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/141015
'" 3: w z W ..J U >- U - .., Rolf Tibblin: 200 yards to go. My gawd. $6000 is a lot of bucks! MINT 40'0 . - By David Swift LAS VEGAS, NEV., March 19, 1972 The winners were notJ.N. and Max, nor were they Mike Patrick and Phil Bowers. Yes, friends, the Mint 400 had finally found someone else to win all those bucks. Rolf Tibblin and Bob Grossi managed the most efficient combination of riding and me ch anical preparedness to win the Fifth Annual Del Webb Desert Rally here at Dcls ~'Un club. Mint? You bet! A 56,000 purse; Grossi and Tibblin split S6,000. 400? Haw, haw. The course was advertised as six 67-or-so-miles of good, desert fun but, by the promoter's own admission, each loop was more like 46. Only one rider complained about it at the riders' meeting this morning, though, and was given the cold treatment by Mint veterans', John DeSoto checks his glove.' , .: \-...-:....,~i~~~ .. :;~ ...."",• . -.;::.... ).i: ~ Max Switzer all but carried his Husky to a third overall. - .~.,~ t s-> Unlike all the other riders, J.N. Roberts never had the opportunity to pre-ride the course. He's on location in Arizona and could only find spare time for the race itself. Still, he started in the third minute-wave as number 10 (four riders per minute) and was the first one into the pits. His lap time was 1 hour, 13 minutes. Rich Thorwaldson cu t the same lap two minutes quicker. though. Then Terry Clark came along with the fastest lap of all: 1:10 on a 2 '>0 Husky. (The next lap, Clark's teamm ..«: Mitch Mayes dropped out wit h , busted motor.) J.N.'s mate Max Switzer then picked up the pace, keeping the overall lead. But running with a key time of 13 minutes more was the Suzuki of Thorwaldson and John DeSoto. All day long it was a verbal tug-of-war as to who was in the lead. Actually, by the end of the fourth lap, thl': teams were tied with an elapsed time of 4 hours, 55 minutes. •,-, ' " ''l;.\~ . ,_ ".. . The worst part; Mark Blackwell sits and waits . The Suzuki pits were ecstatic and hoping for Switzer and J .N. to pack for good measure. Naturally, so great was their taste of victory that disappointment was inevitable. About 20 miles from completing Suzuki's fifth lap, Rich destroyed a rear tire. It took about 30 minutes to repair it, and to save time the bike was shaped up for the last lap during repair. Then Thor finally cruised in, the Suzook never stopped rolling. DeSoto just grabbed the clutch on the run and headed on. They should have topped up the tank. John ran out of gas about a mile and a half from the finish and had to bag some gas from a dune buggy. Miraculously,theymanaged a fifth overall. More mechanical failures slowed, but couldn't stop Switzer. He was a shoo-in on the last lap until Max lost a real axle nut. Husky swingarms are of the slotted type, which means the only thing holding on the rear wheel was the chain, which kept popping off because of misalignment. Tibblin and Grossi had been following last year's winner for the whole race but Rolf passed Max while he kneeled at the side of the course putting his Husky back together. Then Bill Silverthorne passed Switzer. Max passed him back and the chain went again. Ir o n-rn a n Tibblin and Grossi 's winning time was 7:16:26. First 250 WdS Malcolm Smith and Mark Blackwell, but things weren't going nearly as smooth for them as for the rest of the Husky crew. Mark unloaded on the first lap, bending the rear fender under in the process. The back tire kept rubbing the rest of the way into the pits and overall handling was off. At the first pit stop, Malcolm took a sledge and beat it silly. He started his lap but quickly circled back. "Get a hacksaw!" he hollered as he sped into the work area. The fender was torched off. There was tension between Mark and Malcolm for the rest of the day. After the fifth lap, Mark's last, Malcolm mentioned to him that the Yamaha team of Mickey Quade and Mike Harper was gaining, and "You had kind of a slow lap." It was true and Mark looked hurt. Of course, Malcolm hung in there for fourth overall and everything was hunky-doryafterward. Next 250 was Quade/Harper, on a Yamaha Z50 . Last year's model, yet. If anything is ready to race out of the box. it's a Baja or Penton. Earl and Larry Roseler entered a new Beejay and nearly became the first in the sub-125 class . They completed the course in 8:28:08. which earned thcm $500 for being second 0-125 . Danny Davis and Bobby Davidson brough t their Penton 125 across nine seconds under the Rosclers' mark. One mustn't dally during those pit stops. The Davidsons' collected $1000 for being the first [25 plus $[50 for tenth overall, the last paying position. Rex Blackwell and Gary Davis did their double-jumping trick twice, which was fun to see . One of them had a daddy w ho gets overly dramatic about the show as he helps them synchronize their jump. A real ham. There were a couple of accidents that weren't necessarily racing oriented. Dave Beard of La Mesa, Calif., severed two fingers in a bike chain during a pit stop. A more outrageous one concerned Dennis Foster of Henderson. He collided with a dune buggy on the course that was allegedly being dirven by a lZ·year·old, and WaS reported to have suffered a broken leg, (Results on page 36) '- ~:. ~ ,