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/141011
... e an . ~ z ilh By Joh n Bethea VALENCIA, CAL., Mar . 4-5, 1972 The cop put on the heat and smoked eSa everyone. .: :; w W ..J o >o Gene Cannady tamed the sweltering heat Saturday and came through with a pair of first place finishes in the 175 Jr/Ex. and 250 Expert Grand Prix events at this weekend's Viewfinders GP at Indian Dunes. Although the 250 was a ru naway affair for Cannady, the 175 was more like a robbery chase. First Larry Watkins (DKW) jumped to the lead and began to pound out a vicious battle with Jerf Wright (Pu c) un til he had to pull out with engine troubles. This gave J eff a healthy 45 -second lead on the second lap with Gene in third and Terry Clark (H-D) fourth. Then, the nut on the counter-sprocket came undo ne and so did J eff, plopping Cannady in the lead for the duration. Cla rk finished second with H-D mate Mitch Mayes third. Clark ea rlie r had a nifty showing in th e 100 Jr/Ex. battle with Preston Petty (DKW). Nip -and-tuck most of the way. Terry eventually began to pull out to a 30-second lead at the checkered with Petty smoking out Larry Roesler (H-D) and Cordis Brooks (Hod) . Then the crowd awaited the 250 Experts and again Cannady and Wright got locked into another hot o ne, but this tim e Gene's Yamaha was ready for the: ch ase and he turned it into a lead that J er f couldn't overcome. J im Fishback and Al Baker took third and fourth. Sunday dawned just as hot as the day previous. and the racing turned out just as scorching across the Dunes. Cannady was scheduled for only one race, the 500 Experts, and he was ready for the charge: but so were a few other Suzuki riders: John DeSoto and Rich Thorwaldson. Over the first water crossing DeSoto Q Q Q Jeff Wecker w as the only Junior clas; double.winner . aceing the tr oops in the 250 and SOO class. Ir[g)~ W~~W~~~[P)~rnl~ @[P ~~ ~[lffi.\~[g)~~ By Marueen Le e Maybe the turno ut wasn ' t as great as it should have been, but the Viewfinders do th ro w good GP 's and this was no exception. T hey 'd eve n b u ilt a neat litt le la unch ing ramp at the second river crossing, the b ig one w hich could launch you beautifully into the air or drop you like a stone, depending on your riding ability . Preston Petty (D KW), who certainly couldn't be class ified as anything else than a top contender, sailed beautifully off the ramp but one time missed it. T he front end slipped b ut he still recovered and held on to give the crowd a b ig thumbs down and a grin for his wo bbles. A lot of the Amateurs and Ex pe rts made th e ramp, a far cry fro m the Novices some 01 who mad e the fateful mistake of p ulling up on th e han dl eb ars which ended in an EI Flippo bu t no one was hurt a nd the riders did get a nice cool b ath . Wish we h ad his name but No . 42 was going great as first Amateur. Wondered who th e Expert Shamrock was who was puttering alo ng on a little Honda. An Expert going that slow? Turned out it was o ur District Heavyweight scrambles steward on a bike that definitely wasn 't race prepared doing some scouting for his go in the Op en Expert the following day on h is Triumph. The crowd was entertained by Darryl Scalia go ing right of the b ack of his C·Z into ·t he r iver over th at ramp agai n...J erry Hase did the same thing but he and his Yammie got a standing ovation from the crowd for the grace of their landing alt hough in two separate heaps! In between races and during them as per the ru les the Viewfinders patrolmen were having a b all wowing the crowd as to what that ra mp was really for . Jerry Burak on an immaculate 360 Greeves showed how it should be done (he's the conservative one of the two brothers) while brother Randy on another Greeves flew around - with that shocking-looking Bell Star with the gorilla lips, teeth and moustache glued onto the crosspiece. At least he's rem o ved the ears an d hair bu t ad mits it still scares his o p positio n w he n he's really racing. The Po wder Puffers were strung o ut as usu al, b u t all made it th rough th e riv er wi t h n o fl op s t o so me ph o t ograp h er 's dis appointmen t , th e . dirty guys. One girl who bought No . 21 at the last minute did a stupendous over-the-handlebars type-thing at the bottom o f the mountain but refused the ambulance and made it off under her own steam. The 500 Novice. opened Sunday's racing. John McCown and his dog Kookie were doing their thing on John 's Husky, both wearing club colors and Kookie as usual having a ball hanging on the tank. I'll swear there was a grin on that pooch's face every time they hit the water crossing. It was neat to hear the pleasant sound of John Neidlinger's Beezer thumping along after all the shrieking two strokes, the rider man who obviously Iikes to remain an ind ivid ualist in his choice of equipment. All day long the riders shot by wearing their club colors adding much to the race spectator-wise. For easy picking out I'd have to pick three or four for th e best visibility•.•of co urse the Checkers... but SoCaI's blue-and-white circles 0 n jump and h elmet looked gr e a t ... the L o s Coyotes are in flu orescent pink and gr een a nd the Invaders in shrimp p ink. DeS oto and Thorwaldson were really having at it. The far away lo udspeak er started making noises a nd we sh ot b ac k to th e p its as fas t as p ossib le to wh at was an unsual endin g to a great race. DeSoto was d own a nd o ut after a very b ad c rash and Rescue Three was insisting o n him going to the hospital as they suspected a broken rib and he h ad blood coming out of his mouth...John kept saying Rich wo n it, didn't he?" T alked to Joh n this mo rn in g, and here's his versio n : "Man, we were h andleb ar to handlebar coming around the mountains, I hit a bump and the bike went into neutral, I got it into fo urth and then bounced up and hit my chin on the crossbar. I got knocked a b it silly, and h it the side of the mo untain and fell down and, man, I'm black and blue and sore al lover. Drove my front too th through my lip but nothing's broken." We'r e glad to hear th at b u t what a way to end such a race.