Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

baCk and came out onto the city streets, the crowd s started putting the racers in jeopa rd y. The sk y was bl ue, th e Gallo was wonderfu l, and specta to rs were mellowed ou t an d wand ering from corner to corner - just groovin' the scene not realizing that the app roaching riders were d oing some 7D-plus mph. At the gas pits, tales of near misses sta rted filtering in. One rider kicked a specta tor s mack in the leg, and d id n't feel the least bit sorry about it. Ano ther told of ridin g up behind a gal and giving her a heal th y shove in the buns to ge t her over to the side and out of the traffic lane. The man did feel a bit guilty, as this cond uct was completely. out of the ord inary for him. He did it because he felt the spectators were losing the Elsinore Grand Prix for the riders, and it was time for him to protest. (protests were big in those days) . . By the time night fell on Saturday, it truly appeared that there would never be another race at Elsinore. The ou tsiders got a hold of the crowd control barricades and made bonfires out of was the question." Finally, with lawsuits pend ing, the Gripst er s and District 37 had to say, "Sorry, we just can 't do this anymore as an amateu r sporting event; the risks are too costly." In the 1972, the Elsinore Chamber of Commerce, understandably not wanting to r e li nquish th e b ig weekend of increased business for merchan ts, decided th ey wou ld th ro w th e race th emselves. Again, Distri ct 37 faced the dissention. Some called for a boyco tt of the race beca use ther e would be no insurance; w ithout the AMA invo lved it would be an "ou t1a w " event; the Chamber of Commerce couldn't get the regular racing insurance without being affiliated with the District. Then th e Chamber offered tha t the race be run as a District event with all member clubs pitching in to help, but w ith no official Gripster or District involvement. On and on it went, but of course the racers sigaed up . If you 're a racer and a Grand Prix shows up like this one, you ride it. It's as simple as that; and other things such as danger and lawsuits are hea vier powder than p reviou s ti mes . Southern Cali fornia had righted it s wea ther pa ttern, and clou d s of d ust plumed up in the outback sections . Some riders gleefully found spots where they could cut th e course, man a g ing to imp rove their lap times (the first rider to ma ke 10 laps would stop the race, and, based on starting tim e, those behind would become overall and class winners. Some course cutters were shocked when they learned th at there was a secret check mit there in the toolies, and that if they didn' t go through it, they wo uld lose a la p w he n the fi nal la p counts were made. One main concern was that the course did not have an escape road for the back straight at the en d of the town, something the Gripsters had alwa ys planned for, although it alw ays required a couple of cops along wi th club members to keep spectators from cloggi ng it. Now the riders faced a wa ll of hay if they got on the binders too hard and couldn't make the turn at the end of the straight. The hay took a walloping. David Aldana was The bikes were impounded the night before the race. There were over 2000 entries in 1972. them. The barricades were really needed again on Sunday, but couldn't be replaced. One club that was camped along the lake had all the club banners that were marking their pits ripped off, along with all the food they'd brought for the weekend. By Sunday evening, there were many mixed feelings as the final bikes were stowed away for the trip home. John DeSoto earned the overall victory on both days, so he was happy, but even he allowed that it hadn't been easy, and not because of the terrain, either. Some spectators were extremely pleased, and thought they'd seen something really special, but others left early, disgusted by some of the incidents. Some riders vowed that should there ever be another race at Elsinore, they wouldn't ride it, while others (usually novices) were happy as larks. When the Wide World of Sports piece ran, commentator Keith Jackson, who had really done his homework for the event, remarked that it was a pity that a few bums could give all motorcyclists a bad name. For the rest of the year the Gripsters, District 37 and the city of Elsinore struggled with 1972: "To be or not to be, that ignored. "We're gonna ride the Elsinore Grand Prix," said the enthusiasts, and ride it they did - 1100 sig ned up fo r Saturday, and over 1200 heavyweights entered for Sunday. Some name riders, however, chose just to drive over to see the happenings, but not end ure w hat they had in previous years. Who did man the race? Well, there were the same very famili a r faces a t check-in, riders' meetings, the main flag positions and the scoring stands. And the International Racing Rad io Crew was there to monitor the turns, but there still we ren't enough he lpers. After the race started and difficul ti es became apparent, many District club members, just out of love for the sport, jumped in and started working uncovered turns, assisting riders who had gotten off and trying to keep the nuttier spec tators at bay . Even so, it was practi call y a mob scene at the starting line. As rows of 10 riders each continuously left the line, the bodies would keep pushing and creeping closer and closer to the front rows of racers until it seemed only minutes before disaster would strike. The course was ve ry dusty, with wo nde ring where the hell some of the riders out there had gotten their licenses from. He'd forgone riding the Colorado Mile in ord er to compete at Elsinore, and when all the problems started, he rather wished he had n't. He wasn't the only one. Many dr opped out, and on Sunday, more ca m e just to watch, or simply pulled into the pits and said, "No more." John DeSoto d idn't show at all after a great ride on Saturday; he'd had enough. Satu rd a y' s o ve ra ll w inner was Gene Cannady, a member of the Los Angeles Police Department who in those years was one hell of a dirt rider and a member of the elite Badgers M.e. Following him came Jeff Wright and DeSoto. Back in sixth was Preston Petty and behind him, Aldana. Sunday it was Vic Hannan and Steve Hurd in first and second, Running in fifth despite the unfamiliar territory and cond itions w as Mike Jackson, an Englislunan on an AJS who did all right for himself in s pite of all the strange things th at h appened that weekend . Some arrests were made for "too much loco-weed," as someone politely put it, not to mention those who went truly overboard into "drunk and disorderly." Plain drunk wouldn 't d o it, bu t d isord erly w o u ld! On e cha p co ul d be seen, happy but s traigh t-legged a nd s tiff, going carefully - oh so care fully - from corner to corner in town, w ith a band olier of beer cans s tr u ng around his chest. There wa s even a live donkey on the course at one time. It was still alive and ' happy when it was finally removed, and , we ll, as they say, may be you ha d to be there to ap preciate much of this. Still, it was the final race. Days before the event, some of the citizens had gone to court in an effort to stop it in the last hours. Their main beef was that the city itself didn't clean up after the race and that it took days for even a start to be made on the mess. Many residents inevitably ended up cleaning up their own portion of the street and, naturally, that d idn't go over too well. The Los Angeles Times wrote a piece about the race, hanging motorcyclists by their thumbs, reporting (among other things) that there were a hundred people injured. Actually, the count was 92, with assorted bumps and bruises and a few broken things that can happen in racing. Only eight of them were known to be spectators, and they were no doubt injured while being silly twits. Did the entire town hate the whole thing? No. One racer fell hard on one of the residential streets, and hurting and bleeding from pavement rash, sat on a lawn chair trying to ga ther his wits while he watched the other riders hurtle by. Up came a little elderly lady from a nearby house with a bowl of warm water, towels and lemonade. The lemonade was probably the most welcome sight of all, consid ering it was 92 degrees. She got him washed up, brushed off and away he went to finish the race, the thing that counted most. ..just finish the darn thing! An other rid er b roke down, fina lly wa lking off to find help and leaving the bike by the side of the roa d . He never m ad e it back, and another little lady wen t o u t, push ed the b ike in to he r ga rage a nd safely lock ed it up, th en called the Chamber of Commerce to tell them w here it was. "I was so worried so m eo ne w ould stea l it ," s he said. "Some of those people who weren 't racing were just awful-looking." Hurray for little old lad ies! Could the Grand Prix hav e survi ved more than those five yea rs? How about if some things such as crowd elimination had really been enforced, and more police and rent-a-cops were used? Somehow, looking back, it still doesn't seem likely. Everyone did their best to keep the event going, but once word spread that to go to that race was to attend a "happening," as we said in those ancient days, the end was inevitable. Remember the old codgers' tales about the Catalina Grand Prix, still rated the best of 'em all by riders who rode them all, especially because of the boat trip . It was that same boat trip that proved to be the demise of the race. Uglies tossed a cop overboard from the White Steamer, and although the District had sanctions for running that race for more years, they said no . If we could have just kept it for "us" and not let "them" know about it, Catalina would have been around much longer. The same goes for Elsinore. ls it missed? Yes, especially by those who remember when dirt biking was so much fun that you just wanted to giggle and jump up and down, and there were so many places close in to go ride or cow trail or practice (even in the cities). There were many races to choose from each weekend, but the Grand Prix races were so eagerly awaited. It. was dirt biking's Golden Age: C¥ 27

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