Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

VINTAGE AHRMA STEAMBOAT OTO C CLEW E EK M RY mboat Springs, Colorado • c ln Ii 1 XL350 hol di ng a narrow margi n ov er Raygor. Th ird we nt to Bultaco-rnounted Ma u r ice O r teg a , who chased d own Yamaha rid er john McClelland. II was McClelland's turn in Modern Vintage 7SOccc, as he put his big Yamaha twi n a t the head of pack and stayed there to finish ahead of Terry Hyde' s Rickm an Triumph and Raygor's Yamaha. Continui ng the win -sw apping, H yd e outpowered the Harley Sprint of Henry Nonnenmacher to take the Senior victory . Amo ng th e bra kel e ss co nti nge nt, Ohio' s john Bova extended his winning ways in Classi c 250cc, rocketing to the lead on his Bullaco and leaving behind the even tual second-place finisher, Ossa rider Rob ert Bo rg. Tom Bo yd and his C rec ves prevailed in th e battle with O ssa pil ot Ch arles Gom a n for thi rd pla ce. Nonnen macher's Sprint went flag to flag in the combi ned Classic SOO IT;>Qcc . and Dinosaur ra ce, d es pi te a valia nt effort by Tri um p h rid er Cla rk Edgington to w o rk hi s wa y u p throu gh the pack a nd close to withi n abo u t three bike lengths of the leader at the checkers. In th e very sa me race, Beno Rodi's Enfield ea rned third in Classic and first Dinosau r. By Malt Benson STEAMBOATSPRINGS,CO,SEPT.10-14 t all began 17 yea rs ago with a road race o n a s tree t cou rse in th is s ki resort. By the mid- 1980s, things sta rted growing wi th the addition of vin tage ma ch ines to th e MRA' s m od ern prog ra m. A vi ntage mo tocross w as ne xt, laid out in a big field just belo w the road I cou rse. Then came the vintage trial in a to wn park th at prom inently features a ski jump. This was followed by th e dirt track at Hayden, 25 miles to the west. A co ncours d' elegance a nd vintage road rid e are the most recen t addi tions fo r the old-bike crowd. Steamboat Motorcycle Week is a certified Big Thing. It now boasts an AMA Suzuki Dual Sport National, an official ga thering for the new Triumph 'S nationr-, CJ"\ CJ"\ ...... 00 .... aJ .D .8 u o 38 al owner' s grou p a nd cre ws from th e majo r TV moto-shows. AHRMA entries alone for the week were jus t over 900 for the d irt track, trial. MX and road race. When yo u sp read ou t fou r vintage nation als over fou r days in a centralized a rea , som e people will in va riably become gripped with a strange des ire to rid e th em a ll. II was for these people tha t the Steamboat Iron Man award was devised, The Iron Man is decided based on a rid er' s bes t scores in thr ee di fferent types of com pe titi o n, with the stipula- ti on that th ere must be a t lea s t five entries in a class for the sco re to count. Eigh teen poten tial Iro n Men sig ned up, but none was a match for Robert Borg of No r th Loga n, Uta h. Borg star ted his campaign with a second- place finish on an Ossa in the dirt track' s Classic 250cc class, an d he backed that up with another second on his Sachs 125cc-powered Saracen in the trial's Class ic Intermediate divisio n (sony - there were only four entries). At the motocross, he decima ted the Classic 125 Experts aboard a '72 cz. To secu re the title, Borg would have to d o exceptio na lly w ell in the .w eekending road race. But the odds didn't seem to be with him he w as wearing the ora n g~ vest that s igni fies a beginning ro ad ra cer and had made the unlikely choice of a lightly co nve rted CZ 250 m ot ocrosser for hi s 250cc GP m ount in a highly co m peti tive class populated by potent Du cati thumpers and Honda twins. In the race, Borg wa s involved in a three-way battl e for second and had just taken over the runner-up po sition when the leader fell la te in the eve nt. For what must have seemed like two ve ry long laps, Borg he ld off the a dv a n ces of Ducati-mounted Larry Poons to earn his first-ever AHRMA pavem ent win - and the Iron Man title. A fittin g end to a fine week. » Maurice Ortega (5Y)and Rip Raygor (419) narrowly avoid colliding as TIm Woll (7) walcheslrom behind In M odern Vintag e 600cc dirt lrack action In Steamboat Springs, CLASSIC BIKE MAGAZINE DIRT TRACK Entries were do wn fo r th is year's Ste amboat Week d irt tr ack, and those who deci ded to sit it out missed a real su r prise. Und e r new owners h ip, th e Hayd en tra ck has never been pr epped as well. It wasn't tabletop-smooth, but it was far less bu mpy than AH RMA has seen it, and th ings stayed dust-free as well, Co lorado racer Mark Erickson (who also would rid e all four types of competition through the week, finis hing third i n Ir o n Man behind Borg and Fr ed Mork) was the da ys d oub le winner. In Modern Vintage '250cc , Erickson led from start to finish on a Hon da Elsinore. Beh in d him, positions s huffled until Yamaha-m ounted Ed die Baldizan was sec ond, followed by Bu lla co rider Ste ve n Stuart and Yamaha pilot Ray Winward. In Mod em Vintage 600cc, Rip Raygor and his Maico led just abou t th e entire race bu t, when th e checkered flag wa ved , it was Erick so n on a Hond a SPEED & SPORT TRIAL Steamboat is by far the largest trial on the AHRMA circu it (wi th ISO entries this year), w hich, w hen comb ined wi th a limite amo unt of area ava ilable to the d layou t crew, is a recipe for traffic jams at the sec tions . The problem of lon g wai ts was eased somewhat this time by star ting riders using the three and four lines an ho u r ea rlie r than th ose o n th e one and two lines. Riders also we re allowed to go fro m section to section in any order, provided they d idn't trave l backward on th e loo p . Local officials have been plea sed wi th th e trial ' s mini mal im pact o n the pa rk a nd p romised to make availabl e so methin g with at least one sec tio n th a t' s very u nu su a l. As a result, 1997's "Bales of Fun ," a sprawling jumble of old hay bales, apparently made its wa y down the food chain to this year's literally named "Du ng Hill." This wa s the only all-new section, a mix of horse manure, straw and flies. Technically, it wasn't all that d ifficult, but it smelled as bad as it sounds and wa sn't the place to make a big, crowd-pleasing mistake. Stea mboat res ta urateur [am ie jenny used home-field ad van tage to end the day wi th one point in Rigid Nov ice on his Bs A Gold Star. Among the o ther Rigid rid ers, Ken Dodge and his Matchless defeated BSA-mounted Fenner by a l o-point margin in the Expe rt class, and Derrell johnson edged Bill An derso n in the Interm ed iates , both on BSAs. T he al w ay s-competi tive Premier

• Cover