Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

name/or 32 . '., and ride and I n eeded a place in the top five if I was to make the team. R ay Cosgrove, a 6-foot, 22-year-old p ip ejitt er from the very small M ississipp i Thankfully, nothing dumb happened R iver border town of Caman chee, Iowa, has collected two gold, on e si lver and and I made the team. one bronze medal in jour years of International Six Days Enduro com pe ti ti on. Going to Oregon wa sn't all that Along the way he became known as a hard rider , a tough competitor and a nice bad. After the Q ua lifier, my girl friend, gu y. Dia n a, and I did a lillie beach bumMerle Acord, a long-time con tribu tor to Cycle N ew s w ho covers raci ngin ming and drove a co up le of hundred Iowa and the surrounding area, spent some time w ith Iowa's only ISDE rider. miles along th e Paci fic Coast. That's The interview questions centered mainly around the 1982 IS DE in Czech oreally n ice co untry. slo vakia and Cosgrove's feelings about competing there and in other even ts. Is it possible to beat the Czechs in " Cosgrove," says Acord, " is one of the n icest and most personable riders I' ve th eir own co un try ? ever met. H ow ever, once he p u ts h is race face on, he's a tiger. " We beat their riders, but co uldn't beat How do yo u feel about getting a Lubri·T echProdu cts, so th ings started the politics. As long as the Czechs bromemedal in Czechoslovakia when to settle down so me. make w in ni ng a political iss ue I you picked up gold medals in the I go t used to " Big Red " by win ning do n' t know h o w they can be bea ten at Italian and West German ISDEs? a co uple of local hare scram bles and hom e. It 's too bad beca use they have In the record book I went fro m gold Maico also sent m e to a maintenance some of the best terrai n , ride rs a nd school in Tennessee. Whe n I started equipme nt in the world a nd th e knowto bronze, true. However , the q ua lit y of th is ISDE was so much better and ridi ng the Qual ifiers I h ad p ro bl em s. how to p u t on an exce lle nt ISD E. the terrain so much more difficult Nothin g big. except Ior the one QualiJ oh n Morgan sai d it best , "T h is is th e that the o thers don 't co mpare. You fier I missed because I was sick. waya n ISD E is supposed to be ru n." H ere's a typ ical p roblem: I'had a flat T hey m ad e a mockery of it by not diskn ow, Dick Burleson calle d Ita ly a road run. Ger m any was good, bu t lire. ' I ca n 'do th e four-minute ti re q ua li fying o n e of th eir ri de rs wh o nothi ng like Czechoslova kia . change drill, which I did, bu t then I was ca ugh t chea ting. Wa s there some doubt you would spent a lmos t 20 mi nutes gelli ng a CO 2 Polit ica l garbage as ide, th e event even go to Czechoslovakia? ca rtridge to wo rk so I could inflate was great. We were runn ing two 80 Yes, things were really up in the air the tire, I finished so far down I didn't mile loops each day, with th e first when Suzuki folded their off-roadl get any points. Another tim e. a bra cket three da ys on th e eas ier 'B' schedule. ISDE effort after the 1981 season. broke and the expa nsio n cha m ber Then , o n day four, we went to schedThen I got a m ach in e from Ma ico fell o ff. It was gelling lat e in th e ule 'C ' beca use of the rain . I was still USA , plus su p p o rt from Transworld spring and I was ru n n in g o u t of on gold, but on the second loop I C:~i~ ~I?~~i.~g}: ~ ~~c:~~~g~es~.~~~:~~ _~_a l i f~ers._S~~ ~ had 10 go 10 O regofll! l .dIf,)fP;~ .to, b~o.D.~;' .0,0. ~~ '.i~~r~~~b.l~ . - . .... -- .. -- _ ... ... - - • steep hi ll. I had a lot o f company. There were rid ers stuck from 10 feet of th e bottom a ll th e wa y 10 the top. There was just one lin e up and it had .a de ep rut. I th ought I had it made. You charge a hill and you feel the machine gelling tra ction and when you're about two-thirds of th e way up yo u turn it on and reall y blast over th e top. Well, that's the wa y this hill felt. O n ly it didn't workout th at way . The rut kept gelling deeper a nd the hill steeper. I start ed spin ni ng a nd before I co m p lete ly stopped I j u mped off and started to push. Then I fell down a nd slid arou n d in the mud wit h the Ma ico faci ng downh ill. I kn ew I was in trou ble wh en Kevin LaVoie, who was ridi ng on m inute 28 - I was on 14, went arou n d me. H e en ded u p push in g a lso . By th e tim e I got 10 th e top , I' d d ropped 20 minutes and, wi th the tig ht sched ules, I co u ldn 't mak e it up. I lost my gold, bu t I did have the fastest time in the acce lera tio n special test. The Ma ico was hook ing up th ere real good. I' ve got to say so meth in g abou t Ma ico 's support crews. They are th e best. For six da ys th ey had th ree peop le a t each check: one clea ned the goggl es and gave you somethi ng 10 ea t, another gassed, and the th ird to ld ,

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