Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

ary Ni xon, already bein g do bx:p six-membe r sq ua d fro m HarJe}';Da,&dson, by wear an d tear, and l:l~ a mutinous stomach, bewa iled th e ad itional load of ha ving to cro ss th e con tinen t in pursuit of th e Grand Na tional Championsh ip and face th e tricksters, spellbinders, jokers, an d infuri a ting s m art alecks of Pacific Coast steepl Th' Nix he ci Tr s 0\ ~ o C'l .... ~ ....... I-< 22 As fo a grinning at: from the other side of the chalk starting line. Then - surprise, surprise - th ey'd freeze the nervous flagman, drop clutches, erupt, and be wheelieing their merry ways into the infield hairpins, leaving Nixon and the other stiffs standing still. "They all want to trick you," Nixon fulminated, adding helplessly, "they all live out here ." . . Some of them were known as Van Looney, Dickie-Bird, Hammer Dick, Beetle Bob and other nicknames now lost in time. But their tribal leader, the fun broker and boy wonder with th e ins olent grin who had the gre a test gifts of them all, was: Squ irrel Eddi e Mulder. Inside an outhouse, sitting on the toilet, wa s where Mu ld er began the biggest morning of his life. From outside he heard a sudden cannonade o f 800 en gi nes all firi ng a t on ce and re ali zed that th e m on st er har e an d hound marathon called Big Bear had just started withou t him. . Big Bea r: hou r after hou r of endless san d-blown miles across the yawni ng gullies a nd g ri m badlands of the Lucerne Valley, then up the side and over the top of the high snow-capped moun ta ins to the w il d e rn ess fin ish near Fawnskin.' It was a bright but cold spring da wn and the plunging swarm of motorcycles wa s a mile long. The rising sun lit up the liveries of California's romantic and formidable desert ga ngs like the Sh amrocks, th e ' Buz zards, a nd the elite Checkers. One wonders if the likes of Buck Smith, Dickie Dean, Squatty Surplice and other d esert sled luminaries felt any sense of occasion when the latestarting No. 249 - Mulde r - came rocketing p ast. Th er e'd never been another Big Bear like this one. Gathering speed through the ge a rs, Mulder overtook 775 motorcycles in the open ing 50 miles. With a third of the di stance behind him he was among the firs t five, but the chase was harde ning - he'd rip ped off a footpeg and his forehead was gashed. Sometim es Mulder and the four other leade rs got so far apart in the isolatio n they barely saw each others' silhouettes on the far horizon. Sometimes they torpedoed into a sand wash at close quarters; when this happened they d eclared war and raced at one another with aband on. Lea ving t h e d es ert floo r, they attacked the frozen moun tains, lashed by blizzards in other years. Mulder jum ped a boulder and crashed into a clearing to find Squatty Surplice stalled ou t, cursing himself (for the rest of his life, pro bably) for remembering to carry a spare sp ark pl ug but no wrench with which to change it. Fift een minutes la ter, Mulder w as charging up the face of another mountain along a narrow and zig-zagging fire road when he spun over the side and crash-landed to a s top agains t so me rocks . He e xtrica ted h im se lf an moments afterward, bloody and dizz ed . . - Bigr,Bear's ch at the scrambles meetings a t De Anza, Box Sprin gs, and elsewhere. These meets were the p recursors of modern motocross, excep t that racing was conducted on the backs of dinosaurs instead of wailing, ring-a-ding two-strokes. Jim Gold smith, a m agical presence, nearly six-and-a-half-fee t tall and 200 pounds, d id most of the winning aboa rd . a bull-rhin oceros-of-a-scrambler HarleyDavidson. Mulde r pu rsued this apparition - and went down to defeat 20 races in succession. The tide turned by mistake. One afternoo n Mulder ch ed at Goldsmi n a hairpin; was in hen ga in ded No it er's , eCh ed its own race me eting, making Mulder ineligible to compete. The rare sight of his adversary, Mulder, stationed on a corner as flagman so amused Goldsmith - he was yet another amiable madman that he contrived to use his rear wheel to bury Mulder with dirt. sional. He did so at Ascot in 1962. No longer was he an adolescent 16-year-old but a strapping 18-year-old with a man's body. 'Mulder rac ed a honker of a 40inch Triumph tuned to the maximum by th e West Coast distributors. As was exp ect ed, he qu a lified th e fast est . Not just fastest of all the others in the Novice division, but fastest of all the Juniors and Experts, too. H e w as made to race against the Expe rts in the Trophy Da . ated Sid Payne of Bakersfield . He defeated Jack O'Brien of th ecking Crew. He even defeat Dorte of Di who No liformerely a p as nts e in so stock it ha s been in a crate the day before, he captured Ascot's ISO-lap Spring Classic, the biggest steeplechase of the year that wasn't a National. Aboard an amazing Cub model Triumph, Mulder went practically unbeaten racing indoors at Long Beach Stadium . Warriors with the most imposing reputations in America continued falling to Mulder. Tom Hawley, infamous for bulldogging into the lead on the stan ding start, lost a starting line drag race and a $50 wager to Muld er. But Joe Leonard proved to be a tougher mark. After Mulder buzzed him at Selma in central California , Leonard showed he wasn't amused by a juvenile delinquent w ise-ass. He put Mulder into and over a wall. Then there was Mulder's classic i 965 meeting with Bart Markel in Illinois a t tha t su mmer's Peoria stee pl echase. Markel was in th e midst of recapturing the National Cham pionsh ip, and Mulder was, for once, in troub le. Cannonballing off a jump, he hit top gear just as Eddie Mulder at 16. He'd just won Big Bear. All this paled, compared to the next revelation, which made Mulder tr uly uniqu e in an era when racing was still reserv ed for grownups instead of children. Th e revel a ti on was th at Ed d ie Mulder was a motorcycle bra t barely 16 years old . All this happened in the year 1960. Mulder continued winning additional championship hare and hounds following Big Bear. He also mounted a crusade The b ig Harley rea red out from underneath Goldsmith instead, then ate h im ali ve wi th a devouring m a uling which injured him critically. In ann ouncing h is la ter re ti rem en t, Go ldsm ith turned over his old skid shoe to Mulder in tribu te. Mulder had won Big Bear, he had the authority of Iron Man Kretz, he had vanquished the mighty Goldsmith - and he had yet to mak e his debut as a profes- his engine voided itself of the primary chain. In w ild- hair Southern California manner, Mulder stopped and robbed a spectator's Triump h of a fresh ch ain . La ter he solved th e riddle of Peoria by being the only competitor to lap the place onl y using the top two gears, setting the fastest time. Dueling for the lead , Markel's Harley and Mulder's Triump h were for ever skid di ng, sli di n g; snapping bac k the necks of their occupants. The Peoria finish was played out where spectators were densely massed, yet exactly what happened has always been in d oubt, despite the presence of so many witnesses. Mulder crow d ed Markel while flying over the jump, or, Mark el trie d sending Mulder into the fence. Whatever hap pened, Mulder won. Popping a signature ya-hoo! wheelie, he then remembe red to fling one fist·high in th e ai r, glance back, and give Markel the finger. (He afterward also remembered to have the Bakersfield bruiser and thug Dave Palmer accompany him to the winner's ceremony, in case Markel intended to argue about it).

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