Round Up
ROUND UP
JOE PARKHURST
ONE OF THE MOST exciting projects I have been involved with becomes reality this month with the opening of Saddleback Park. Saddleback Park is in Orange County, Southern California, and eventually will be the largest and most complete motorcycle/dune buggy playground in the world. I have joined forces with my old friend Bruce Meyers, maker of the famed Meyers Manx, and Vic Wilson, another Southern Californian with a background in advertising and retail sales. Wilson also was the driver of the Manx that won the Mexican 1000 Rally. Bruce, Vic and I plan to make Saddleback Park a motor park for all vehicles.
The park adjoins Irvine Park at the junction of Santiago and Peters Canyon Roads, on over 700 acres of choice Irvine Ranch property. One of the first units scheduled for pompletion is a motocross course that will be a part of the series in the 1968 swing of European riders who will return for another bout with our best.
The fantastic Joel Robert laid out the 1-mile course for us, making it as rough and tough as the terrain would allow. The entire course can be viewed from the hillside parking and pit area. Joel and his Belgian CZ teammate Roger deCoster spent a day in the park planning the track and taking a fling at dune buggies while they were here. We hope to stage the first AMA “European Scrambles” or ACA or AFM Motocross some time in February.
The motorcycle scrambles/motocross track is only part of the plan. Initially the park will open as a motor playground with over 6 miles of trails and roads. It will be expanded as time and demand dictate. A flat track is in the works, as well as an off-the-road four-wheeler race track, several hill climbs (one of which no bike has conquered), and refreshment stops placed at strategic spots. Ultimately a clubhouse will be built, anda speed shop and service center constructed. Picnic grounds and several forms of family entertainment also are on the drawing boards.
Another project being organized is a once-a-year motorcycle hill climb, a sport long absent from Southern California motorcycling. We hope to make it an AMA Class A event with invitations to be issued to the best climbers nationwide.
We also will conduct a motocross riders’ school each year, much like the Torsten Hallman school in San Diego. Our instructor will be Joel Robert. Official notice of the schedule will be published as soon as possible.
CYCLE WORLD will use the course as its own testing ground for trial bikes, scramblers, and motocross or racing machines. Comparisons of certain types of machines will be a bit easier because we will have an “equalizer” in the form of a track over which each machine will be put through its paces and proven.
We are opening the park in a rough form, to provide endless, uninterrupted trail riding. Roads will be well marked for direction. Only a minimum of control will be enforced, mainly to avoid twoand four-wheelers mixing it up.
Meyers and Wilson are the brains behind plans for extensive dune buggy and jeep activity, which will include a grand prix race course, organized hill climbs and drags as well as cross-country events. This is the first such park for four-wheelers, but I know of several other motorcycle parks now either in operation or being planned. We reported on one in Oakland, California (Racing Review, CW, June ’67) and will advise our readers of others as they are opened.
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This type of recreation area for off-theroad vehicles very well may be the only answer in densely populated areas such as Southern California where free riding country is available only after hours of driving. We chose Orange County as it is the fastest growing area in California, and is accessible to many of the over 3,000,000 motorcycles in use here. The property was denuded by a recent brush fire, but by spring will be blossoming anew.
By combining the capital and efforts of twoand four-wheeler sportsmen, we were able to obtain a larger plot of ground, and will ultimately be able to offer higher caliber and more varied facilities for recreation and competition. We’ll never settle the dune buggy vs. motorcycle dispute, but we’ll bring them together on a friendly basis, regardless.
Basic admission price will be $2, but it will vary downward depending upon time of year and hour of day. To get there, take Chapman Avenue east from the Newport Freeway (it joins the Riverside Freeway and is crossed by the Orange and Santa Ana Freeways) to Santiago Canyon Road, turn right to Peters Canyon Road, and turn left to the main gate. For more detailed information, write Saddleback Park Inc., Box 1616, Costa Mesa, Calif.
BSA MANAGEMENT CHANGES
Changes in management in the motorcycle industry rarely reach the pages of CYCLE WORLD. Exceptions are in such cases as this month's announcement of the retirement of Ted Hodgdon, president of the eastern USA factory branch of BSA. Ted ran the branch for 14 years, coming to BSA from the Indian Company. BSA rose to one of the major motorcycle firms in this country under his guidance. Except for a period during the ’30s, Ted has been a driving force in the motorcycle industry most of his working days. During World War II, he wrote a book for military motorcycle couriers entitled “How To Ride A Motorcycle On Rough Terrain,” background perhaps for the features he has written for CYCLE WORLD as a spare time journalist. His knowledge of motorcycles from out of the past is profound, and was often put to good use at CYCLE WORLD.
Hogdon’s keen interest in motorcycling carried him into many areas of endeavor, including an executive position in the Motorcycle, Scooter and Allied Trades Association, where I fiad many pleasant opportunities to deal with him in his personal and direct manner. Sounds like I'm writing an obituary. I'm not, he's just retiring; such is the industry’s loss.
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But, while on the subject of old friends. Ted will be replaced by another long standing friend of mine, Don Brown, who was sales manager for Johnson Motors for 10 years. Johnson distributes I riumph in the western U.S., which now is a wholly owned subsidiary of the giant BSA firm of Great Britain. Don held that position when I started at CYCLE WORLD over six years ago. He immediately became a friend of the magazine and a big help to me. Don's interest in journalism is more than a casual one as he was an assistant editor of Floyd Clymer’s Cycle Magazine for a time before he joined Johnson Motors. The exchanges of opinion, particularly regarding the Triumphs we might be road testing at the time, always were spirited and professional.
He also plays a heck of a lot of piano, and for a time he was key man in a small musical aggregation that consisted of Bruce Meyers (maker of the Meyers Manx dune buggy), Dan Hunt (CW ex-staffer, but now a resident of northern California, where he escapes the smog), and myself. Bruce's guitar and banjo, Dan's bass and guitar, my drums, and Don’s piano, could have been the greatest thing since the Nitty Grity Dirt Band, or something.
For the past two years, Don has been the director of operations at U.S. Suzuki, in California. He and his charming wife, Terry, and children have moved to New' Jersey, where he takes up the title, Vice President, BSA, Inc., and joins the board of directors. The Browns are one of the nicest families the state of New Jersey has gained in some time.
MOTORCYCLE SHOWS GALORE
Thought I might tell you about yet three more motorcycle shows on the schedule, in addition to the CYCLE WORLD SHOW April 25, 26, 27 and 28 in Los Angeles (of course). February 23, 24 and 25 arc the dates for the Greater New England Autorama-Cyclerama, Prudential Centre, Boston. Autorama-Cyclerama also moves into the Connecticut State Armory in Hartford, Conn., on March 8, 9 and 10. The same group will set up in Madison Square Garden on March 21, 22, 23 and 24. As I mentioned last month, the 1968 International Motorcycle Show is set for April 11 through 14th at the New York. Coliseum as well. And, don't forget Daytona Speed Weeks and the motorcycle show in the Daytona Armory, March 12 through 17.
TOURING EUROPE BY MOTORCYCLE
Got a chance recently to see a 90-min. sound, color film of the Ted Van Der Kolk & Sons 1967 European motorcycle tour. The trip couldn't have been anything but fun. Ted takes a group of riders on a jaunt of 3000 miles or so around the Continent for a price that includes a motorcycle of the trekker’s choice, (Matchless, Norton, AJS, Triumph or BMW), and the guided tour, plus air fare, hotels, and return freight for the bike.
Three tours will be conducted this year. The first to leave. May 22, includes an optional side trip to the Isle Of Man for the Junior and Sidecar TTs. Judging by the movie, tourers had a grand experience. The film had me wishing I had three weeks to go along. I’ll be at the Isle Of Man, wouldn’t miss it for anything.
I highly recommend the Eur-Cycle, as they're called, motorcycle tours. Prices range from $1,535 to $2,180, depending on the machine chosen, for the 21 days. Travelers fly by American and KLM airlines, but I don’t get a free seat for telling you that. Write Ted Van Dar Kolk & Sons at 1809 South Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91204.
DIRECT SALES DRIVE
The English firm, Cotton, has been specializing in competition models for some time and makes some really neat, off-thc-road machines. Cotton is trying a new direct sales approach in the United States for its cross-country trials model, thus eliminating need for a distributor.
An advertisement in this issue of CW invites prospective customers to deal with Cotton direct to England. As a result of cutting out middlemen. Cotton is able to offer the 250-cc Villiers-engincd trials bike — complete with lights, if needed — for just $509! Sounds like great value.
