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/126596
J.2th Annual Laugh-in Trophy Trials and Poker Run IBoyd, it's tough out there' By Mark Kariya ORANGE, CA,JAN. 13 As a competitive motorcycling event, the Laugh-in Trophy Trials is an anomaly, a noncompetitive competition. A fall -off-and-laughat-yourself tim e for industry and. press types where the real measure of winners is the width of their grins and heartiness of their chortles. The '81 (a nd 12th a nnual) (Top) Chuck Larsen picked up a five here and the VIP award later. lAbove' Antics like this earned Dave Aldana the Most Spectacular Crash Award as well as the Dolly Parton singing talegram lbelow le ft!. Wayne Moulton's '66 Triumph, the oldest bike entered, rears at the hill climb Ibelow right!. . LTT met wl.th .a fe~ obs tacles and so w~s ,Put .on in ~~ with no one loudly mlSSmg Its traditional end-of- the-year date . ~hose present welcomed the op ' portunlty to get out of the office or away from a work bench to come out and plar for a day at Saddleback Park, th~nks m part to owner Marv Hendnc~.. . . ThIS runnmg of ~he mal was ~eld I~ memory of one of It S founders , Max Maxstead , wh? d!ed las~ year. A ~y.er for the event indicated ItS true spmt, however , ~s a day "devoted to fun and nonsense.. . . The trial consisted of five secnons '1 h connected b y trai t at wound around . . t he park . T h ose entered m· the trial were to rae kle t h e Ioop twice: poker . run entrants cou Id ride around and collect their playing cards on the first loop . Laid out by Clerk of the Course Brian Slark (another of the LTT founders) on a street legal Honda XL250 , and SoCal trials ace Oli Thordarson, each section provided a good deal of challenge to most of those who entered , especially when taki ng into account some of the " tri als" ma ch inery ridden, e.g. CR25 0R , YZ250, IT 465 and a WR250. However , it was all passable. Section one started off in a narrow , dry, rocky cre,ek bed that quickly tight · ened up until both pegs ground the walls of earth on each side . Mud marked the way out of the section, which opened up a little to mercifully allow riders to flail their way out with their feet. It required an almost banzai attack. - ' • Section two dropped down into an overgrown rain rut , cut left at a large partially exposed boul de r with a tiregrabbing rut along the bottom , made a hard righ t a nd ' dropped over the rock, then went up, over, down, up and left out. Unlike the section that preceeded it , number two called for lots of low speed control and balance. Th ' . lso 11--' s: good e next secnon a ca = ror b a Iance as weII as c ho i 0 f I'mes as It . OIce I'rm bed a roc ky trau, turned Ief t, '1 = c c I'im bed a sh or t way rna d e a sh a rp = . h If d . h n g t, straig t, e t an out. Section four made lefts and rights . while riders tried to maintain tr action as they ran up and down some ha rd , slippery clay. It looked far easier th an it proved to be . Finally came section five, a n intimida ting climb up to the side of a (seem ingly) sheer rock cliff with a ha rd left at the top, skirt a few rocks, then up and over a gnarly rock ledge.