OFF-ROAD
ELSINORE GRAND PRIX
L eElsin re California
ak
o,
By Mark Kariya
Photos by K inney Jones
LAKE ELSINORE, CA, NOV. 8-9
~~, wai ted all year fo r Elsi nore,
••
and I can't wait for nex t yea r,"
p oli ce officer Vic Klotz
exclaimed . No , he wasn' t talking abo u t bein g on patro l and bu sting
people at the small retiremen t commu nity in southern Riverside County. He
was talking about actually racing in the
Ma zd a /Circle K/Motoplaza Apple /
Moose Elsinore Grand Prix by GFJ Racing .
.
No t that he was one of the big winners, ei ther. In fact, Klo tz was d isappointed wi th his 15th-place finish in the
Over 40 Exp er t ra ce. "I got s pa nked
because all the guys tha t didn't show
up last yea r showed u p th is yea r: he
said . "Last year 1 did pre tty good , but
this year - oh, ma n, it w as sad. The re
were some prett y fast people in there ." .
But Els inore's a t m osph ere took
mu ch of the sting ou t of the defeat for
him: "I thought it was great for peop le
like me, the average joe, to be rid ing
an d actu ally have some people watching you and rooting you on. "
Multiple class winner Bryan Menne
agreed . A participant in th e las t Elsinore G P in 1972 - before GFI's revi val
last year - Menne said, "This is like the
one even t for me . I jus t love this race. I
re mem be r in '7 2, it wa s o ne o f the
funnest races , but it wa s a "
longer race
back then ."
Of course, back in the late ' 60s and
early 7 0s, there weren't as ma ny differe nt classes s p read o ut ov er th e tw o
da ys of racing, which began at 7 a.m .
both days. (Th e old d a ys a lso di d n't
featu re other th in gs such as the ven -
(Above left) Team Honda 's Steve Lamson
won the Hame l 100, blistered hands and
en.
(Left) Mike Healey leads the pack throu gh
the first turn at the start of the Hamel 100.
(Below) KTM's Dcstry Abbolltopped beth
the Unclassified and Open Expert classes.
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