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/126288
eo C'l l-o Q) .e 8 Q) > o Z (Above) The Louis/Quibodeaux Husky leaves the Baja foothills. (Inset) A tired AI Baker arrives at the fin ish. (Right) The Coutts/Lamar Husky won plass 20. (Below) Team Cartledge heads down a Baja road. While Stumbo a nd Ogilvie were taking care of bu siness, Tom Kelly (KT M) who started three and a half minutes behind the Stev e's Bultaco ride r imm ediat ely began picking off riders himself. Dawn Grant (Hus) followed Don Reed but couldn't gain ground. 10 The class 20 racers were well underway by now and Chuck Cartledge quickly got by Bob Allen (Ya m ) and Keith Leighty (Hon) . starting to put together a very impressive race . Jeff Kaplan . a D-37 desert racer , was next then John Townsend (KTM) , George Erl (Hus) andJohn Hardwick (Yam). The definite leader Roeseler worked his way through the 20 mile section of sandyJeep trail in th e pine tree sect ion just outside of El Rayo , check on e. Continuing on , clearing th e wa te r crossing ; the course wound its way past the Santa Catarina mission into more sandy road secti ons, then hard pan ra in ru t sect ions . . The estimated time into check two , Nu evo Junction was 7:45 a .m. J ack Johnson took the freshl y pitted Husky from Larry and clea red th e ch eck at 7:58 a.m . Tarling was th e next bike into the pits, handing the Husky over to his partner Bill Bogner. H arden entered next , Wall ingsford , his partner, exited ver y quickly . John Moseley jumped off and Lindsey Pickens jumped on just as Doug Otten and Jay Orendorff came in. both on TT500s. Partners Ramon Bruner and Dwayne Carter took over in that order. . John Fero and Cordis Brooks took off almos t side by side, taking over for Baker and Malocco. Tom Brooks' bike came into the pits 12th. John Hateley was not the co-rider; he didn't show up . Brooks found Max Eddy wandering a round town doing nothi ng, and m ade him a partner. Recovering from a leg inju ry, and with no pre -run whatsoever, Max flew in a bou t 18 minutes beh ind th e lea d er. . Brooks crashed four miles out o f Nu evo and retired . T he 14th bike into th e pits was th e 250 KT M of T om Kelly, who crashed whe n Stumbo bl ew a tum in fro nt of him , but recover ed . H a ndi ng it over to Bob Balentine, the instruction s were to gas it because Stumbo was close behind. T h ree bikes later, Mark Zoller took the Bul from Stumbo an d left just as the thi rd 250 flew in, Rick Finger. Hi s partner Jim Jackson took off kn owing there was going to be a real battle for first in this class. . Dick Vick (H us) was smokin' class 38 , his partner John Watkins took over, then second-place Don L'allier turned the TT over to Bob O ttosen. Third-place Walt Axthelm (Kaw) was rel ieved by Tim Smith. Ron Griewe turned the TT500 over to Pete Wilkins and Gene Fox gave the Suzuki to Rich Hale. Heading toward the 4,000 ft. summit of the 'Sierra De Juarez range, the first three or four miles (except for a few ditches) were fast . Then the racers started using gears not engaged since leaving the pits ; first , second and sometim es th ird. The next seven miles were super rocky a nd loose. The last mile was the worst : Loos e , large boulders and st air case rock ledges. W ebster 's hasn't invent ed a word that would quite describe this ridge . The racers had a few but we are not allowed to print them . Zoller burned out the Burs clutch here. Cresting the top , Johnson , Wallingsford and Tarling worked their bikes like trial bikes. The three' mile downhill section is so bad that if a 1 rider got above second gear he was in bad trouble: Three different dropoffs, two shortcuts , and boulders . Once off t he r id ge the course poured int o a sandwash. Mike Stearns Byron Krenek a nd Preston Gerber. d iscovered some of th e submerged rocks below the sand and Cordis Brooks discovered the Yamaha was running lean. The last section of the. wash opened up to almost on e quarter-ยท mile wide. One racer said , "You could get passed here and never know it." Clearing check three at Cohabuso Junction , the racers enjoyed about nine miles of fast winding road then a small section of Laguna Salada dry lake. The 15-mile stretch was covered in about 12 minutes. I At Tres Pozos, check four , the first bike in was Johnson , then Wallingsford, Joe Jones (who relieved Todd Martella) and Bruner. The first class 21 bikes through were Balentine, Jackson (who once passed Balentine), Mike Stearns and Alan Dietor. The class 20 leaders were Cartledge, Wiseman (Kaplan's partner), Heath Hibbard (Ed's Up -T ite Husky partner) and Steve Platt (Townsend's partner). Leaving Tres Pozos, the road was hardpan for about four miles , then came a half mile of silt bed thrown in just in case some of the bikes were running a little lean. From there to Pilarito Pass it was a complete assortment of volcanic rock with scattered sandwash and rock sections. From here to EI Chinero was a good place to pass because th e course split in about five directions. . One was a wash ; tight and twisty, slowing you down considerably at first. Two fire roads wer e there b ut th ey were real cobby. The fast rou te was the other fire road for about two miles , then ju m p into th e wash and screw it on . ~ Johnson gave the Husky back to Roeseler at EI Chinero with about a nine-minute cushion on Wallingsford. Hardin took over and th e bikes took off for San Felipe, ch eck five , over smooth , rolling, sa ndy roads . The onl y danger here is getting too close to th e gnarly bushes beside the road that will put you on the ground in a hurry. From San Felipe to Laguna Diablo (be tt er known as Diablo Dry Lake) it was W FO . Once on the lak e Hardin , Martella , Kelly, and Fero were lying on their tanks , th eir bik es wide open . Soon they reached the sand and bu sh section and had to slow down . J In the second section, Rick Finger, Mike Quibodeaux, Doug Ot ten and Byron Krenek flew across the lake and slowed down for th e second section of rough stuff. If a rider got too far off course he needed scuba gear. The racers headed right, away from the lake, until they picked up the graded area that led them to the section paralleling the road (1-16) . At San Matias Jay Orendorff, Donnie Campbell, Ric Secor and Mike Cartledge gassed it through the fou rmile section of fast sandwash, then two miles of fast road into El Burro. Roeseler was really cookin' down the motocross-type trail into Mike's Sky Ranch when disaster struck. Cresting a rise, the Husky was airborne heading straight for a VW Microbus driven by a vacationer not awa re that ribbon and arrows mean a race course. The driver swerved and Larry hit the bus , breaking the windshield and tearing off the front -mounted spare tire. The im p a c t bent the forks to the downtube, smashed the cases, snapped a shock and bent the frame . Larry