1968 Motorcycle Sportsman Scrambles Racing - 5-Page Vintage Article

Description

1968 Motorcycle Sportsman Scrambles Racing - 5-Page Vintage Article
Original, vintage magazine article.
Page Size: Approx 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
• Maybe I’d been reading too many
race reports, seeing too many fantastic
action pictures. Maybe I was just
pent-up and city bored. In any case,
I was restless enough to set out
one Sunday morning to witness my
first sportsman’s scrambles race. Had
the feeling I’d either end the day
in a high state of anxiety or else
rush out and buy a CZ motocross
machine Monday morning. Didn’t know
at all. Followed the map to a town
named Fishkill, followed the cardboard
signs to somebody’s farmyard. A
INNOCENCE AND SPORTSMAN SCRAMBLING
Wherein a street rider does witness his first scrambles race
and come to certain timely conclusions relevant to
his age, condition and sporting temper.
serious, sleepy-looking kid at a plank
table took my dollar and pointed me
off down a rutted lane.
I parked my bike along with the
assorted machines of half a dozen
other early comers. Just a big old
field with a couple of green out-
buildings in the morning haze. Smelled
good, and it was quiet. Woods all
around the field. Dirt roads here and
there. One dirt road was behind a
fence, so I assumed it was the track.
A couple of men from the local
club were walking the track so I
joined them. They were talking quietly,
a little worried. The doubtful weather
might keep the crowd down, entries
too. And the track was a little wet.
It followed the outline of a fat letter
*L’. The short loop was where we
were now, running along one side
of the spectators field.
The long side ran into the woods
and up a hill you wouldn’t believe.
Then it turned around and came right
back down.
"This isn’t a scrambles course,’’
one guy muttered. "It’s a hill climb
with bends al the ends.’’ I figured
him for a contestant, and found out
later I was right.
A tractor chuffed up from behind,
towing a six-foot section of cast
iron fence, smoothing off the track.
He paused a few minutes at the bottom
of the hill to bulldoze a runoff for a
puddle that was there, and to move
in some drier dirt. He soon finished
and rolled away. Tractor or no, he
sweated getting up that hill. And I
thought, Man!
From out of the woods in every
BY BURT FILER
direction came a squawk that sent
the bluejays screaming for cover. I
didn’t hear a bird for the rest of
the day. Loudspeakers all over the
place. Some band roaring but “Onward
Christian Soldiers” with an indecent
number of trumpets. The guy beside
me who was going to ride started
to laugh.
"Clear the track, please,” the PA
blared, and more "Soldiers.”
When I got back to the main field,
it was transformed. It made me think
of a fireman’s picnic. For one thing
the sun was out, and out to stay.
For another, there were cars and
bikes and people all over and more
coming in. No dew now, just dust.
And noise.
The front of the biggest green shed
flapped up and open, to reveal a
counter with coffee smells coming
over it. I bought their first cup, winning
by a wheel.
Someone had parked one of the
most beautiful street Triumphs in the
world near the stand but I walked
right past. Because behind was a
gaggle of pickups with dirt bikes
either in or on them, or in the process
of being taken off. I’d never seen
a big Greeves before. Do you know
what it reminded me of? A hoe.
They all did. I wandered around
the infield getting all bent-eyed over
the scramblers. Something essential
about them, something real.
Everybody seemed to have at least
one Bultaco Pursang, red as hell and
shinier. And noisier. BSAs in every
state of dress from full cobby-knobby
to let’s-take-the-mufflers-off-and-go-
racing-after-church. A batch of oldish
looking Sprints with their spidery rear
suspensions, and exhaust notes like
someone firing a forty-five, quickly.
Here and here a tame 74 and here
and there a wild one. Ducatis.
Twist grips with contoured covers.
Twist grips with tape. Twist grips
just bare. Air filters that could have
come from Rommel’s desert tanks,
fifty percent. Velocity stacks, thirty
percent. Nothing, twenty.
Anybody over forty years old was
tuning something. Anybody younger
was lacing up his kidney belt. They
all had scars.
“Rider’s meeting,” said the loud-
speaker.
“Rider’s meeting,” repeated fifty
people to fifty others, very wisely.
A general drift toward a hole in the
track fence. On the other side war
a tree, with a blackboard and a man
underneath it. I zipped up my jacket
so my tab-collar Arrow wouldn’t show
and went along.
The man under the tree was a
tough-but-gentle type who had mileage
written all over him. The starter. He
gave the practice schedules and the
rules, and answered questions. Knew
what he was about. The whole thing
was shifting gears in my mind from
picnic to serious racing. A good thing
they were well organized, because
there must have been a million people
stuffing the spectator’s field.
Talk all around me as the meeting
broke up. " . . bumpy cornin’ down
that big tough hill. . . lend me a
spindle? . . . no, the black flag means
you’re out, baby . . . don’t think I’ll
sweat the checkered one . -. yeah.”
I went off to get a hot dog, and
when I got back the smallbores were
making z’s around the track. Practice
supposedly, but it didn’t look it. They
seemed pretty grim. Hard not to take
it seriously when somebody your
weight riding your bike aces past
on the jump, even in practice.
Herb Alpert playing “Brave Bulls”
□n the loudspeaker, and somebody
blasting by on a Bultaco. People
always say little two-strokes sound
like angry hornets. Maybe it’s because
they sound like angry hornets.
In a half hour the three-fifties were
out there chewing it up. Beautiful
noises with a doppler effect as pro-
nounced as a locomotive’s. Those
boys were going by.
The spectators also cheered me
up. Girls all over, all kinds, in all
states of tune. Fashion model types
in pantsuits. Wholesome types in
sweatshirts and levis. Girls with long
wheelbases and skinny tires. Girls
with short wheelbases and fat tires.
One that looked like a dragster.
Motherly types setting up picnics
under the trees, daughter/sister types
running like frantic pullets in every
direction, fetching wrenches, oilcans,
cokes, whistles.
One flopped in the back of a pickup,
chewing bubblegum, mulling over the
Flintstones. But most were as keen
as the guys, hanging on the fence
watching practice...
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