Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

under the wooden trestle bridge and leapt up and onto the roads. From then on, the nin e-mile circuit was mostly graded or pavement. It also climbed up onto the side of hill, causing some nai lbiting by offi cials who hoped n o one would drop it up th ere and requ ire heavy equipment to drag out the bod y! The riders then dropped down into town an d beg an tw isting le ft a nd right through the city to the cheers of friends, specta tors and, in some cases , totally stu nned loca ls who s uddenly fo u nd themselves having more fun than they' d experienced in years . The sma ll bikes ran Sa tu rd ay, with the He avyweight class ra cing Sunday. By da y two, it wasn 't uncommon in the s u ccessful ea rly yea rs to see s mall grou ps of senior citizens in the ir front ga rdens with th eir ch airs all in a row and their trays of lemonade and iced tea a t the ready, thoroughly enjoying th e race. The pavement sections were d ifficult for most competitors, and riding styles ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous; but who wouldn't look a bit bugeyed while racing on the pavement with full knobbies? District President Sloan, a desert racer himself, came through town looking super for a came ra shot, but his Actor and GP legend Steve McQueen (48) chases Gal)' Jones (74)around a comer. The Elsinore race was a true Grand Prix, with some portions of the course ru nn ing s traigh t through town. Nort on jus t couldn't keep the lean an d the next second he was on his buns. The Hollyw ood set was easily attracted to these kinds of races and to what d irt b ik in g w as li ke a t the time, bu t nobody mad e a big deal about the stars. If they liked to get dirty a nd loved mo to rcy cles, then they were jus t the same as the next guy. This would change in later years , bu t in 1968, one of the "big names" was Hal Needham, happily circula tin g th e course on his H us ky. H e wou ld in short time ha ve great success w it h those hil ari ou s Cannonball Run movies and other production activities. Others on the scene that weekend were names like Art Ba rd a and Bill Barte ls; future Crand -National Champion Gary Scott won the 100cc Ama teur class. Every year it took some time to figure ou t who the winner s were, because of the sepa ra te s ta r ti ng wa ves and the usual mix-up of SO many riders. But first overall for that first Elsinore Grand Prix was number-one desert plate holder Ste ve Hurd o n a Ka w asa ki, and on Sunday it was Steve Scott on a 360cc EI Bandido Bultaco w ho triumphed over the heavyweights. When February, 1969, rolled along, so di d a 79 -year record ra infa ll. When Elsinore ol d -ti me rs bench rac e, most have more stories to tell abou t getting out of th e p its on Su nday night th an about what actually wen t on out on the co urse. But eve rywhere, the mud was legenda ry. Again, the starts were out across the wide-open spaces, but what mos t of the racers didn't know, unless they'd earlier taken the long hi ke out there, was tha t part of the lake had extended out, and lay just under the grass. To get into the pits, which lay just off the road , drivers had to drop off down a short-but-steep incline onto a dirt spa ce that rap idly turned to goo as more and more people arrived. It looked bad, bu t everyone decided they would worry about that later. The riders rocketed off the start, sending clods o f dirt fly ing and then, VOOM!, a huge wave of water rose into the ai r. For some in row two, getting caught in that mess was a nig h tmare, and they just drowned out and never got any further. Ove r the many years of racing, nothing has come close to that start. As the race progressed, th e circuit becam e miles of m ud in places: Riders fell and couldn't get out, finally making it back to the pits with horror stories. Per the entry ins tru ctio ns, e ver yo ne had geared for a 60 mph straightaway. Onl y 20% of the little bikes finished and perhaps, somewhere o u t th ere u nder th e hardpan, is a little Hodaka or Honda and maybe a sma ll skeleton or two from someone who could n' t get out. No one saw 'em, and they went down like the beasts in the Brea Tar Pits. The fi rs t year, the Gripsters had sco red the usual way, with club lad ies using pen cils and pads of paper. This is p robably the most necessary, and yet the most uns un g job in racing, but the poor w o r ker s wou ld s till ca tch fla k fr om ingrates who just KNEW they were not tw o laps down. .Even afte r a ll these years, the Gripster ladies are to be saluted. Well, brigh t and early that morning, they were all so happy wi th the piece of eq uipment that had been added to their pa pers and pen cils - a nice automat ic camera to record every thing at the finish line. But there we re still p roblems. As the laps progressed, each bike th at came th rough carried a mu ddy rider and a co mple te ly ob liter ated number plate. Even stops to remove the gluck d idn't work ve ry we ll. No t until three d a ys later, aft er exhaustive runs, reruns and rechecks had been d one, were the results post ed, declaring Gunner Lindstrom as the winn er. It was decided that the only system that w ould work would be to phys ic a ll y stop each rid er as he approached the line, wipe his plate so Jt cou ld somehow be recorded, and then release him to get all muddy again . Again, still-famous ra cing names were listed in the program, including celebrities like "Monkee" Mickey Alzola (a Montesa-mounted Novice class racer), future scourge of the speedway circui t "Wild Bill" Cod y, and, for his second outing, Bill Bartels, wh o is now winning fame and fortune as purveyor of HarleyDavidsons to the rich and fam ous and also as the sponsor of dirt track legend Jay Sprin gsteen. Th e group th at m ad e the b iggest im p ression on e ve r yon e was the View finders M.e. Many members were stuntrnen, and it wa s only du e to them that many people made it out of th e muddy pits. These guys stayed well after midnight getting folks out. There was a lot of digging with shovels, then the attempt to reach the road. The short incline had to be hit at a pretty good clip to hop out onto the main road, except that by this time it was covered with a vaseline-like surface that could hang up the bottom your pickup (vans weren't 25

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