Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Lucerne Valley - Red Mountain - Plaster City - Searchlight - Sidewinder Road - Superstition Mountain - Jean - Rand Mountains - Lucerne Valley - Red Mounta Desert Hotline Open class Beginner Jonathon J ungs won overall after leading all four laps. Second overall went to Novice John Clarich. In the 250cc race And y Mathews took the lead and did not relinquish it en route to first overall. Brett Shaner moved up on the last lap to take second. Sunday Bill Mattox had a pair of successful weekends in t he desert. Smith smokes Vipers' Dual ES By Shirley Upp LUCERNE VALLEY, CA, JUNE 12-13 Desert racers found hea ven as the Deser t Vipers put on two full days of racing wi th their AMA D-37 D u al European Scramb es. Dan Smith, Gary Charters, Bill Ma ttox, Lori Farmer, Steve Thomp son , O ren Beck and Bill Saltzma n were all class winners. Saturday 30 In the Open Ama teur/Expert class, Dan Sm ith (H us) didn 't let a bad start bot her him and was leading the race by check one, passing Ch ris Cranda ll (KTM ) for the point. After taki ng the lead, Sm ith had no dust and stayed on the gas for the win. Crandall , described by Smith as "an animal," di dn' t let anyone else past and fin ished second on a flat front tire. Bill Holm es took third. Sean J ohnson and Ron Shuler, riding their first race as Amateurs, battled back and forth for the class lead with Johnson taking the win. In the 250cc Amateur/Expert bash, Bill Mattox took the lead with Doug Winchell in hot pursuit. However, Winchell was riding with injured ribs and pain forced him out after one lap. Upon his retirement, Ted Hunnicutt took over second and held it , even after getting a flat on the first lap. Mik e Fitzgerald waited for the dust to clear, then moved up to take first Amateur. In the 125-175cc class it was Oren Beck and Bret Howell who pushed each other to -the' m'ax:. Howell, bad his new CR125 Honda on its first outing and he said he didn 't have that little extra speed he needed to catch Beck, who eventually took the checkered five seconds in front of Howell. Paul Palmer took third and fourth was Tom Elias. Hard-charging Fred Heacock was the first Amateur. Gary Charters (Suz) took the lead in the Vet class un til he did a big bail over the bars past check one. Bill Saltzman (Hus) was there to take over the lead. He took the checkered first with Charters recovering for second. Russ Jones topped the 250cc ranks with Jim Bringh urst second on a flat. First 250cc Amateur was Don Huddleston over Jan Morrison. Ch arters returned for the Senior class and again grabbed the lead with Art Knapp and Ron Bebo going at it beh ind him. At the fin ish it was still .Ch arters in front with Knapp second. Bebo was still third overall bu t that wa s good for first 250cc over Al Guzman. Ro n Suber was third Open. In the Senior C bike ranks, Lou Monterone took the win after a grueling dice with Dave Kersting. The Vet Novice/Beginner race was a walkaway for O pen Beginner Steve Thompson. Second was Greg Togliaferri, who copped the Open Novice honors. In ' the C bike Novice/Beginner clash, Eric Hallgath rode the hardest and won with a whopping lead. Kent Worley was second and John Stoffel took third. Don Mathes took first Beginner at fifth overall. In the women's race it was Lori Farmer all the way. After one lap Diane Holeman was gi ving Farmer a run for it but Farmer never backed off and took the win. Holeman was second with June Elias third. Cindy McCown bested Den ise Engstrom in the Novice class. On the Novice/Beginner course there were duels fought all day . In the In the Open Amateur/Expert race it ' was once again Sm ith who pulled the lead, and with dust free conditions, he aga in opened th e throttle and took the win. Holmes was an ini tial second, but dropped out wi th a' flat. Lee Sch effers took over th e spot and held off Crandall for it, in spite of hav ing to pit. Ken Oviatt turned in a super rid e for first Amateur Rick Schumaker, after being away from the desert for a long time, defin itely proved he was back after he took the lead in th e 250cc Amateur/ . Expert race . However, after a lap and a half, Schumaker was unable to hold on - because of the year-long layoff, his hands turned to raw meat, Before he dropped back, Schumaker was leading Chuck Pettigrew, Hunnicutt and Mattox. By the finish of the race Mattox had gone to first , Hunnicutt wound up second and Pettigrew was third. Winchell tried it again, and after wrapp ing his injured ribs securely, fin ished fifth behind Steve Webb . First Amateur was speedster T ed Overholt. ' T he C bike class was again a super race. Beck and Howell again had their small-bores screaming for the full four laps. Beck again took the win with Howell only a few seconds back. Tom Elias was third with Bobby Charters fourth. In the Vet Amateur/Expert class Gary Charters took his second win of the weekend, even with a sore wrist caused by Saturday's get-off. Russ Jones turned in another fine performance for second overall and first 250cc Expert. Getting a flat on lap one and running out of gas on the last lap didn't stop Saltzman from taking third. Bringhurst was second in the 250ccclass and Morrison topped the Open Amateurs. Charters took his third victory of the weekend when he won the Senior Amateur/Expert class for the second time in a row. T hat made it 27 rides on his Suzuki without any major problems! Bru ce Lewellyn turned in a fine ride for second, while Guzman and Dick Pos tm a had it out for top 250cc. At the fin ish it was Guzman over Pos tma . Monterone again won the C bike class. In the Vet Novice/ Beginner class, T hom pson made a clean sweep of the race with his second overall win. Eric Hallga th made it a two -win weekend as he topped the C bike Novice/ Beginner clash again, this time besting Steve Gard an d Keith Johnson. The O pen Novice/Beginner race had a Begin ner taking the overall win as Eric Torkko turned in a hard ride. Craig Rimlin ger finished second and top Novice with John Clarich third. The 250cc Novice/Beginner class saw Dan Seagondollar take the lead, but he lost it to Andy Mathews when he pi cked up a flat. Ma thews took the win with #220 second and Seagondollar th ird. The women 's class was an exciting one. Diane Holeman was lead ing after one lap while Lori Farmer was moving up after getting lost . The two gO ,tjnto a great dice, and at the finish Farmer made thefinal move and took the chec kered only seconds in front of Holeman. Vera Charters earned the Amateur win and Denise Engstrom took a well-earned first Novice. Laura Charters, 10, rode her first race today and did a super job, falling only twice! Dan Smith, after taking his second win of the weekend, summed up the feelings of all D-37 riders and their families: " Get well soon Bob Balentine, we miss you !" Smith and his family are all donating blood in Balentine' s name. Results in th is article are unofficial. Mattox tops EdwardsAFB desert race By Terry Rezek and Shirley Upp EDWARDS AFB, CA, JUNE 6 This was the race that almost wasn't. It looked like there were more people working the race than riding it! Those that did ride it were unanimous in their praise of the event , and especially the course. How long has it been since yo u raced 40 miles of unused terrain without even a single whoop-de-doo? Three clulbs put their efforst together and obtained permission to use an area of Edwards Air Force Base that has hardly seen a motorcycle in 20 years . The Lost Coyotes, a D-37 club from Lancaster; the NASA Spokesman, an employees' recreational motorcycle club and the Desert Wheels, a similar group from Edwards with a strong MX orientation, got together to do a race that was wellorganized and well-run in a new area on an open date. So where were all the riders? Obviously somewhere else. Sorry folks, you missed a great race and, what's even sadder, it may never _be repeatedl At the head of the first dust column at the bomb was Kenny Upp. Bill Mattox was just a few feet behind and tryi ng to avoid the rapidly forming dust. In third at this time was Do ug "Spiderman" Winchell of the Invaders. Winchell ran third for a gOOli part of the first loop bu t go t off ha rd and decided to trai l ride after that. He even took the time to remove a desert tortoise from the course, a la On Any Sunday. Alt hough those ride rs wh o bulldogged their way to the bo tto m of Ro samond Hill ma y find it hard to believe, Up p came over that hill in third gear and p icked up at lea st one more on the way down. H e con tinued that flight pa ttern , opening up just a bi t of a lead over Mattox and Paul Palmer, who came out of nowhere to ri de third. Upp continued to lead into the fifth check and it looked as if his bike was holdi ng together this time. Well, the metal held up but the rubber failed. Right after check five he got a front flat and decided to retire. That was all the already smoking Mattox needed. He proceeded to put dust and distance between his 250cc and Pa lmer's Open bike . Mattox's Montclair Yamaha performed perfectly and the grateful Mattox used it to leave Palmer as far behind as possible. Palmer was not lonely, however, he had been joined by another Open Expert, Senior Gary Charters. Charters was having a ball on this race, even stopping briefly at some of the checks to chat with friends in the Co yotes. I was course-ho in a r this

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