Salinas

SALINAS

545 Sportsmen Draw A Big Time Crowd

DAN HUNT

SALINAS IS POLITELY referred to as an agricultural town, although in these days of demographic glut, it is more properly a city. Disregarding size, Salinas folk are horse and cattle people. So it was quite a departure from the norm when six years ago, certain sections of their rodeo arena/ horse track were rolled, scraped, and watered for a motorcycle IT scrambles. It would never have happened had not the Salinas Ramblers been able to join the Salinas Elks in co-sponsoring a benefit for the Elks' cerebral palsy fund; when it comes to public relations, the Elks have considerable horsepower.

The annual benefit has rapidly grown, so that the sixth annual race drew 545 riders and about 12,000 spectators (includ ing a block of 1,700 GIs who came to cheer one of their Sarges), and will prob ably clear about $7,000 for the fund. This is rather impressive for a bunch of sports men, although it must be noted that regu lar events at the Salinas Ramblers own "Sand Pit" sometimes pull crowds of up to 3.000 DeoDle.

If they were amateur riders for the most part, you never would have known it by

the way they charged through the grandstand straight into that hairy first sweeping turn. Oooweee, went the crowd, forgetting immediately pre-race speeches to the effect that these riders were gentlemen just like you and me and each of them held normal jobs and supported $2,000 worth of machinery so they could go racing for trophies. "That means that you're looking at $1 million worth of motorcycle equipment, folks!"

Down in the south turn, the value of that equipment was depreciating at an alarming rate, as riders played bouncies on the crash wall, or locked together in dusty slideouts, or demolished bale after bale of hay at the entrance to the infield run. This is not to say that it was all crash-bang racing, for there were a good number of excellent riders present in the Amateur and Expert classes. One of them was pro rider Roger Goldthwaite (AMA, 25z.), the man with the gargoyle helmet. He won the 250cc Expert race on a Bultaco quite handily, although he was later zapped on his more familiar Royal Enfield.

Perhaps the most superb show of the day was put on by the Sidehack Association, who brought an odd dozen rigs 300 miles from Los Angeles to race in two exciting heats. These fellows, who create their own sidecar machines for dirt and road racing, may soon graduate to national, and professional, status to race at such places as Ascot Park. Both heats were won by the team of Doug Bingham and Ed Wade, riding what would seem to be a very unorthodox machine for dirt racing — a Harley-Davidson powered road racing kneeler, narrow clip-on handlebars and all. In the second heat, they had the crowd on its feet as they came slamming over the jump into the infield, put their super low outfit sideways, and flew past front runner Mike Parti's Triumph in a spot barely wide enough for one sidecar.

The program was long, running from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., but most of the audience remained to the end, even though

half of the finals had to be black flagged — some as many as three times. The hapless GIs rooted for naught, as their poor Sarge splattered his Charlie all over the south turn and, as such, hardly qualified for the final; they therefore left early en masse, leaving 10,000 others ever grateful for their amusing, organized cheers.

How refreshing it was, this country fair

approach to motorcycle racing. ■