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T he first turn on the pavement wa s a litt le tight but there wer e few lay-dow ns.
b y J ohn Hu e tt er
Ph ot os b y K.C . Brintnall and H ue tte r
CALIFORNIA CITY , CAL. , Apr. 7-8,
197 3 - The Sp o rtsman Racin g Assn.
was ab out the first gro up to prom ot e and
popularize th e Beginner -Novice Grand
Pri x st yle of racin g. Their even ts st aged
at River side Intern ation al Racewa y wer e
great su cc esses .
T he SRA staged another first in
promotin g a 96-mile dirt and pavem ent
two-day racin g e xtravagan za within th e
city limits o f Cali fomia City, C al. o ut in
the Mojave Desert. In fac t, the start area
fo r the we ekend's fo ur bi g races was
righ t across fr om the Sh ak ey's Pizza .
Camping near th e pit are a wa s allowed
(in fact, en couraged) and the Cal City
cops were firm yet co urteous in
handling a p opulati on of motorcycl e
ra cers, famil y pit cre ws an d o th er
hange rs-on wh ich wa s larger th an the
perman en t po pul ati on of th e town
itse lf.
Saturday the ligh tw eigh t Beginner s
and Novices ran in the moming and a
spe cial thi s-even t-onl y A ma teur/Ex pert
clas s ran in th e aft em oon. The Sunday
format h ad 25 0 Begin ner s and No vice s
and 5 00 Begin ner s and N ovices sorte d
in to the two race s. Contrary to most
Grand Prix fo rm a ts, th e SRA sent rid ers
out fro m a 10 per ro w st art fo r four
24 -mil e lo ops. T his was on e way to try
to in clude a vari ety of terrain but it
unfortunately left spectators and pi t
cre ws with little to spec tate excep t th e
start-finish straight.
The cour se included abo u t tw enty
percent pavement, both curre n t and
unused Califomia City stree ts . The rest
of the co u rse was flat-out, high speed
desert racin g, virtually all of it except a
few street comers were fourth and fifth
gear on a 5 00 clas s bike. Somehow
though, it proved very difficult as th e
laps wore on for most ra cers to cover th e
te rrain rapidly. Even the Am/Ex winner
took over 'tw o hours to finish the four
long laps . Fire roads tumed into alleys
. of wh oop-de-doos and d o wn hills go t
rutted with large p o th oles that shoo k
the suspension.
There were tw o large dry lak es on th e
co u rse that h ad been hard-packed speed
flat s fo r the little bikes but, by Sunday,
were hub-deep sil t th at cres ted in waves
over t he bo o ts o f th e 250 and 5 00
Novices.
Dust was b ad an d , believe it o r not, it
was a 96-mile rac e th at was de cided in
th e first 15 minutes. If you weren ' t in
the first twen ty rid ers, th e first lap was
a duel with the d ust and only X-ray
vision all owed the next 300 riders to go
fast without go in g on their heads . There
was nothing really difficult about the
co urse e xcept for some blind drop-off
gulli es th at cu t through the edge o f the
dry lak e, and th e very hi gh spe eds o n
sand-cover ed p avement wh ich produced
som e slide-o uts and asphalt rash but no
re ally serious inj u ries . Onl y th e dust was
reall y a problem and it wasn't an y has sle
if you wer e o ut in fr on t .
Access to th e pit s was unli mit ed and, .
whil e it sounded like a frie nd ly idea
with no pit passes requir ed , e tc. , crow d
co n tro l got o ut o f hand by th e end of
Saturd ay 's an d into th e beginnin g of
Sun day 's r acin g. Little kids, foo-foo
dogs wit h rh in eston e co llars, an d
famili es of curio us p assers-by wandered
through and set up shop in th e pits,
often between th e acc ess road and the
area to which pit crews wer e res tricted.
This lack of crowd co n tr ol is what has
killed otherwise successful GrandslPrix
in the past and a better system of pit
con tr ol must be devised. In terestingly
enougn , the pit area looked more like it
was for a_motorcycl e race rather than a
grade school p icn ic by the running of
the 500 class, th e last ra ce of the
weekend. Crowds were less in evidence.
Maybe a lo t of the people had gone
home .
If pavemen t ra cers would have
laug hed at th e spe eds of the desert and
MX bikes on the long st raigh ts th ey
wouldn't have believed the speed of the
leaders o ver th e dusty whoop-de-doos .
If an ybody wanted to get their jollies
go ing fast this was the co urse and th e
race to do it.
The Cal City Chamber of Commerce
coope rated co mp letely with the SRA
wh ile various civic groups, ladies
auxilia ries and scout troops all prepared
foed, main rain ed souvenir stands o r
helped with parking as the re sidents of
th e town seemed to take longhairs
drinking beer and racing motorcycles on
their stree ts in st ride , if not with total
approval. __ .._ _ _
. Some of the residents even sat out in
front of their houses on the small,
ca re fully main tained lawns watching tne
crazy motorcycle ra cers go buzzing past
with a lo o k of curiosity. It reminded me
a liltle bit of Elsinore in the old days .
Safety precautions, co urse p atro l,
ambulan ce servi ce and radio netting
were exc ellen t as they usually are at
SRA events . They are very con cemed
about ra cers getting banged up out on
the co urse which makes the lapse in pit
safety even more st ri king.
As a flttin g end to two days racing,
th e 5 00 Beginner-Novice event was won
by a 4 4-year old O ld Timer on his big
bore CZ . There 's hope fo r all of us .
Complete results will be printed as so on
as th ey're all figured out. I still wonder
why I got the white flag twice, though.
Spec tato rs were fascinated by the two days of actio n-packed racing.
