Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ NOSTALGIA Time Forgotten e rr-========--il By Joe Scalzo Photo by Den n is Green e u t on the e mp ty floo r of the Mojave, at on e of the desert g a s dump s, crew members wait to receive th eir riders in the Barstow -to-Vegas. T h is particular dump is 100 miles from the race's start, at the ed ge of an ex panse of barren mounta in s. An d a t last the lea der - a speck of fast-moving d ust, followed by a famous bark of Husqva rn a exhaust - comes flying off and down the mountain. "It's J.N.!' J. N . Roberts. A dim inu tive figure 'wea ring p ro tective knee and s hou lder pads, and a helmet wi th a football ma sk, Rober ts aba ndons his Husqv ama to its pit crew almost b efore h e stops . And while swarmi ng men service and refuel it, he sits on the ta ilgate of a truck, tak in g si ps o f w ater . Altho ugh h e has ju st raced across 100 miles of roiling sand washes , rock canyons, an d dry lak e b e d s, Roberts do es n 't ap p ear ti red. And, he is in no hurry whatsoever. H is H u s q " a r n a is refurbished, his gang of mechanics is hollerin g for h im to rejoin the race , b ut Roberts still sits there. Minutes elapse. The situation is exas pera ting. Is he ever going to leave? Finally, one of us watching can stand it no longer. "For God sakes, J.N ., you're leading the race! Get going!" Roberts looks up at the pers on ad monishing him . He s miles, then points off in the direction of the mountains. "When I see dust," he says, "I'll go." Astoundingly, th ere is no dust. He has been loitering here for at least five minutes and still no t a single rider in the race is close to him. And this in spite of the fact that the Barstow-to-Vegas is the biggest desert marathon of all - dense with upwards of 3100 motorcycles. How can one man be so much better than so many? Then Roberts looks agai n toward the mountain . Now ther e is dust - second and third p lace mot orcycles at las t arriving. He pulls on his helmet. He fires the Husqvarna and jumps aboard. He nods at his crew, as if saying, thanks, and see you in 80 miles at the finish line in Las Vegas (he ha s previous ly won B-to-V three ti mes, and will win again this ye ar) . And then he opens u p to peak revs and is away, dreami ng of cavalry ch a rges and with a hym n to h e r o in echoing in his head . . Rob ert s, who 20 years ago was the icon of desert d erring-d o, was the last and fastest of the great long-distance Mojave racers that the south of California used to routinely produce until the whole Mojave adventure at last collapsed. Though he raced for n o.m ore _ than eight years, he once won 23 consec- O 8 utive races, still believed to be a record, and the name J.N. Roberts continued resonating longer than anybody else's. Even on Septembe r 13, 197 2, when police arrived in the middle of the night and clubbed him senseless, and nearly dead, newspaper w rite-ups were calling Roberts "the King of the Dese rt. " For somebody born in a p lace where the closest desert was half a continent awa y , that was qu it e a title. Ru ral In d iana; Roberts' hom e, was where he pursued quirky athletic interests: he wa s a graceful and natural speed ska ter on ice, as well as a ma ster wi th a bow-and arrow. And these d ispa rate abilities later fused into an uncanny aptitud e for racing a motorcycle to beat hell across the open desert. Roberts departed Ind ia na fo re ver while in his teens . Co u r tesy of t h e Marine Corps, he go t p os ted t o Okinawa, where, as he once recalled it, "They marched my as s off: 'H up, on e, two, th ree, four!' Aft er th a t, I sa id to m yself, 'No mo re walking, ever. I'm getting a mot orcycle: " It wasn't that simple. Upon ge tting back into the country again, Roberts settIed in Los Angeles, where his priority wasn't to p urchase a motorcycle but to avoid starving; he pedd led vaccu m cleaners and the products o f Fuller Brush d oor to door and -was dreadful at . both endeavors. Th e film studios of Hollyw ood saved his life. He got a job at Universal as a p seudo carpenter, hamme rin g together film sets. This was the '60s, and Mojav e racing was in its glory. At h is first hare ' ri' hou nd ra ce, Roberts experienced an ep iph any . Watching the line of dirt b ikes an d rid ers, almost a quarter of a mile long, kick-start their silent engines and b u rst hell-ben t over th e trackless horizon, made h im th ink of a ca val ry cha rge; and he always remembered it that wa y. "When I was racing, I always felt like I was part of the caval ry. And I was being cha se d b y hostile Indians. And tha t th e y' d get me if I e ve r s top ped:' Roberts ac qui red h is first motor, a p ond erous Scrambler mod el Honda, then go t in wit h some new friends who . were also plugged into the Mojave mystique. It was a tightly-knit and accessible culture, then. Just roll the bikes into the bed of a pick-u p an d tool out to Red Rock, Phelan, Little Rock, or even Sand Canyon , jus t 20 minutes from Universal Studios. Recallin g his very first meeting there w it h Rob erts, Bob Harris, s tuntman, race d river and Mojave zealot, said, "San d Canyon was a great gathering p lace for desert people, and one day J.N. was ou t-there working on a Honda he ha d sp read all over the ground on an army blanket. We went riding toge ther, and afterward he said he hoped he'd get better at it, and som ed ay he 'd have a better b ike. I told him th a t the way he was ridi ng already, when he got something better it would be cu rtains for the rest of us . 'Ah,' he said. 'You really think so?' Not long a ft e rward h e g ot that H usk y, and it was ligh ts ou t." "That H u sky," soon to be a lege n d, was a n outward ly in nocuous Husqvarna. Although s imilar motocross imports had already been tried in the Mojave, it still is the bailiwick of the bu lb ou s a n d hcavy-gauge 40-inch Triumph and BSA and Matchless desert sleds. Bu t despite all thc ir horsep ow er a nd vas t bu lk , th e time- ho no red a n d b el o v ed d es e r t sl eds had littl e ch ance against Roberts ' sop h is tica ted lit tl e Husky w h ic h w a s agile , ni m b le, a n d w e ig h e d an abs temious 245 pounds. Roberts, furth erm o re , r e pre s en ted the first of a tota lly n e w type of desert racer with a co m p letely fresh racing style - looser, coo ler, certainly h ipper. Roberts was utterly un iq ue. He 'd b een a mo n g the fi rs t to w ear football-type pro te c tive ge ar, and , with the Ho n da, h ad needed them . Now he fashioned a minimalist techn ique. The h ighspeed des ert sled ders tried flattening the Mojave; Roberts, conversely, appeared to be dancing away from the very gro u nd he was tra mpling . An d he never sa t down; for 100 blazing miles, he'd be sta nd ing upright on the foo t peg s . And h e always h ad th e throttle turned wid e-open or else backed completely off. Same with bra kes: they were eit he r locked up or not ge tting used at all. His riding thrilled his growing clan of co m pa triots, and one of th em, Hal Needham, explained how Roberts made the life of anybody try ing to follow him a torinent: " If you try and ke ep up with J.N. in a sa nd wash you 'll surely b ust your ass b e ca u se you'll be crashing trying to follow the wash while J.N. is following things only his eyes can see:' Himself in the movies, Needham eve n tu a lly became a d irector /mogul. Upon discovering that Roberts was a common carpenter a t Univ ersal, Needham decided he should become a st u n tma n and im media tel y got Roberts a job on thc film Little Big Man. And Roberts, already familiar with cav alry c h a rges, g o t to r ide horses in s tea d of motorcycles while dressed and pa inted up li ke th e Siou x a n d Cheyenne who brought down General Custer. Over time, Roberts moved from a s tu n ter speci ali zing in horses to one equally adept at violent car chases and smashes. Need ham also inducted Roberts into the Viewfinders, an extremely exclusive club of fcllow stunters and Hollywood luminaries who found Mojave ra cing irresistible. Other m embers includ ed Pernell Roberts fr om Bonanz a, Needham a nd Harris themselves , and most consp icuousl y Ste ve McQu een, who learned the art of desert sport from his own brilliant mentor, Bud Ekins, and spectacularly presented an Osca r at the 1964 Academy Awards w ith h is arm still in p laster from a desert m isad venture. Racing, Roberts always had a starkly lonely time of it. Whether a race lasted one hour or several, he tend ed to speed so far into the lead that he might never see another motor cycle. So, there he'd be, all by himself flyi ng bet ween boulders, dancing across cactus-topped

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