Round Up
ROUND UP
JOE PARKHURST
I PULLED A BOO-BOO not long ago. After over 25 years of riding, I broke my ankle. It's been suggested I forgot my name was Joe...not Joel. I did it while testing at Saddleback, on my own 360 Maico. I tell people I was comparing it to the 360 and 250 CZs we were testing for the July issue. I was, sort of. But mainly I was having a good time.
I want to take this space to thank all of the good people who have come forward with condolence and nice words. I got cards from everywhere-the Ridgewood Cycle Association, the CalPoly Penguins, even Russ Darnell, who’s riding the motocross circuit in Europe. My mishap was reported in the area’s two weekly motorcycle newspapers, Cycle News and ex-CW staffer Bruce Cox and Gavin Trippe’s Motor Cycle Weekly. By the time this issue is out, I will be well on my way to full recovery and a chance to do it again. The hardest thing for me is not carrying a huge and heavy cast around (big bother it is, though), but not being able to ride all the keen motorcycles around CYCLE WORLD.
MORE KAWASAKI SAFARI NEWS
The unbelievable Jim Parks is off and running on his safari through the African Continent (Round Up, CW, June ’69), after receiving a send-off from the famous heart-swapping doctor, Christian Barnard in Capetown, South Africa.
Parks and the doctor are shown shaking hands in the nearby photograph. I don’t think they are making a deal for some kind of swap, anyway.
Jim will travel north through Africa, the Middle East, Europe and on to Moscow. He has ridden the 350-cc Kawasaki over 5000 trouble-free miles already with all of the extra weight shown in the picture. I’ll wager those gasoline cans mounted on the fork legs produce some interesting effects on rough roads.
SIX DAYS TRIAL TOUR PLANNED
Edison (International American Motocross promoter and Husqvarna distributor) Dye, the tour man, is at it again. After many years of successful motorcycle riding tours of Europe, Dye reasons there are many riders who would like to combine a European tour on a bike with a visit to see the International Six Days Trials. This year the trials will take place in GarmischPartenkirchen, West Germany, not far from Munich.
Tour members will receive Husqvarna 360 Enduros at the factory in Jonkoping, Sweden, after spending a day in Copenhagen, Denmark. They will ride through Denmark, East Germany, Berlin, West Germany, Austria and Holland, with special events in between, like a boat trip down the Rhine; cow trailing in the Alps; the world’s beer drinking championship in Munich, the “Oktober Fest;” riding the famous German “Wine Road” through some of the most scenic parts of Europe, and more. The tour leaves on Sept. 6 and returns the 26th. The ISDT starts Sept. 15; tour members will ride from check to check each day, watching the action. Price of the complete trip is $1359 from New York, slightly higher in the West. Parts and luggage will be transported by bus, and a mechanic will accompany the tour. A CYCLE WORLD staff member will go along to cover the trip and the event.
MINIBIKES IN CALIFORNIA
In the June issue, I chastised the California Department of Highway Patrol unjustly. They were quick to correct my error. I said that they had recently ruled that minibikes are now motor vehicles. I went on (and on) to say they were blindly forcing unsuitable machines into the streets with such rulings. I received the following letter from Warren M. Heath, commander of the engineering section of the California Highway Patrol. It is printed here with my apologies for rushing into the subject without checking a little further.
“I recently read your comments on minibikes in the Round Up section of the June 1969 issue of CYCLE WORLD and thought you might be interested in knowing the actual position of the California Highway Patrol.
“The California Vehicle Code has always defined any self-propelled, wheeled vehicle as a motor vehicle regardless of size. It also prohibits the operation of such vehicles on the streets or highways if they are not equipped for such operation, or if they are operated by a youngster or other unlicensed person. We certainly have no argument with your contention that minibikes have no business on city streets.
“The ruling you referred to was made by the Federal Highway Administration. It states that vehicles designed for offhighway use, such as minibikes, must comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. This interpretation was not prepared by the California Highway Patrol, and we do not necessarily agree with it, as the Vehicle Code requires no equipment on vehicles not operated on the streets or highways.
“As part of our program of inspecting new model vehicles for compliance with State and Federal standards prior to their sale to the public, we did reproduce and distribute the Federal interpretation to many motorcycle manufacturers and dealers in order to alert them to a situation they might not otherwise have known about. Although we do not have any standards for off-highway vehicles and cannot enforce the Federal standards on minibikes, we did deem it appropriate to notify the manufacturers of the situation, because conviction for a violation of the Federal statute could be quite expensive for them. We anticipated that such notice would give them the choice of complying or of objectively petitioning the administration for a review of this interpretation.
“Our department may once in a while take actions that one segment or another of the motoring public considers unwarranted, but I trust this is not the case in the present situation.”
You know how defensive we motorcyclists can get at times. So I’m guilty of what has become one of the most common problems of modern day society-overreaction. (Continued on page 8)
Continued from page 4
SADDLEBACK PARK A YEAR LATER
My most enjoyable project, love of my life, the biggest challenge I have ever faced, is good old Saddleback Park. It’s only a year and a few months old, but it has become a landmark and somewhat of an institution in California motorcycling. We now have a heavy race schedule going, with either an ACA or CMC motocross, an occasional TT scrambles on the new course, a SCTA trials and riding school, or a minibike scrambles or hillclimb every weekend. A few weeks ago, the Stump Jumpers staged a highly successful “Grand Prix” around the park. It was more like a hare scrambles, with 5.2-mile laps. We’ve had a few AMA Sportsman scrambles and motocrosses as well. The CMC Spring Motocross series finished recently, with the winner receiving a trip to Europe to compete in races over there. The park is available to any club which wishes to use any one of the several race tracks.
One of the most popular features going is the riding school run by the Southern California Trials Association. To date, the group has taught over 100 youngsters how to ride off the road. The minibike races have had as many as 100 entries, and some of the little hot shoes are really something to watch!
Saddleback’s now world famous motocross course has undergone several transformations with the result that several alternate courses are available. Clubs that use the track keep coming up with more. We now own several pieces of heavy equipment to maintain the races tracks, trails and roads. Soon a water truck capable of negotiating the most difficult parts of the tracks will be added, so we will be able to properly prepare the surfaces for racing. Europeans who competed in the Inter-Am finale last December praised the course highly. They said it was one of the finest in the world. At the time of the Inter-Am race, we were keeping the surface wetted with a trick chemical and turning the earth until it resembled English sod, almost. We hope soon to be able to keep it that way most of the time.
The Park has also been the venue for a Husqvarna Owners Day race and outing, Montesa Distributor press day, Metisse Owners Club picnic and Steen’s press day. It was the setting for the photography of the 1970 Harley-Davidson advertising campaign, site for scenes for the TV serial “Along Came Bronson,” used in certain portions of a new Paramount motorcycle movie, training grounds for a Long Beach Police Department off-road riding class for motor officers, setting for a local church’s Easter sunrise services, camp and training grounds for several Boy Scouts of America troups, and the locale for a number of motorcycle club outings and picnics and field meets. Needless to say, if it’s a motorcycle outdoor event, Saddleback is the place.
On schedule as close as possible in adding to park facilities, we now have parking for thousands of cars, ample portable rest rooms, enlarged picnic grounds, good road surfaces (when dry, anyway), some trees, huge level pit areas for all the race courses, excellent hot food concessions on weekends, a beer license and a little fenced beer garden up on the viewing/parking lot overlooking the motocross course, and a lot more.
Saddleback Park’s able director, Vic Wilson, has worked himself and his crew unsparingly to build drainage ditches, culverts, etc., but the recent heavy rains (54 in. in the park) certainly set back progress. We are close to the magic day when water and electricity will be available. Then the club house and service center will be built. But growth is slow, and we’ve only begun to work. Plans for the future include elaborations that will make Saddleback Park the off-road motorcycle capital of the West. [Q]
