Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By SCOTT ROUSSEAU The Purist . ormer Six Days hero Carl Cranke says he can't recall ever riding an AMA National Enduro. "When I started out, I started riding short track," Cranke, now 56, says. "I liked to go fast. Enduros, haVing to keep time, just didn't do it for me, whereas in Six Days you could just ride your pace and always be on time or early. You never had to look at the clock. I wasn't a timekeeper. Truthfully, I never even had a wristwatch!" Cranke started riding amateur flat track in Northern California when he was 16 years old. "My first race was at a little place called Three Star Raceway near Sacaramento, and I loved it," Cranke says. "I loved short track. I lived in Orangevale, and Dan Haaby lived there. Some of the top Northern California guys were like Bugs [Dick Mann] and Mert [Lawwill]. That was my time. I rode short track and scrambles, and then when I turned 18, I started riding Class C stuff." If Cranke had stayed with flat track, then his might be another name made legendary in Bruce Brown's iconic film, On Any Sunday. Instead, Cranke chose a different path, ultimately one that was more single-tracked of purpose. "I was high-point Novice short tracker in the nation in 1968, but what happened was that in 1969 I had to make a decision, because to move up we had to switch from [two-stroke] 250cc to 500cc [four-stroke] bikes," Cranke says. "I was doing all my own engines at the time, and I couldn't afford that and didn't have the interest in pursuing it. So I bought a little 73cc Hercules and started riding desert races, and anything and everything." That included motocross, which was developing into a big sport in America in 1972. "I rode CZS mostly," Cranke says. "I raced against Brad Lackey. Brad had a brother named Randy, who was fast, and there was another guy, Bob Grossi. Northern California was very competitive." ing the deck An opportunity to ride a two-day trial then changed against him just a little bit. his life forever. "Penton gave me and [Dick] Burleson and some guy "Penton had moved its distributorship from Oregon named [Bob] Grodzinski 175cc Puchs, and they were down to Sacramento," Cranke says. "They talked me just pieces of shit," Cranke remembers. "Penton was into going up to one of these two-day qualifiers up in playing with the Puchs because he was thinking about Trask, so I went up there and rode it like a motocross. My score said that I won, but nobody could believe that importing them. Of course, he had two Penton teams I won, so they adjusted my score so that I ended up sec- there, with all the boys. So I took my die grinder back there and reworked [ported] Burleson's and my Puchs ond [laughs]. I was okay with that - I was just a hippie, and everyone else was real serious about it. But I just so that at least they would run with a good 125. The loved it. I mean, here you were out in the woods, and I event was just a mud bath, and I ended up being second was from California and had always done a lot of trail rid- overall to Carl Berggren on a 250cc Husky, and only the two of us got gold medals. And the Puch team won the ing anyway. It just kind of grabbed me." team trophy, which just humiliated everyone." Cranke soon found himself absorbing all the informaPenton had seen enough, and Cranke says that the tion he could about the International Six Days Trial (later next thing he knew, he was offered the chance to ride a renamed the International Six Days Enduro). Penton on the trophy team for the ISOT in ''I'd read all the magazines," Cranke says. "What I realCzechoslovakia in 1972. ly liked was the little bikes, the little 50cc 8- and IO-speed "I rode in the I25cc class," Cranke recalls, "and that's bikes. I thought, 'God, I'd just love to do that someday.' how it started." "So after I got back, the guy that was running Penton Cranke went on to earn a gold medal at every ISOT West called John Penton and told him, 'I told you this guy from '72 through '76, an incredible string that was browas good,' but John Penton believed that anyone from the West Coast had only ever ridden in the desert. So he ken when the ISOT returned to Czecho in 1977, where said, 'If he's so good, then send him back here to Ohio he earned a silver medal. All of these were earned aboard Penton motorcycles, the brand to which Cranke for the last qualifier.''' is closely linked. Once Cranke got there, Penton didn't hesitate stack- During his d •Carl Cronke oys as a rnoto 'n 10 Yeo Won seven ISOT reYcle rOcer gold 'Oed ' . rs, ond Y t h e s,"g/e AMA N .e neVer Conte ols ot.onol End sted a uro. ti'O 'O • F 102 AUGUST 3,2005 • CYCLE NEWS "Then in '78 I didn't finish," Cranke remembers. "I was riding a Yamaha, and I punched a whole in the primary case on the first day. That was the only time I didn't finish." Cranke returned to form in '79, however, landing a gold in the 500cc class aboard an 5WM in West Germany. Ultimately, he earned seven golds and two silvers in 10 attempts. "Then I was just done," Cranke says. "I'd had a long and wonderful career." Now living in Washington, Cranke manages a tooling manufacturing plant. He still rides often with his two teenage sons, and he says he still does it for the same reason that he always did - and gold med~ls have nothing to do with it. "My whole thing was that I love riding motorcycles," Cranke says. "If you ask Dick Mann what he really liked about racing, he would tell you that he loves to ride motorcycles. Malcolm Smith loves to ride motorcycles. For me, I never cared if anybody ever recognized me or talked to me as long I got to ride motorcycles. That's what I did." eN

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