Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Cycle News 1980 04 02

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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o 00 O"l "King Richard" Burleson continued his hot streak, winning overall. I Last year's Tennessee winner, Ted Leimbach. was second overall. AMA ISDT Qualifier Series: Round one Foggy Mountain gold to Bu By Gary Van Voorhis TELLICO PLAINS, TN, MAR. 22-23 Dick Burleson latched onto the overall lead in the Foggy Mo~ntain Two-Day at the end of Day One and never relinquished it from there on. Husqvarna-mounted Burleson combined consistent trial pace with solid special test scores to card a 1226 point total for the overall best score. Teddy Leimbach, last 16 year's overall winner, took second aboard his Team Kawasaki emry a full 25 poims (seconds) behind Burleson. Three poims farther back was KTM's Darryl Kuenzer followed by Kevin Lavoie, on anothe Kawasaki emry, at 1264. Rounding out the top five overaU was Suzuki's Mike Rosso, seven poims shy of Lavoie. Class wins in the Letter of Intem (I) class were taken by Burleson in the 250cc division, Lavoie in the Open and Rosso in the 175cc bash. Husqvarna's Greg Davis grabbed the 125cc class win. Overall wins in the A and B divisions in the Volunteer Riders M.C. sponsored event wem to joe McVay, aboard a 175cc KTM, in the A class and Mark Maddox in the B division. Maddox was KTM-moumed in the . Open class. Things might have been differem for Burleson and a number of other ISDT riders if AMA National Championship MX Series riders Frank Stacy and Denny Swartz hadn't lost route points. The pair. KTM and Maico-mounted, respectively. showed their powers in the special tests. However, it was the first run for each and cost them on the trail. Without their respective losses of 60 and 120 route points the pair would have finished second and third overall. Their performance gave many riders something to think about. Perhaps the biggest addition to the series is an MX style final test similar to what is run at the end of the ISDT. It was eagerly awaited by the riders. A new special test course of about two miles meandered across a hillside weaving its way through tall grass just waiting to be challenged. Deceptiv.e off camber turns were on tap to keep everyone honest. but the majority of the course was get-the·gas-on style riding with tight turns tied together by long and short power straights. Day One Three hundred sevemy-two of 424 riders emered made the stan for Day One. The 8:01 a.m. key time found the riders computing their arrival time for the Day Two trail. since rainswollen streams and standing water in many areas from a five·inchdeluge the previous day left the sponsoring club with no option but to compromise and run the Day Two route. "There's one area I can think of," said one Volunteer Riders M.C. member, "where the water would be over the gas tank right now. Fortunately, the streams should drain quickly and I believe we'll be all right tomorrow. to Riders who had filed a letter of intent to attempt to qualify for a spot on this year's lSJ:!t squad comprised nearly half the field and nearly all had early numbers. Late entries were scattered through the field. There were separate time schedules for each of the three - I, A and B classes. The object was to "challenge the Intem riders and still let the B riders get to the checks with time to spare:' In practice it didn't work that way. Slick trails, steep hills, plenty of rocky terrain and other factors combined to weed out nearly 200 riders, actively decimating the A and B ranks. KTM's Frank Gallo played trail· breaker after starting on the second minute and almost immediately leaving everone else behind. "I like an early number. I'm jazzed." Gallo would say from early on. But at the end of the day it was a more sombt'r Gallo. A broken chain compounded by other minor problems cost him 540 route points (60 points per minute late) at the next check. A less than glittering special test performance on the day's only special test also robbed Gallo of his jovial nature. In addition to MXers Stacy and Swaru, GaT)' Chaplin and j~hn Ayers also join"d the ranks. Chaplin houred out after running out of gas while Ayers "thrashed the engine when too much grit KIlt sucked in_" The. end of Day One found Burleson sitting atop the throne followed by Stacy, Leimbach, Rosso, Darryl Kuenzer, Mike Melton, jack Penton, Terry Cunningham, Carl Altier and Drew Smith. joe McKay led all A class riders on his 175cc KTM and would continue to do so throughout Day Two. Ken jenkins put his Maico into the top slot in the B division by zeroing the course. His special test score would have ranked him in the top 10 of the I class. Was it a day for small bore bikes? Not really. Husky's Greg Davis and Kawasaki's Dane Leimbach agreed that you needed a bit more grunt than the one·two-fives had to stay on time with the tight pace that the I division had to run. Davis led despite lOlling 10 minutes on the trail. Day Two A conference of the Volunteer Riders and the AMA's Kathy Wenta and Hugh Fleming Saturday evening after a check of streams and trails of t~e Day One loop resulted in the compromise of running the Day Two loop again. "The water wasn't down to a satisfactory level and two of the sections would have run us past churches at hours when services were being held," said Wanta. "The plan is to go with the Day Two loop again." The time schedule remained the same for the I class riders while the A and B riders received a reprieve, dropping each to slower schedules. A couple of the more rocky sections were also rerouted to give those staning approximately 165 - a better chance of finishing. ~I Kot my five seconds here," said

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