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Wh en Ba lentine com p leted his first
of two 42- m ile loop s, he had co mpiled
a huge lead . A fu ll fou r mi nu tes later,
Henson and Zarp wer e in to p it with
Miller still on th eir tails. Pettigrewwas
in a whil e later and it a ppeared he was
too fa r back to be in striking d ist a nce
of th e leaders .
Aft er comi ng into the p its for
pe trol , Br ooks a nd Sa lt zm an had
a bout a millisecond separati ng them
as th ey headed ou t for open desert.
Zoller was through ne xt with Am ateur
Lee Scheffers (400 Yam) to pped ou t
in high gear as he came through th e
whoops of pit ro w.
Ru nning firs t C b ike was Ga ry
Charters (125 Suz ) with a rather
su bsta nt ia l lead over J ames Vincent
( 125 Hus) and J eff Blix (125 Suz ). Blix
ran out of gas a t checkpoint six , a nd ,
without th e extra quart he ca rried on
his belt , the ra ce would have been over
for the day . Joe Lockhart (100 Yam )
was leading Kenny Dodd ( 100 Yam)
for first Trailbike , but not for long due
to Lockhart's flat tire problems. First
Powd er Puffer to complet e lap one was
Nona Richardson (250 KTM ).
While Bal entine was enjoying his
b ig lead , he was unaware of the
moveme nts going on behind him .
Pettigrew was d oing what seemed
uncon ceivable ; he cau ght up with
Mi lle r a nd a imed ' for Zarp and
Henson . Zarp ca ugh t Hen son on th e
way out and tried to ope n up a lead
b ut got off and di d not realize that he
~ .....as shook up until he rode on and fell
bff again . Not wish in g to injure
himsel f, he just kept everything under
contro l until he was able to ride at
speed again . T his a llowed Pettigrew
a nd Miller to pass with no problems.
.Ba ck aways, Saltzman was having
front end problems and just hanging
on was the name of his game. Eddy
had moved up on Scheffers and the
dirt was flying. Scheffers didn't want
10 eat Eddy's dust so he was gass in ' it
.ha rd to stay in front. Eventually, Eddy
found a better line and shot by .
