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/126620
out th e United States and when you put everything all together, Ponca City is th e best and we're very proud of it. It was kind of a uniqu e wa y th at we found Ponca. As I men tioned, we put on our 1977 Grand National s in Houston a t Ri o Bravo wh ich was a good track but we had some weather problems, plus we wanted to get a little m or e cen tra lly locat ed. So in '78 we co ntacted ou r centra l region manager and a sked h im if h e kne w o f any facil iti es and he mentioned Okl ahoma Cit y and Wich ita , so we flew in a n d met him in Okl ah oma Citv and looked th at Iacili tv over. And th en we dro ve o n up to W'ich ita to look a t that faci lity. On th e way, as we were going up th e Interstat e hi ghway, we noticed this big gr een an d white Inter state sign that said , " Po nca City Motocross Track." And we th ought that was very unique - an Interstat e highway sig n pointing o u t a motocross track . So o n the way back from Wichi ta aft er looking at th at facility , we anxiousl y went to Ponca City to see what th e Ponca City motocross tra ck was and when we got there we found that it was a brand newfacility on a beautiful pi ece of property that the city was holding to make a city park out of. A few of the town fathers had convinced th e rema inder of the town fath ers to start a motocross track and we were very impressed a nd very exci ted . This yea r for Ponca City, we're addi ng an additio nal 20 acres of grass covered pit a rea . The entire facility, o f co urse, is grass, incl ud ing th e sta rt ar ea. We'r e addi ng more restroom a nd shower facil iti es. We'r e going to h a ve some interest in g n ighttime activ it ies for the kids to be involved in . .We're going to im p ro ve the access wit h a n entra nce an d a n exit. The Pon ca Ci ty sto ry is quite unique in th e fact that we p resent th e event with th e Ambucs, th e American Bu sinessm en's Club cha p ter there in Ponca Cit y. T he Am bucs are comprised of virt ua lly every town father in Pon ca City. We get treme ndous cooperation from the mayor, city commissioners , the bank presidents or whatever, they're all Ambucs and th ey'r e all wonderful people, They 're very enth usiastic a bou t th is kind of activity. The o n e unknown thing abou t the Ambucs is what they do as a result of the Ponca City Grand Nationals. When it 's a ll over with , their net proceeds from th e even t go to a blind children 's charity so it isn't a case of deal ing with a promoting track or with an indiv idua l where there's an attempt a t saving, whether it be toilets or o ther types of facilities. An ything we .n eed , th e Ambucs co me fort h a nd present it a nd wh en it's all over with , th ey co u nt what th ey have left a nd g ive it to cha rity, I think it 's very com me nda ble and it 's p robably th e o n ly pl ace yo u 're go ing to find this sort of th ing in th e mot ocross scen e, How many races must you attempt to qualify at for Pon ca? This is the way it works: Let' s say you have five races in yo ur regi on. You have to fin ish in th e top 10 of th e classes that yo u choose to race in . And then you al so ha ve to co m pete in a minimum of 50%; so in th e case of five you 'd hav e to ha ve competed in three of the even ts and hav e finish ed in th e top 10. So it isn 't mandatory that you race all of those five events, it's just required that you finish in the top 10 so if you can do very well in three of them you don't have to go to any more. Wh at we're trying to pr esent here is reall y a reverse of th e cost o f qualifying by way o f the fact th a t we' re presenti ng a race progra m in the rider's h ome region wh ich is on e o f the fin est series goi ng on in their ow n locale. • sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss QUAUFIER*IV125 QUAUFlER*IV175 QUAU ER*IV'250 QUAUFIER*IV 400 500~ *Trademarks of Bombardier Inc. See your Can-Am dealer duringJunel· fltell.l{:;.,'i?:.;-f'.:·?>~!h!.:}: ~;.;: ,.:;,~'!;.:'.:;·~}.,:"i:.~~-':.':~t:~';:;'f{·., ,~f:!~{·i;';'f; C IRS EoF WlH ,:i..,.• . ': »: "" '; •. ; . •' • •.• St . • . .. 6/6 /82 Frau enf el d, Sw itzerland 125cc WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MXGP JOHNNY O'MARA Honda on DUNLOP Congratulat ions, Johnny, o n t aking the "O-Show" t o Europe and bea t ing t he World's Best in BOTH MOTOS on your Jim Felt tuned Honda. Th anks for c hoosing DU NLOP, More cycles ride on Dunlop than any other tirein theworlcl. ~ !!x~!Yo~!!P 25