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/128346
The American ISDE-bacle ot having hosted an Internat io nal Six Day End uro since 1973, hope was high that America would be able to show the world that it could host a successful, world -class off-road event when the it returned to the United States in 1994. The 69th running of the event was hosted by Tulsa Trailriders on the B ,OOO-acre John Zink Ranch, and when it was over, most of t he competitors agreed that it was one of the most grueling ISDE events ever. O f the S40 entrants, 330 of them saw the finish line after six days of batt ling the brutally rocky O klaho ma terrain. Team Italy won t he even t, which sho uld have bee n tru mp et ed as a re soun ding success. Instead, it was panned as an embarrassing failure . The pro ble ms began whe n, afte r promoting the eve nt as an opportunity for spectators to view a t ruly historic intern ational com petition , a bizarre decision to not allow anyone acce ss to the even t com pletely froz e out spectators, ma ny of who had tre kked hours o r days to attend the ISDE. A shuttle serv ice tha t was used to carry fans to and from th e eve nt on Tuesday and Wednesday was abruptly halted on Wednesday evening afte r it was anno unced that spectators would be den ied access to the grass-track special tests. Furthermore, in a move that was o bviously influence d by the insurance underwriter, children unde r 16 years old would not be allowed on the ranch property at all as of Thursday morni ng. To make matters worse, event promoter Jim Long had promi sed "live coverage" of the event via a Jumbotro n-style largescreen television, but the screen had already been removed on Tuesday, following a dispute between Long and t he te levision crew. The end result was t hat the spectators wo uld have no view of the riders in action, except when t hey rode into the work area. Acco rding to Cycle News" coverage of the event, the spectators we re , not surprisingly, perturbed at their treatme nt. "This is pretty sad," one spectator from Arkansas told Cycle News. "They took our money at t he gate , gave us this piece of paper saying that we cou ldn't go anywher e , then gave us another piece of paper to fill out and mail back if we wa nted our money back. In that order! We 'll probably just turn around and go home. " Many did, but othe rs stayed, forcing the pro motional tea m to rethink its earlier decision and rele nt to allow some view ing access of the special tests. The solution was a single 50-by- 100-foot pe n that was construct ed abo ut 25 feet from the corner of the grass trac k test, and childre n unde r 16 w ere still re fused ad mitt ance . Repo rtedly, this was becau se ranch ow ner N John Zink was concerned about spectato rs being hit by an errant mot orcycle . But t he even t itself was run without many glitches, even t hough t he USA Trophy and Junio r teams were never in the hunt for t he w in. The Trophy team was th ird after Day O ne bu t had already amas sed twice as many penalty points as the lead ing Italians. The Trophy team wo uld slip to seventh on Day Two, eight h on Day Th ree and then to ninth on Day Four. Two days later, the team co mplet ed the event in ninth place . It was worse for the Junior te am, as Brian Garrahan crashed his CRE250 on the trail before the fourth check on Day O ne. Garrahan bro ke the navicular bone in his left wrist d uring t he crash , end ing the Junio r squad' s hop es for a victory on the spot. Totally overshadowed in the poor event planning and disastrous Team USA performances o n home so il was the fact that 14 American riders came away from the Tulsa 15DE with gold medals. They included: Randy Haw kins, Larry Roeseler, Ch ris Smith, Fred Hoess, Scott Mclaughlin, Mark 106 OCTOBER 20, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS Kerling, Drew Smith, Ty Davis, Rodney Smith, Guy Cooper, Danny Hamel, Steve Hatch, Kevin Hines and James Gray. The re were also 38 silver medal winners and 40 bro nze medal win ners among the American en trants. Some 90 of the 2 10 entrants who failed to finish were Americans. Even so, the Tulsa ISDE left a bad taste in the mout h of Ame rican off-road fans who attempted to be a part of it, and the event is remem be red more for its failures than its successes. Negative mail flooded Cycle News offices follOWing the event, with o ne angry fan su mmarizing the feelings of the major ity when he wrote , "In Euro pe the spectators cheer their riders on w ith a vengea nce at the grass track, and the y do n't do it from a cattle pen. I heard seve ral people comment t hat after what happ ened in Tulsa, the U.S. will be lucky to ever get anothe r Six Days. I hope they are wrong, but I fear t hey are right." Another 20 years have passed , and still no wo rd on when t he next ISDE will be coming to America. Scott Rousseau 3D YEARS AGD••• Dctuber 1974 ee. Rick Hocking l$QIlllATQl,\l and Rex Beauchamp ......... "'"L.. ..... ::.':'4'":it, battle it o ut on the cover. They were part icipating in an AMA National Dirt Track race held at the Ascot half mile. Hoc king would go o n to take the win, his seco nd straight of the season ... We hung o ut w ith AMA Grand Natio nal racer Gene Romero . We followed him arou nd for the better part of a week and talked to him about his life, as well as racing... Ame rican ride rs Jim Pomeroy and Brad Lackey fi nished third and fourth, res pect ively, at a Trans-AMA race in Linnville , Oh io. The winne r of the race was Finland rider Heikki Mikkola... Th e infamous Check Chase dese rt race too k place, and as usual, nearly half of the riders that started didn't finish. Des e rt ace A.c. Bakken won the race . i?D YEARS AGD... ttctober i?4. 19B4 Th is issue was all abo ut new bikes. On the cover were the new Kawasaki Ninja 600 and Honda's I 100cc Shadow. In addition to full write -ups on these two bikes inside, there was also info rmatio n abou t the new Kawasaki motocross bikes... Larry Roeseler and Kurt Pfe iffer teamed up to take the win at the Front ier 500 in Nevada. It took t he m just over 10 hours to com plete the event... The Dutch team won at the 50th ISDE in Holland. ISDE regular Jeff Fredette got TopAmerican ho no rs... Nine new speed records were set at the Bonneville Salt Flats. O ne notable competitor was Scott Guthrie . He set fo ur new records aboard his 750cc Yamaha. 10 YEARS AGD.. . Dctuber 19. 1994 We tested t he new Honda CR250 and found it to still be just as good as prev ious years ... W ill Davis got his sixth career AMA Grand National Championship victory. It turned out to be quite a surprise for Davis, and he didn't even know he had wo n when he cros sed the finish line... Sco tt Russell got the w in at ro und 10 of the World Champ ionship Super bike Series in Don ington Castle , Great Britain... Danny Hamel , again, dom inated another ro und of the Nat ional Hare and Ho und series. He took the Win, followed by Dan Richardson and Greg Zitterko pf, re spectively. 40th Anniversary