on each of the two loops grinding them down and making it near impossible to set an adequate trail pace in the short sections. The echoing reply to the question of trail conditions was always the same whether seasoned veteran or first year rookie: "It's bad, really bad." Stories of bottlenecks on the one rider wide trails, of having to wait (15 minutes in one case) to make your way around others on uphill sections, of favoritism of those riders helped in bad sections were heard. Then the bad news. One hill on the special test that was only relatively bad on loop one was nearly impassible on loop two. Tales of heroics, of struggling riders like Barry Higgins came in. Higgins,. with chain problems the day before, had done all the maintenance time would allow , but had not been able to check the tightness of his spokes. Four times Barry tried to make the hill and four times he failed . On the fifth try he succeeded, but once on top a quick check revealed his rear wheel spokes almost totally gone. He was close to tears. The story of bitter defeat on the hill was repeated many times, only the names were changed. Dane Leimbach houred out after a crashing, almost blinde ride with fogged glasses . ("I've never, NEVER houred out of any event. ") Rick Munyon saw his time slowly eaten away as did Don Cichocki after valiantly riding for three days with a pain fully swollen hand. Drew Smith saw the final minutes tick away as he neared the Pare Ferme nursing his bike after tranny problems left him with first, second and an occasional third gear. He impounded his bike and, surprisingly, received a Day Six time card. His tranny gave up the ghost shortly after the start the followin~ day. A leg injury ended Jim Fogle 's nde. Jim Smith, Mike Deyo , Greg Davis and Frank Piasecki all saw their rides end on Day Five. Roy Cook lost his medal when electrical problems put him out. Ditto for Jeff Hill . Ted Worrell found it impossible to ride without a foot peg. Ron Bohn broke his shifter, but continued on until the tranny problem and a continually thrown chain cost him his hour grace. • Chris Carter and John Fero tried to keep the Silver Vase team chances alive , but each found that time had run out. Denny Reese got stuck halfway into loop one and that was it for him. Nate Pilsbury had more chain problems. Lars Larsson cleaned loop one and then last time when the chain kept popping off and he finally lost the magneto cover. The little problems put him out. Jeff Hammond , having struggled back to Silver , saw it all go away on Day Five houring out at the final time check. What had been a disaster for most was the shinning hour for Tom Penton. He was one of only 21 riders to zero the course and the only American left on Gold . Teeth chattering, lips a cold blue and hands moulded to the

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