Competition Etc
COMPETITION ETC
A RUN AT THE PEAK
Mike Obermeyer
Pikes Peak is the premier mountain in Colorado. Others are higher, and many more rugged, but none is so famous. Looking down the main street of Colorado Springs, the Peak towers life a huge cathedral. The visual focal point for the entire area. Three-hundred-sixty-four days a year (except when winter snows close the road), the Peak is a tourist attaction, conquered only by family sedans and tourist buses that labor slowly up to the top in 30 or 40 minutes. Camping is not allowed.
But on July 4th, it’s a whole different mountain. Six-thousand campers, who are only allowed to be there once a year, watch 60 cars and 140 motorcycles roar up 12.5 miles of switchbacks and long straights on the bladed dirt road, in times of less than 14 minutes.
This year two young professional riders gave the motorcycle fans something to think about: Bob Conway and Steve Scott each notched their third wins, Scott’s his third in a row.
Steve Scott is something of an eî^fcna. Very few people in Colorado aiÄiware that he was the original owner of Steve’s Bultaco in Van Nuys, California, a cycle emporium well-known nationally. Until you pry it out of him, all he says is “I used to own a shop, and guys know me from that. I work on Bultacos out of my garage.” Scott has, apparently, developed a lock on the 250cc Professional class at the Pikes Peak Hillclimb, although Conway’s first two wins were in this class, before Scott established his current preeminence.
Bill Brokaw, the race’s organizer, calls it an “outlaw” race; not because of sanction problems, but simply because fits no AMA category. Because the auto races have a contractual lock on the proceeds from the gate, professional motorcycle racers compete only for a purse derived from their entry fees. So Scott and the other pros attack the c^fcse rising 4700 feet to the summit of Piœs Peak, for a purse of about $800.
This year, as in the past, the threat in the 250cc class was the Yamaha Twins.
These machines are blindingly fast, yet Scott, as in the preceding two races, managed to beat them all on a slightlymodified Bultaco Astro. From Scott’s description, his bike is set up to approximate Mark VI Pursang specs. “The trick is to get a good barrel,” according to Steve. When queried as to what engine work he had done on the bike, Scott smiled slightly and replied, “I put a new ring in it a few months back-no trick stuff.”
The bike, as with others at the race that Steve helped to prepare, is very sanitary and well-maintained. He tried a super-trick, lightweight version earlier this year, but his current mount, the same one he rode last year, remains faster.
The 250 Yamaha Twins were the> most obvious threat to Scott's suprem acy in the 250 Professional class. I asked Scott how he felt about running against them this year. "Same as last year," he grinned, "I just hope I can get out in front of them. They have about the same top end that I do-about 85-but they get there godawful fast."
Scott got off to a mediocre start, somewhere in the middle of the first ten or so riders, then started steadily passing the leaders. Two turns before Glen Cove, Scott took the lead and kept it, to the top. Although the Yamahas obvi ously had an edge in acceleration, Scott felt that his Pursang had several advan tages: "I could out-brake them going into the corners, and get away faster coming out. You never know exactly where the Twins are going to go when you gas `em."
Interestingly, the Twins did very well otherwise, with Chuck Jenson and Bill Vickery taking 2nd and 3rd on Vick ery-prepared Yamahas, set up on the order of TT machines, with Champion frames. John Kaminski took 6th on another Twin set up for half-mile, with the brake and shifter both on the right side.
Kaminski, who is very fast, managed his 6th on a borrowed machine without compression releases, with no practice on the hill, and a last row start. Kaminski will have a front row start next year, and says he will "get my head into it" next time. It would appear that John has a very good shot at Scott at the 1975 event.
The consensus seems to be that the Twins definitely have a top end and acceleration advantage, but may be slightly down on bottom end. Their close-ratio six-speed gearbox may be a handicap in this regard. This is not considered to be much of a disadvan tage, however. The apparent reason that the Twins aren't more in evidence is that this is a very specialized type of racing, and it would be uneconomical to build an extrem ely-specialized machine for it.
Most of the racers are regular flat track and TT competitors, and they run what they're used to. Most of them aren't used to 250 Twins. There are also quite a few motocrossers.
I asked Wayne Sturm, a very com petitive Boulder, Colorado motocrosser, why he was running knobbies, when most of the other riders were running Class C tires. "I thought I'd better stick with what I'm used to." Sturm told me, "If it gets too hard in the groove, I'll just get out in the loose stuff. If it rains a whole bunch, I'll be in good shape."
At the time, 10 a.m. on race day, there wasn't a cloud to be seen any where on the horizon. Sturm said he just came up to see what it was like. This attitude is not untypical. This is not the sort of race that you read about, build a bike for and then win the first year, unless you're very talented. Steve Scott came from out of nowhere on his first win two years ago, so much so that he was protested (unsuccessfully), by several of the local aces, who just couldn't believe that a 250 could smoke them so badly.
Scott, obviously is a very talented rider; he rides Ascot regularly, and this may give him an advantage at the Peak. With the cars running first, the course
becomes much like a very long TT, and the same skills and machine set-up used in TT are very helpful.
In the Open Professional class, Boul der's Bob Conway re-asserted his former dominance of the Peak. Conway had won the 250 class twice, before Steve Scott assumed his current dominant position. Conway has since switched to a beautifully-prepared Champion framed 750 Yamaha flat track mount. Gearing his machine up slightly from its normal racing configuration, Conway, and his closest rival, Donny Palmgren, were capable of 100 mph and mo n the long straights. One of the t s present in the pits characterized the race as "156 drag races, with turns in between.” Conway’s superbly tuned Vickery Yamaha had the drag race problem whipped.
Palmgren led for about two miles, with Conway in 7th or 8th. Conway moved up to 3rd, and Joe Valentine meanwhile passed Palmgren, taking advantage of a bobble, to take the lead. “Donny looked back and saw me and we just boogied for a couple of miles, just like we were ‘trackin’.”
Conway took over the lead at Glen Cove, but almost lost it twice. He “missed” one corner, coming into it i^feh too hot, and saved himself with a ^Wn shot. Then at the infamous “Ws” below Devil’s Playground, he killed his engine, but managed to upshift and restart. From there on, he settled down and kept increasing his lead. Valentine crashed in the “Ws”, and Donny Palmgren took over 2nd, which he held to the conclusion of the race. Third place was something of a surprise, with Jim Hodges, of Pueblo, on a 450 Maico motocrosser beating several 750s. Mike Farmer took 4th on a Yamaha 360.
Coming after the likes of Bobby Unser and Ak Miller, going off one at a time against the clock, motorcycles are a strange contrast. The bikes go off in four heats, about three minutes apart. With the cars, you get a two hour show as they come by, one at a time, WFO. It’s a sort of “man against the mountain” thing.
With the bikes, starting 30 at a time, its all knees and elbows into the first turn, and very much man against man. Since you can’t follow the racers, it’s over very soon, but after the thundering herd goes by, you know you’ve been watching a race, not some sort of a glorified high altitude time trial. The cars are exciting and impressive—they’re extremely fast and flashy—and very noisy, but the bike race is more personal.
As in every brand of racing there are sour notes. Dick Conger, an Open Professional class rider from Pueblo, Colorado, got some volunteer help in rejetting the morning of the race, but “crapped out” shortly after the start. His coil mounting bolts had, he believes, been intentionally loosened.
By and large, though, good sportsmanship prevailed. John Kaminski remarked that the riders as a group are very polite, moving over to let a faster competitor past. The fearful drops over the road edge in many areas may contribute to this. Nobody wants to see a friend killed or badly hurt, and there is an unusual sense of camaraderie to be felt in the motorcycle pits. All of the racers I talked to seemed to be genuinely turned on by the event. The beautiful setting, the fantastic climate and the good company added up to a real Rocky Mountain High on the fourth.
RESULTS
