AMC-MX At Rawhide Cycle Park
AMC
at
Rawhide Cycle Park
Sunday May 19, 1974
By: The Wasp
Today was only the second time that the AMC has raced at their newly acquired track in Rawhide Park, but don't think for a moment that because of this there was such a thing as a rider shortage cause there wasn't. The track was prepared to a fine form of perfection and everyone seemed to really dig on it. Another thing that impressed me was that Rawhide likes to change the track in various places occasionally so it's sort of difficult for a rider to completely get it "wired" and is something that more track owners should get in the habit of doing every once in a while I think. Besides, it gives the riders a little bit of variety.
The mini Novice class was in for a big surprize today cause the overall winner of the group did not bear the least bit of resemblance to that of a boy! In this case though, that remark is supposed to be meant as a compliment. You see this rider was a girl who's name is Cindi Watson (Hon). It may not have been a clean sweep in every moto, 2-1-2, but it was still enough to land her the first place over Wes Koenig (Hon), second place, as well as third place finisher Jeff Johnson (Hon). Koenig, by the way, was a very lucky fellow today for even managing to take a second. Oh I don't mean that he's a bad rider cause that's one thing he is not. What I mean to say is that going into the third moto of the race, Koenig was one point behind Johnson, who at the time was holding it down for the second place spot. Koenig fought back back desperately in the third moto intent on taking no less then a second for his efforts and that is just what he did. On the last lap he shot by Watson to take over the first place spot and held on to it for the checkered flag, but he could still take no better than a second for the day, but you have to admit that he gave it one hell of a try. When I was saying that he was lucky it was concerned with the third and final moto. You see, soon as he crossed the finish line the single down tube of his frame snapped right in half which would have made him completely non-competitive if it had happened sometime during the moto, but as I stated, he lucked out. Now that's what I call one hell of a hard racing minibiker.Shooting on up to the 250 Intermediate race, it was one that you should not have missed. The battle for first place was between Kevin Willis, mounted on one of the Husky's that everyone has been reading about, and Perry Black (Bui). Willis, who's been out of the racing scene for a while, made a fantastic come-back today as he took the first place brass over Black, who had to settle for second place, cause there was no way that he could keep up with the Husky's rocketing pace. Third in this class was Bill Haney (Kaw), who also gave both of these guys a bit of trouble, but it was still not enough to place him any higher then third overall.
As for a quick summary of the Experts today, in the 125 group Rick Wiseman (Hon) came within one point of beating first place money grabber Paul Minnis (Hon) just as Brian Renshaw (Hon) came within one point short of taking second away from Wiseman. Believe me, it was a neck and neck duel for these three guys as to who was going to get what place for their class, because they are some really primo racers. In the 250 Experts it was the CZ of Peter Maly who smoked on the rest of this large class of Pros with a great degree of skill and style. Second place was taken by the only other Expert I have seen besides David Pessy that rides an Ossa, Ron Burns. I'll tell ya, it looks like Ossa might have finally made it into the motocross scene with this new bike of theirs. Third was taken by Ron Roberts who was riding a friend's Maico. Ron had some probs though, cause in the first two motos he broke off the shifter, not because he crashed, but because he layed the bike over so radically in the turns. In the Open Experts Steve Sullivan (Mai) was the overall victor with another Maico freak doin it for a second by the name of Alan Rohrabacher. Third went to still another Maico enthusiast, Albert Ortiz. All in all, today was really outasite for everyone whether they won or lost or just watched. Later.
