Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Despite a little s lipp ing around in t he river. Drew Smith zeroed the 127-mile cours e 'o n a PE175 and took the overall w in. The course featured 3,000 feet of elevation ch ange. Sometimes it all seemed to come at o nce. Smith shines i Oregon State By Action Oz DI AMO ND MILL, OR , MAY 28 Drew Smith, riding for Team Suzuki on a PE 175 , won ·the Oregon State National Enduro, besting teammate Mike Rosso , " B" rider Dale Warmath and another Team Suzuki rider, Ted Worrell. feet a nd were into the bottoms of the The Lobos Motorcycle Clu b of Oregon City, OR , pu t on their first Na tional enduro and what could have been a ro utine event turned into a happening. The out -of state riders competing in the event said that it was close to the finest, if not the finest, course they had ever ridden . When the club elected to run the event , they decided it would have to be a club commitment. The whole club worked on this enduro and they began in the fall of '77 . The I27 -mile course was divided up into four sections and teams were assigned to one of the four. New trails were made and no matter what the weather, work went on , even in the snow . So much dedication went into laying out the course that one member , Cal Holbert , lost an eye while working on the course and was back wor king on it two weeks later. The course was run in the coastal mountain ra nge about 60 miles due west of Portla nd . It had everythi ng from river crossi ngs to mo untain ledges, sha le rock to ta cky traction soil and super fast fire roads to slow trail like sections. 16 The day started with a misty-like rain. The first part of the course was a fast lower-level fire road, then off into narrow , uphill, tree-lined trails. By the time the first riders came through the first check, they had climbed 3,000 clouds. After the first check most of the 80 ; rider field were still intact and running near to or on time. The weather was beginning to clear and patches of sun were seen around the mountains and valleys . Drew Smith was running on time to the second. At this point so was Mike Rosso , his teammate, In a conversa tion later with Drew he was asked what major difference in terra in and soil d id he remember the most. His answer was that he had never seen so many icebergs and that he kept hitting them and they didn't budge. He later explained that the icebergs he was referring to were the small pointy rocks that just broke through th e surface but were huge boulders below the ground . Drew zeroed the cou rse and for the whole day picked up only 11 seconds of error. This was considered impossible to do by the club in discussing the possibility of it actually happening . Rosso , at this point , was still on schedu le a nd at the I27 -m ile mark had only lost one minute after riding the last 40 m iles with a nat tire. O ne of the physica l th ings mentioned was the traction of the co urse . Ba ck East there is a lot of sand and pea gravel so you ride for that. The area here had to be ridden di fferently and tire pressure had a lot to do with the handling. The locals are used to it and run the same basic press ure. T he eastern riders had to ma ke allowances. There were areas that offered 100 % traction and then right after that the surface wou ld throw the rear end around. Rosso said he had to learn to connect the throttle to the wheel again . Wheelspin and skipping the back end out was a major factor goi ng up the u p hills. Da le Warmath , up from Eureka, CA , ridi ng the 250cc B class on a W izzer (KTM) was on time at the second chec k . He m an aged to finish first 250cc B a nd third overall, thus beating all the AA riders and most A riders. Jeff Allen, halfway through the run. had dropped two minutes and was . pushing to make it' up . Did n't happen though as he had a four-minute penalty by the end of the event. He pulled a first 250cc A and a fourth overall. Ted Worrell , riding for Team Suzuki, found that he had to make some riding tactic changes on this course. Instead of powering round a tum , like it can be done in many areas, he had to be constantly aware of possible slides and the possibility of trees felled by earth movement . Some of the time he lost was due to this change , which was made later on in the course , after going down rather hard and punishing his shoulder. He did get the firs t AA award and a fifth overall. . Time penalty was seven minutes and 32 seco nds. John Wil key, riding a IT 175, was moving along close to time and, at the 80-mile mark, was feeling that he m igh t ha ve a chance for a h igh finis h when he lost a chain and was ou t of th e event. Joh n , 37, feels th a t this was his only chance for a Na tional Enduro. Being a fa mi ly ma n , it's not easy to follow the circuit. As m uch as you want to do this thing, it's not always possible. The bike was carefully prepared , he had trained all winter a nd was in top form . To be motoring close to the factory boys is a thrill plus being close to time. Then ro have .a chain break is a to ugh situation to handle. By the time someone came a long with the right parts , he was 30 minutes late. Bob Popiel on a 390 Husky and ridi ng AA , locked u p seco nd p lace in

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