Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Vintage Iron World Championships Glen Helen Raceway Hundreds turn out for one of this country's premier vintage motocross events PHOTOS BY KIT PALMER SAN BERNARDINO, CA, JUNE 28-29 n California at least, if there's one vintage motocross race that is a must-attend, it's the Vintage Iron World Championship. The annual get-together of old bikes and old bodies is two days of pure fun - that is, of course, if your CZ masterpiece doesn't foul a spark plug just moments before the 30-second board goes up. While one of the biggest parts of the Vintage Iron World Championships is, of course, racing, the event really isn't so much about winning or losing as it is getting the chance to relive the glory days, when motocross bikes were radically changing from year to year and famous racers were rich with personality. It was a time worth remembering and reliving, and that's exactly why Vin-tage Iron's Rick Doughty came up with the idea of the Vintage Iron World Championship five years ago. For one weekend out of the year, the Glen Helen facility is turned into a time machine, where one gets the chance to perhaps meet with a few motocross legends and, if you're lucky, see them on the track again. Where walking through the pits is like walking through a museum of old MX bikes, only these bikes aren't just for looking at but for actually racing. One of these bikes, for example, belonged to Jeff Causen, who showed up with an immaculate 360cc Montesa that he wasn't afraid to get dirty. He ended up winning the Evo 1 Intermediate class on it, I 46 JULY 30.2003' eye I e which he recently bought for $2000 on eBay. "I grew up five miles from the original Saddleback [MX Park]," Causen said after practice. "Back then, I couldn't afford a European bike and had to buy Japanese. Here I am, 27 years later, with the bike I always wanted. This is the first time I've had it out, trying to sort out the carburetor. " Causen was quick to give the bike's previous owner full credit for restoring it. "Brian Bigsby from Georgia owned the bike," Causen said. "He used to work for Montesa in the late '70s." Causen also came with a back-up bike, a 1980 VF414 Montesa, one of only about 12 414s left in the United States, he claimed. According to Causen, even rarer than his VF414 Montesa was Randy Lewis' all-white 1981 Montesa 360 that circulated the Glen Helen track. Lewis' 360, he said, was one of the last motocross bikes that Montesa produced. There were many other eye-catching machines, such as the three 1983 Darryl Schultz works-replica Honda CR480Rs that showed up on Sunday. And to play up the works look, the riders aboard the three CR480s dressed the part, wearing old Team Honda race gear. The bikes were ridden by Eric "Little Guy" Casas, Rich Truchinski and Pasha Afshar, and they called themselves the "Wrecking Crew from Indian' Dunes." (Indian Dunes was a popular motocross track in Valencia, California, which closed its doors in the late 1980s.) Casas has a business called "Casas Creations" that specializes in restoring old Hondas, such as the ones they rode. (Left) Former 125cc National MX Champion Micky Dymond came out and played on a 490 Maico, similar to the ones he rode before becomin9 a star. He eventually abandoned this Maico for a betterrunning Honda. (Right) Four-time National MX champ Gary Jones flat-out hauled on this· 1976 Maico. He got into some fierce battles with riders on much newer machines, but he still usually won. n e vv s Afshar, an Iranian-Turk, moved to the United States in 1979 when he was 12 years old and got a job at McDonald's to pay for his first motorcycle - a Yamaha YZ100. He later saved up for a YZ125 then bought a CR480 in 1983, the same bike he rode this weekend. "I love the bike," Afshar said. "Everything is excellent; in fact, some things it does as well as modern bikes. Motocross has always been a dream-corne-true for me." Casas, Afshar and Truchinski competed in the MX des Nations race. They didn't win, but they did have fun and had the honor of being the best-looking team with their sa no Hondas and their team race gear. (Their "pit tootsie" looked pretty good, too.) There were plenty of other standout bikes at the Vintage Iron World Championship, such as Chad Mcintosh's· Rickman-Triumph, Mike Johnston's 500cc BSA, Bruce McDougal's 125cc Penton, and Andrew Yarnell's 1979 Honda CR250R. Even though this year's VIWCs did not run the Yamaha Race of Champions event, where past champs compete against each other on modern and similarly prepared YZs, many of the those famous riders still came out to play but this time in the Race of Champions on bikes closer to their era that made them famous. Most of the stars competed in both the R.O.C. and the Evolution Support class on Saturday, and the racing was nothing less than exciting. In the Evolution Support class, former factory Yamaha rider Warren Reid blasted into the lead at the start of the first moto. Reid tried sprinting away on his superclean DC Sports YZ490, but another former Yamaha factory rider, Jim Holley, on an equally beautiful Vintage Ironprepped YZ490, caught and passed the early leader, but not without a

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