Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Husky's Mike Melton took the Quicksilver win by three points. John Fero t ook second pverall on his first Maico ride. AMA National Championship Enduro Series: Round 1 lins were late, and Melton and Henlost 10 minutes. Team Husky's Mark Hyde and riing moved up in the standings when Team Kawasaki's jeff Fredette both Fero missed the reset after gas and lost six points in the first section and burned the check. Fero regained the rest of th e AA riders lost four ground on Henning on the way to check seven , though, as he, Hyde and minutes or less. Dirt Bike Magazine's Hines were the only ones to come Tom Webb suffered a three-point loss at ch eckpoint one, but had to into this check on time. Irwin dropped drop out wh en the a u to ma tic transout at check six after burning it by mission on his Husqvarna fai led. nine minutes when he also forgot to Ro eseler was th e clear leader through reset his odometer coming out of the gas stop. this section with just one minute lo st. Few, Team Kawasaki 's Fritz Kadlec, Th e cou rse from check seven to check eigh t was another test and this KTM-sponsored jeff Henning and Husky support rider Kevin Hines all one caught a ll the riders late. It was in this section and in section seven lost two points each; Melton, CanAm's john Martin and Interlink/ that Roesel er lost his lead. The course was marked with arrows and lots of Sierra/j&K Cycle Inn-sponsored jeff Irwin dropped four, . ribbon, but the ribbon wasn 't always After checkpo int one, the riders easy to see and some of the riders got began making up time and most wer e lost by making wrong split-second back on time by check three. All the decisions while trav eling at warp AA riders were back on time by check speeds. Roeseler was one of the unforfOUT except for Martin and Hines, tunate ones and Melton took the lead who were riding a litt le fast and by being the only rider to lose just picked up some penalty points for two points. Most of the Nationa l ridburning this check. The check before ers zeroed check nine and the final gas, however, was a test for the AA adjustment to the standings was made on the course on the way to the final riders and Melton began making up for lost time here by being the only check 10. rider to lose j ust one point. Hines was Melton lost no points at checks again early by two minutes and picked nine and 10 and took the overall with up another seven penalty points. '" Fero and Roeseler tied three points Roeseler was still leading in points back at 13. Fero lost one more point at the gas stop as he was only down than Roeseler at the fin ish , but Roethree, which gave him a three point seler had lost too many points when margin over Fero and Kadlec, each he got lost and Fero beat him out down six . Melton and Henning were when the seconds from the tie-breaker tied at seven points and Martin was checks were counted. Kadlec, Martin running sixth overa ll with II points. and Hyde, as with Fero, each lost two Melton and Hyde both had a little minutes at the fina l check a nd th a t set trouble here as they got lo st coming • the trio in at fourth through sixth into gas and ended up at checkpoint overa ll. Henning had been running one again. Fortunately, the schedule fift h overa ll , but slipped to seventh called for 45 m inutes free time a t the when he lost fou r min utes at the final gas and the pair made it in with 15 check. O verall A class win ner Mark minutes to go . Lucas rode his 250cc bike in wi th 21 Checkpoint six was at the top of a points to finish three points ahead of rocky uphill and most of the AA ridthe second place 250cc A rider Scot ers zeroed it. Martin, Hines and CulHarden from Team . Husky. H ines Melton flies in California By J im Bowman Photos by Don Bu rle igh NEW lORIA, CA, FEB. 20 Husqvarna 's Mike Melton fle w a t the Quicksil ver Na tio na l Enduro, toppi ng H&H Maico-rnounted john Fero and H usky teammate Larry Roeseler for the overall honors at th e opening round ofthe AMA National Championship En. duro Senes. Melton suffered a mediocre start in the firs t section 8 as a bottleneck took random toll on the riders, but made up time and rode hard enough the rest of the day to overcome the initial deficit. Desp ite the p resence of 13 of the Nationally-ranked AA enduro riders, notably absent from today's competition was Melton 's teammate Terry Cunningham. The reigning National C hamp io n was forced to miss this round due to a han d injury. The Salinas Ra m blers Motorcycle Club hosted the Q u icksilver and put o n what many of the AA ri ders said was the.best Californ ia Nationa l tha t they had attended. There weren' t too many trees on the course, bu t the 600rider capacity (BL M-im posed limit) crowd was treated to 105 miles of rocks that were strewn over steep, gnarly uphill~ a!ld do~nhills, through creeks I~ tight ~avmes and all over on the tight trails through the brush on the sides of the hi lls . The rough course was broken up at times with fireroad, but the speed averages never dropped below 18mph and went as high as 30 mph. " T he bott leneck " was one of the gnarly rocky uphills in th e first sec. tion of the enduro. It was here that the AA riders, who were riding alone and one minute apart from the other .riders, had the advantage over all the other riders who were riding with th ree other riders on the same minute. Still, traffic was bad on th e course and there were a number of A riders who had fallen a nd were blocking the trail. Cycle Gear/Hi- Point/ Nelson Bros.-sponsored Dave Bertram was one ofthe AA riders that suffered the worst from the bottleneck as a couple of other riders fell on him as he was trying to get through. Bertram

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