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Deve Burke picks the fine line through Oregon's greenery.
Guy Bodin backed up his ArIZ0Nl Sportsmen victory with BOOth••
AMA/NATC National Observed Trials Championship Series
Round eight
Burke bags the beaver
By Lane Campbell
DEXTER, OR, SEPT. 1
Bultaco rider Dave Burke, one of those Rocky
Mountain boys and three- time winner of Colorado's prestigious Ute Cup, demolished the
opposition with an II-point third loop to win
12
Oregon's "Beaver National" trials
round. With the championship
a Irea d y .sewn. up b y. M ar Iand
Whaley In Anzona, this next-tolast in the AMA/NATC series de·
veloped into a plain 01' fun trial for the
diehard travelers of the National
circuit (about 40 in all).'
This event, North.west's regional
round, was a joint effort of Washington and. Oregon trialers of the Pacific
Northwest Trials Association. Roughly
a seven-mile loop of 15 sections was
laid out on 400 acres of primo trials
ground owned by local enthusiast Jim
Gillette. The meet had enough mud,
warm drizzle and mossy rocks to have
warmed an Irishman's heart (or a New
Englander's, for that matter), as rain
and fitful sunshine altemated throughout the day.
Picture, if you will, a semi-rain
forest scene - a creek bottom lined by
moss-boled trees and swaying ferns. A
warm shower is trickling down
through the layers of leaves, even as
the sun pokes through the clouds once
more. Steam is rising everywhere:
from the soaked greenery, the muddy
creek banks, and from the bodies and
bikes of those few who have labored to
be here - a checker, a handful of
spectators and contestants, a photographer or two.
The observer yells "rider," and a
half:dozen competitors clear out of the
sectlon. uP. the c~eek bottom
scrambles a nder weanng one of the
ubiquitous AM~/NATC competitors'
bibs; trying at first to look good, and
at last to just keep moving for a
"three." Then another, and another.
From each, the section exacts its toll,
as slimy moss·covered stones conspire
to throw the motorcycle's wheels every
way but where the rider wants to go.
The checker punches each entrant's
scorecard, then it's off up the slick,
muddy loop trail, bounding and
slithering over jumbled tree roots, to
the next section. Occasionally, one will
hear, in the distance, a shrill warwhoop: "Wa-HOOI - Crackle-rustleCRUNCHl" as another hapless rider
encounters a mud-ski slope aimed at a
bottomless thicket of rotting branches.
As one PNTA clubber quipped, "The
sections were hard, the loop trail was
horrible, and the riders loved it!"
Sure enough, under the mud, sweat
and steam, the grins were there, along
with a bit of gallows humor as riders
joked about their chances of making it
thTough another loop alive. It was
good expert trail, even under the best
of conditions.
Fleeting impressions: Wiltz Wagner
(winner of the Senior class) emitting a
war· whoop and flashing a triumphant
grin upon cleaning the giant rock slab
that's part of the loop trail between
sections nine and 10 - after "fiving" it
on his first loop ... An Oregon native,
checking trap eight, lecturing between
riders on the fine points of riding slick
rock ... Bill Brokaw, "Done in at a lap
and a half' with a smashed foot ... Ole
Thordarson in trap 10, saying, "It's
gettin' harder; I better ride it before
that rock moves" (it moved, under
Ole, about halfway up the rock
staircase section) ... Bruce Davis,
Iookin' good in seven, only to crash
heavily and DNF, avoiding spectators
on the loop trail.
Sections six and seven, both in the
creek bottoms, were acknowledged the
hardest of the loop, collecting an
almost unbroken string of threes and
fives from all who entered. Tom
Hedwall got the first "one" in trap
seven; there were no cleans reported
there.
Sections one and 15 were laid out
close to camp on a luger outcropping
of rock straddling a stream outlet, and
as such, were the most-watched
spectator traps. Number one was
mostly a hard, scrambling climb over
the rocks, while 15 vaulted the rider
over a log into a watery pool and out
up a steep slab, then left over jumbled
rocks to a sharp pitch-over, then down
a steep slope over more rocks, through
a bog, then climbing tum over rocks to
the exit - a long and, at times, scary
section.
Winner Dave Burke got the first
clean in this monster during his second
loop; eventual fourth-place man
Dennis Seiler (Mon) managed to clean
it (with a triumphant warwhoop) on
his third try. Keith Adams (Bul), who
cleaned trap 10 on his third try and
put together good rides everywhere
else, took second over Morgan
Cavanaugh (Bul). Up through the
second loop, it could have been
anybody's trial, with several riders
posting loop scores in the high 20's and
ultra-low 30's. But when that II-point
third loop for Burke werit up on the
board, the assembly just said "Oh,
wow," and started counting points for
second.
Guy Bodin (Bul) came in muddy
and bedraggled on his grace period to
win the Sportsman (Support) .c1ass by
. less than a point over Richard
Cavanaugh (Bul). Itinerant motojournalist Len Weed (Bul) was second
Senior behind Wiltz Wagner. (Yeah,
we're all gettin' old ... L.C.)
In finishing eighth, Michigan's Bob
Hopkins rode the smallest bike entered
in Championship class, a 175cc
Yamaha. Close tie of the day was the
100-point dead heat for third in the
Sportsman class between Tom Foy
(Bul) and Pete Rudnick (Bul). When
they showed dead even on cleans and
ones (1 /5). the scorers were ready to
tear their hair out. F oy hroke the tie
on twos, 4-2.
The tTophi~ (two for Championship
class and one each for Sportsman and
Senior) were both unique and
appropriate. Each was a chainsawcarved comic beaver on a stump; done
by a local artist especially for the
"Beaver National." And please, no
wisecracks about beaver. being hard to
come by these days; there were enough
comedians at the trophy presentation.•
Results
NATIONAL: 1. Oevid Burke, 70 IBull; 2. Keith
Adorns, n.04 fBull; 3. Mo