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/141057
M .... m > :::;: '" ...'" " i6' Q. en 3: w Z W ...J U > U Choking dust and a deep silt , no tract ion uphill comb ined to separate the Novice from the E xpert s - literally. The green plate guys hardly had a chance. 'and Tom Brooks Wins Overall • gain b y Ali ce Rhea Ph otos by Connie Farmer Curse you, Desert Barons, (Gasp, Pant) That Was a Killer Course! .~ . ~- ...... .... ... " Oh tha t's just Cordis Brooks finishing fourth overall on a DKW t railbike with a flat tire. Ho hum:" Somet imes SoCaI soecators really get too blase about it all. STODDAR VALLEY, CAL. , Apr. 21, 197 3 - All winter long it has been cold and miserable and raining and we sorta got u sed to it . We liked the fa ct that we were racing in virtually no dust. We got so used to it, in fac t , that today, when the gound had finally dried o ut and the weather was warm and sunny t we all nearly died from the choking dust an d heat. Tom Brooks, red faced an d panting rode h is 125 DKW across the finish line fo r yet another first overall. He was he d the d ust fro m his face and throat and pulled the ca ct us out of his hand while we waited fo r second place, Mitch Mayes (Hus). When he caught his breath, Tom said that on the second loo p of the Hare Scrambles he came to th e bottom of what had been a ro ck y hill to find it broken down under the pounding of 8 00 bikes and littered with disgusted Novi ces who hadn 't been abl e to make it over even once. " I think the bike would have pulled the hill ," Tom said , "but there were so many people in the way 1 couldn' t really ge t a run at it. 1 had to hop off and push about halfway up." For their first race, Desert Barons picked Stoddard Valle y just north of V irto l'"UiJlt: :;a n rl terrain which. if· not -~~;;~: 'h'~n 'tb:'enridden i~';;;~h a long • .. ~.:, ........ . z. .... "" ~ . ~.. . . • Mitch Mayes [Hus] was second overall behind Tom Brooks IDKW) but Tom did it with about 300 less cc's displacement . Mitch got top Heavywe ight Expert . time that it app ears virgin. "T h at 's cool," quipped on e Amateur, "if th ere is anythin g special about virgin rocks ." "More like an end uro," added an Expert, "but I guess we have to get used to it. It's eithe r ro cks or whoop-de-doos." Before it broke down , the co urse was pretty neat. Up and down three hills, one of which looked straigh t up and down, o ut across Stoddard Valley, back through rolling desert into h o me check and start it all over again. The hill , which was s teep , didn 't appear too f o r midable to most Exp erts and Am at eu rs, but b y th e tim e th ey go t through ch ewing it up th e firs t tim e ove r th ere w as no tract io n left o n it for the Novice s. . The mo re ex pe rienced o nes, Mike Powers, Geo ff Burgess an d T railbiker Mike Leck ich fel t t he ir machin es starting to bog down, lea pe d off an d p ush ed o ver. Others , less experienced o r less en th usias tic abo ut winning, bo gged down , dug in, made tw o o r three atte mp ts an d finally said "Forget it. I'm . staying right h ere ." . T here wer e three hund red of the m stuc k on th e side of th e hill wh en Broo ks ; May es an d Bak ken wen t by, eit her to o disgu st ed o r too tire d o r ma ybe even too sc ared to try to ge t down . And it j(ot worse. On e late I arriving rider reported that there were now Amateurs an d Experts stuck on that hill. May 1 rub things in and tell all of y o u who go t stuc k that Desert Daisy Sharon Rosen auer made it on he r little Rickman ? Which reminds me - the rider of the day has to be Bob Hayes. T he front of his Monark looked like it wa s about to falloff so Bob le ft the starting line an d we n t back to the truck to tighten up a few bolts. Just as he finished he hear d thunder and loo ke d up to see the Am-Ex start. Drat! Jumping on the b ike, Bob dashed out to join- the m, remembered he didn't have a starting check and sp en t an eternity run ning down a Desert Baron to get the mark. Starting ten minutes behind the pack, Bob passed " a hundred riders, including Sharon Rosenauer, Delighted to pass this little Daisy on the downhill, Bob shifted the Monark into sixth and tucked in, wound out down the fire road, grinning like m ad. Zzzzap ! Sharon went by him like he was standing still. Even so, Bob managed to say with her, following her o ver "The Hill " th e secon d time and finish ing at 106 overall right behind Sharon. At the smokebornb, an unidentified rider had the lead . He was so far awa y from the bomn that ir wa; ~ruvu;~~:~ tell who he was, but he didn't have the lead for long. Mitch Mayes (Hus) charged by just ah ead of Tom Smith (Yam) and we co uld see Tom Brooks (DKW), just before the d ust closed in. ' By the first hill , Brooks had gained the lead, but today Mitch was determine d to stay with him. "The second ti me I got on my head, 1 sat there and watched him ride off, " Mitch said. "And I just said, 'Adios, tc Tom. " A.C. Bakken, who was invisible in the dus t at the bomb slipped in to third place and ga ve ch ase. Looks like A.C . is goi ng to have to have a new he lmet. He go t off and bounced fo ur tim es on his head with fee t stic king straight up in the air . A little dizzy , A.C. nevertheless remo un te d an d finis he d third to be p resen ted with an Easte r egg b y a yo ung ad mire r. (No d ou b t to rna tch th e eggs on hi s head. ) Eve rybody's favo rite d eser t racer, Ge o rge Walker (Kaw), is ba ck in the runn ing, fin ish ing a co mmend ab le fo urth ove ral l to day. G eorge said if he hadn't go t a p ush up th e hill he wo uld still be th ere. Cordis Bro oks (DKW), wh o h ad been running abo u t twelfth overall at home chec k h ad m oved into an incredible fifth o vera ll b y th e fin ish, hills n otwithstanding, and with a flat.