Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127959
If 40 Motorcycle Days (Above) A warm summer day in the Sierras, ple nty of scenery plus a nice, tw isty road closed to traffic. It's all part of the pavement hillclimb's allure and part of Old Highway 40 Motorcycle Days ' cha rm. (Left ) With the Donner Ski Ranch below (where a crowd had gathered to watch a section of the Geoff Aaron Invi tati onal Supertrial) and Lake Mary in the background, Dusty Beer heads for the top of the dirt hillclimb on his KTM. By Mark Kariya NORDEN,CA,AUGI5-16 eop le go to mall s because mall s offer a lot of ch oices, be it shoppin g, dinin g, movi e going, or people watching. It's the same wi th amusement park s: Peopl e go because the parks provid e a variety of things to do. What about mo to rcycle ent husiasts? Dayton a certai nly head s the list w hen it co mes to provid in g a medley of tw ow heeled activities. Sturgis also comes to mind. But before too long, Donner may ' P 30 hav e to be added to that list, if the firstever Old Hig hway 40 Motorcycle Days at the Don ner Ski Ranch was any indica tion . Donner ma y currently be best known in the bike world as the siteof World Cha mpionship observ ed trials rounds in '94 and '97. Like any ski reso rt, thou gh, it 's a lways see ki ng a dded s um me q draws it can coun t on for inco me until ; the next snow season. The p ast tw o years fou nd th e ski resort putting on a pavem ent hillclimb. Riders s ta rted one at a tim e nea r the west end of Donner Lake and head ed up tw is ty old Highway 40 , finishing near the ski resort after 37 tu rn s and 1088 feet of elevation gain in three miles , with the fastest to the top being the win ner. With the ar ea's ru ggedl y beautiful Sie r ra N ev ad a m oun tai n ra nge a n d Don ner Lake as ba ckd rops; th e p avement hillcl imb proved to be scenic as well as challenging . ' Tha t proved to be th e springboard for the multi-e vent even t, and it go t Donner' s No rm Sayler thinking, tossing , around all so rts of ideas befor e things : began to fall into place. "I ke p t talkin g a bou t s tuff, kep t thi n ki ng abou t Stea m boa t Sp rings (in Colora do) and kin d of w ha t they had don e ba ck there (wit h the vintage racing w eekend )," Say ler recalls. "I thou ght, 'What else cou ld we do?' "O ne da y, I was flippin g through one of the ma gazine s, and they had a photograph of a hillclimb in Mon tan a. Then I rolled to the next page, and it showed ou r World tria ls eve n t. Th en I rolled back to the hillclimb and back to ou rs, and I said, 'Gos h, wh y can' t we d o both of those? We've go t a grea t trials place, we're recognized , and I think we have a pret ty d ecent place to have a hillclimb.' "So w ith th a t, we go t hold of Ski p Ho rne (of the orth Ame rica Hillclimb Association ). He says, 'I'll come righ t up a nd look a t it .' He was he re withi n a couple of da ys, and he looked at it and sa ys, ' You know what ? It ' s a pretty good hill.' And he was here in the fog, so he really could n't see it, but it looked good to him . But he said , 'As steep as it is when I walked it, it has to be a good hill .' "So that ca me to g ethe r, a nd Dick Mann has always been after me to d o so me k ind of hare sc ra m bl es o r motocross up here for a vin tage thing with AHRMA , and it just didn't fit in right her e at Donner Ski Ranch I kept playing around, pla yi ng around. Then I pulled in some of m y chits down at Soda Springs - the ski hill 'dow n ther e, which is owned by a co m pany ou t of Pa rk City , Utah . So a nyway, we tied together with the Soda Springs Ski Hill at Boreal Rid ge a nd got it se t up to w he re we cou ld d o m ot ocro ss d own there. "Dick only wa nted Saturday (for his vi n tage MX), so To dd Repsh er (Do nner' s marketing manager ), he was very w e ll con ta ct ed wit h a lot of p eople _because of (his invo lvement in promot-