Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Dick Mann's Fourth Annual Vintage Dirt Bike Rally featured round four of the California Vintage Racing Group's MX Series. Dick Mann-'s 4th Annual Vintage Dirt Bike Rally' Asplendid ti,me is guaranteed for all By Farren Williams BR ENTWOOD, CA, OCT. 18 Take some of 'the greatest names in American motorcycling , history, add _a little organization from a tw o -t irne Grand National Champion, stir in an afternoon of vintage motocr?s.s racing and tnals compention, add exhibition flat track and hilI· . c I1mb .nidi on vintage spee d mg . . . 12 afternoon on Sand Hill's rollin g MX track, trying to ra ck up points in round four of th e 1987 CVRG MX Series. di . . E . . da ' xpert IVlSlOn winners In to y s CVRG MX round i ncl u ded CZway, hillclimb and dirt track bikes mounted Steve Machado, who rode (read that no brakes) and you have to victory in the Old Timer's divthe formu,~a f,?! one of th e most successful fu!! events ~n ~~ worl~ ision; Eric Mashber, who took the" of m'?torcyclmg. -:- Dick . Bug~y top spot in the Open cla ss; CZ rider Mann s Annual Vintage Dirt Bike Jim Keeten, who topped the Premier Rally. . . , Lightweight race aboard a CZ; and The !ou~th edmon of Mann s Englishman Moss, who captured the win in the Premier race aboard 'a yearly d~rt bike extravaganza, held at Sand .HIlI.Ranch and. sponsored by classic Matchless. Classic . BI~e Magazine and H!1p The vintage trials win in the ' Jones Distributing, was littered With Modern Cla ssic Masters class went famous faces. The event featu~ed to Gil Norman. appearances by no less than five . Vintage Racers former Grand National Champions, including Mann, Mert Lawwill, twoThe highlight of the afternoon time champ Gary Nixon, three-time was a bench racing session with some champion J oe Leonard and threeof history's greatest riders , and most tim e champ Bart Markel. of them lauded Mann's vintage rally Brad Lackey, 1982 500cc MX for keeping alive the spirit ofthe past. • World Champion (the first American " Bugs really has something going to win that title) al so was on hand, here, " said Nixon, who won th e National title aboard Triumphs in as was Hap Jones, America's elder statesman of mo torcycling, English 1967 and 1968. " I appreciate him rider Adrian Moss, who came all th e bringing me out. " way from his native Britain for th e "N ob od y ga ve you anything rally, former Pacific Coast Dirt {when we .were racing)," said LawTrack Champion, Neil Keen, former will, who won th e cham pi onsh ip for National-level dirt tracker J immy Harley-Da vidson in 1969 and wh o Odom , and Jody Nicholas.one of the finished in the top 10 for nine years running. " It was a tou gh life. You ,top road racers from the 1960s. . Wh ile th e form er champs and their earned every inch, But we did it contemporaries spent most of th e da y because we enjoyed motorcycles, just in the pits strolling down memory like everyone here today." lane, members of the California ; 'It's good to see all my friends, Vintage Racing Group spent the , but th ere're only a couple her e who During a special flat track exhibition. rally promoter Dick Mann showed the style that took him to a pair of Grand National titles. could have made' th e mile," said Leonard with a twinkle in hi s eye. Leon ard won Nation al Championships for H arley-Davidson in 1954, '56 and '57, then followed up with a National titl e in Indy car racing. Fl int, Mi chigan 's " Ba d Bart " Markel, an ex-Golden Gloves boxer who took th ree National titl es for Harley-Davidson in 1962, 1965 ami 1966, is remembered for hi s many vic to ries in mile and half mil e racing, so it was a bit surprising when he and Nixon got into a brief debate ab out Markel's road racing abilities. "I never was any good at (road racing) when I was good," Markel said. " Markel was a great road racer, but he rode a Harley," countered Nixon. " If he rode a street bike we couldn't have caught him." Nixon also highly respected Markel' s dirt track talents. !'I only won one half mile and five or six miles," said ·Nixon . " H e was ' the guy I kept following all the time." ~ When asked why so many excel lent dirt track riders come from Markel's native Flint, Markel said, "We had a lot of races around Michigan, so 'you end upwith a lot, of good pilots. We also had GM (General Motors} there, and they didn'tknow it but they did a lot of machine work Ior us. All the trick machine work we needed, we did it there." , , After graduating from high school in Atlanta, Georgia, Keen moved to the West Coast where he dominated local race tracks in southern Califor- . nia. Today the former BSA pilot lives in St. Louis, Missouri. " I ran my first race around a . q u ar ter mile track in southern California called Gardena Stadium," said Keen. " When I first saw dirt tra ck racing, I knew it would be easy. It looked so easy it had to be easy - it was th e most difficult, damned th ing I ever tried." Event organizer Mann, wh o collected National titles in 1963 and 1971 on BSA machinery, didn 't have mu ch time to devote to the bench racing session, but he did take a few minutes to talk with Hap Jones, who raced ' Harleys and Indians in the 1930s. ' " H a p Jones really helped me out in my career," said Mann; who added, "you 're looking good Hap." ''I'm glad you tell me I look good, but yo u lie on ce in a while," said Jones with a sm ile. " I had a wonderful time racing. I went 10 Waco, T exas, once and spe nt more money go ing the re than I won in (first place) p rize m oney. An d th at was a National Championship!" Vintage Racing If su ccess can ' be m easured in numbers , Mann 's fourth annual rally was his most successful yet. Attendance reportedly was double that of last year, and so many vintage motocross racers showed up that the CVRG could n' t meet the demand for spots on the star ting gate. " We started th e day with about 350 entry forms ," said CVRG official Mike Green. " We ran out (of forms ) and had to turn riders away." ). The racing action began, fittingly, with th e Old Timer Expert race , which Machado dominated with gate-to-flag wins in both "five-lap motos. Honda-mounted Mike Hei berger was on his tail in each outing, finishing 2-2 10 take second, and Jim Keeran claimed-third with a 4-3 showing. ' ," Former dirt tracker Bruce Coch- ' ran, aboard a Triumph.i.took 'wire- \. to-wire wins in bothmotos of the Open Twin Sportsmanvdivision, which was run ·:with several , other classes in race four on the program. Cochran' claimed first in class, first overall, in each of.the two heats and , was followed home in class by Matt Hilgenberg, aboard aT.P : Racing Triumph, who finished 2-2 in class and 2-2 overall. . , In the Premier Expert race; also ruri in race four, Matchless-mounted Moss captured the win with it 1-1 showing in class, crossing the line with a 3-3 showin g overall, finishing in each moto behind the two big _ Triumphs. LarryUbaldi took second in the divi sion with a 5-6 overall ride that netted him a 2-2 score in the Premier Expert division. Well back in th e field in race four, Matchless-mounted Mike Canepa; Charles Requito on a Velocette and BSA-rider Thomas Baird raced for ' first pl ace in the Premier Novice division. Canepa took th e win with 1-1 .rides ( I 0-10 overall ), while Requito finished well back (22-28)

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