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/141062
::: SRA COLORADO RIVER RUN " '" Cl 0M "" OJ Schneiders wins one? hard stuff to ride , especia lly if you're try to go fairly fast: Surprisin gly, th e schedules in this run were not to o slow. This is what you migh t call t h e "fudge fa ct or" th at all ows th e SRA to ' att rac t some fair ly go od rid ers to its even ts. Th e co urse itsel f is not exceedingly challenging . You have a cho ice of de ep sand, not-so-deep san d and dirt road. No ro ck s, no trees, n o o ff-cambe rs , or tight washes o r a ny thing else wh ere in experien ced rid ers mi ght get hurt. But with fairl y high speed averages, a better rider can find a bit o f ch alle nge in trying to s tay o n schedule every minute of the run , pretending that th ere might be a chec k lurkin g in the middle of th e wash. T h e sc he d ule speeds o n the run seem ed to be between 60 and 8 0 percent of what th ey would be on o ne o f th e more difficult southern California runs. And if y ou wer e trying t o stay on time 100 percen t of the run , you were hu stling righ t along in places . If th e chec ks h ad b een pla ced by somebody with a crafty , sneaky mind , I'm sure most , of th e scores would have been im p re ssively bad, but th is is con trary to SRA phil os ophy . The SRA had exactly four chec ks and tw o o f th em were at th e ends of the two loop s. Hittin g those o n time is ab out as ch anc ey as go ing fishing in a bath tub with a stick o f dynamite . The othe r two chec ks were slightly more sec re t but still not what you would call sn eaky . Fo r th ose o f y ou who ar e con fused , th e SRA does n o t run under AMA rul es: y o u have to hit all chec ks precisely on time , even lun ch break and finish . Adding to the enjoyment of th e en d uro was th e fact th at it was star ted o n ' the Col orado ri vej righ t ou tside Parker. For th ose so inclined this me an t ther e was boating, water skiing, swimming and o ther such pursu its for the Saturday da y ti me hours, and serious drinking, dancing, pool and su ch at the Blu e Wat er Mar in a on Saturday nigh t. The re wa s also fre e cam ping, but the next time ('II stay in a motel; th ere must h ave been at least one billi o n . insec ts , mo st o f which were of the biting var iety. Make that an air ' co ndi tio ned motel. The temperature was hi gh, lik e abou t 100 degrees during the da y. After th e en du ro th ere were powerbo at rac es o n the river. T hose gu ys t ak e abo ut the sam e beatin g th at a motorcyclist would o n a rigid -framed moto cross bike . The peripheral activities are wh at m ake th e S RA run for a good man y participan 15 , though there is so me indicati on that th at is not qui te eno ugh. Fr om about 800 con test an ts last year, the y were down to about 35 0 this year. All th e enduros are down On en tries though, so that migh t just be refle cting th e fact that there have been a lot o f runs t o choose from this ye ar . Do you wonder what makes a promoter go 250 miles ' from his h ome bas e to throw a run . The BLM , that's what. This race was thrown on Indian ' lan d . The Indian regulations wer e what reasonable men might req uire ; a bit of the money gen erated, a resonab le respect for the lan d and clean u p after the event. Ron Vincelette's wife J enny, tell s me they can 't eve n hi re anyone to c ope with the BLM's paper requireme nts anymore . Maybe we sh ould give the BLM land back to th e Indians . The ru n was te chnically we ll o rganize d . Th e ch ec k distances seemed to be correc t and the tim e s were : accurate. The co u rse w as c o mpe ten tly if not elegantly ma rke d. T here were no inju ries to speak of: th e worst was in curred b y a fellow wh o came in to a ch ec k sayin g he just " h ad to rest for a few minutes." He parked his bike and promptly sat o n a scorpion. They're just p ainful, n ot fatal. My awa rd fo r persisten ce goes to th e fellow who st arted the second loop, on a flat rear tire, and as near as 1 can tell, finished wi th very few poin ts lost. Th er e seems to be a wh ole new class of rider being developed by th e non-serious enduro promoters . Tr ue. a lot of new riders start with a few ea sy end u re s and the n go on to bigger thin gs. But many rid ers are staying with the easie r runs. 1 saw one fellow who had a hat fill ed with fini shi ng pins, maybe 20 or 3 0 of them and there wasn't an AMA pin in th e bunch . Ma ybe we ' re deveJopin g a sand-lot softball league in , motorcycling. Might n ot be su ch a bad ide a. T he offi cial results of th e Run will not be available for ab ou t a week, but the Sw eepstakes winner will probably be o ne o f four rid ers who zeroed th e run . There co uld be other riders wh o ze roe d it as we ll ; as o f press time though it appears th at Robbie Clausen , will tak e Class A 125 , on a Monarck . ( will get Class B 250 (H oo rah fo r Ron... Ed .J, on ' a Bultaco Matador, and Class C will go to either Ha rold Muckelroy, a Maywood M.C . rider o n a Bultac o 25 0, o r Howard Schaack also o n a Bultaco 250. All four rid ers ar e tied as o f the moment for th e overall win which will b e res olved by the ti ebreaker ch ec k wh ich was a .4 mi les ahead o f Chec k 4. Th ere is a thre e wa y ti e for th e ove r 35 tro p hy between Harold, H oward and m ys elf: Go od day for old men and Bu ltacos. Ul ;: w Z W -l U > U Clutch in and no fro nt brake , hotcha , hot cha.... Summer certain ly does seem to be on the way . .~ "'" ... "' ~. 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