Olympia Superbowl of Motocross III
OLYMPIA SUPERBOWL OF MOTOCROSS III
Magic Marty Sparked The Crowd, Jaroslav Falta Wired The Track, And A Proficient DeCoster Hung In There To Become Trophy Girl's Choice.
Fernando Belair
HAD IT HAPPENED, it really would have been something. I mean, of course, had Marty Tripes been able to capture his third consecutive Superbowl, they could have wrapped it up in Pennzoil banners and just handed it to him for years to come. But it didn't happen, and in a way it was expected.
Marty had taken the first two Superbowls ever, each time on a different make. First he used a Yamaha, then a Honda, to trounce the opposition at the Los Angeles Coliseum event. As usual, the crowd was rooting for the stocky youngster and his new mount, a Husqvarna CR250. But the compe tition was tougher than ever before, and very few people thought that the Husky could produce the kind of horsepower that it would take to win the "bowl" this year.
Czechoslovakian factory CZ ace J slav Falta was back, this time Wi~fl teammate Zdenek Velky who, as it turned out, was not as fast as Antonin Babarovsky was last year. Montesa flew inotheir latest sensa tion, Belgian Raymond Boven, and his works Cappra.
The hometowners were much faster this time around. Jim Weinert had his stuff together and Gary Jones looked so fast on his Can-Am in practice that even he was stoked. Notably absent from the event, though, was the Yamaha team of Pierre Karsmakers, Mike Hartwig and Tim Hart, along with Bultaco's Jim Pomeroy and Husky's Brad Lackey. Lack of sufficient start money and contingencies kept these riders off the race track. Brad was in the pits watching, but Jim wasn't to be seen anywhere.
iuch of the crowd, however, had come to see the man do his stuff. World 500cc Champion Roger DeCoster, riding a 250, was at the Superbowl for the first time, and word had it that he was out to prove he can win on a night track as easily as he does in the daytime.
The stadium filled gradually as the sky dimmed and the electric light clusters popped on to illumi nate the man-made track. There was a rider presentation that was inaccurate and overdone, the play ing of the national anthem amid the mistimed igniting of fireworks and release of helium-filled balloons.
After the first 500cc support moto saw Husky's Jim West take the win after Bryar Holcomb's But taco lost the function of its gearbox (i"~t like Pomeroy's bikes do), the f. t international moto got underway.
DeCoster jumped into what would be a very short-lived lead, as Falta flew past him before the race was even 300 yards old. Falta slowly pulled out to a more comfortable margin as Rog’s machine began to misfire at peak revs. Tripes had gotten a poor start and worked his way through the pack into sixth, much to the delight of the announcer-hyped crowd.
Between fourth-placer Boven and DeCoster was CZ privateer Tony DiStefano, whose physique looks surprisingly like Tripes’, with the exception that Tony is solid muscle in the areas where Marty jiggles. DiStefano is bucking heavily for a factory CZ ride. Why he hasn’t gotten one already must be linked to the fact that Tony hasn’t applied for Czechoslovakian citizenship yet. That has to be it, ‘cause this guy’s a rocket...and consistent too.
The 250 race ended without further change in the top group. Jim Weinert was 5th. The second support moto really lifted the spectators who had come to see some action. Rex “Padded Cell” Staten took his prototype Honda big bore and just had a party out front. Wowing the crowd with unbelievable mid-air tactics, Staten would continue to dominate the class for the rest of the night, eventually taking the overall win after a firstmoto 4th. Every time Rex left the ground, the crowd went crazy, and the Magicubes atop the Instamatics fired away from 93 rows up, reminiscent of the semi-functional time and temperature sign at the savings and loan.
Serious time again as the international lined up for its second 25minute go-round. Falta took the lead right away and never looked back. Tripes struggled to get past DeCoster and into 2nd. The Champion did an admirable job of holding Superbowl Marty back, considering that his Suzuki was now running like a sick TL125. Tripes cut a whole second and a half off of his first-moto lap times, but so did Falta. And that’s how they went back to the pits. CZ, Husky, Sickzuki; with Suzuki (Gerrit Wolsink) and CZ (DiStefano) rounding out the contenders.
The Rex Staten show did its final thing as the people stayed put and the concession folks went broke—no one wanted to buy a hot dog when there was one racing on the track.
The final moto for all the glory and the front page photos was the best show that the 250s put on all night. Tripes pulled a brilliant hole shot and the people were naturally exuberant. But Marty was getting tired and the pressure from DeCoster and Falta was too much to take. He soon fell to 3rd.
In the meantime, Roger and Jaroslav were putting on a great show as they fought for the lead. And was it ever a show. DeCoster’s Suzuki had been righted by his mechanic, but Roger’s riding style showed that he wasn’t going 200 percent. He braked sooner than before, short-shifted his transmission, and generally had a good time. Falta was right on his tail, playing cat and mouse with him, but content to let his compatriot enjoy a moment of glory now that the overall victory would go back to Czechoslovakia with him. Tripes took 3rd in both his moto and overall.
There were a lot of things that happened away from the leaders’ limelight that made a difference to the riders who didn’t get a chance to have announcer Larry Huffman scream their names into the crowd. Tripes lost the left footpeg off of his Husky in the first moto. Jim Weinert’s fuel tank split and Jim motored around smelling like the T-shirt of an overtime-hoarding pump jockey. Finally one of the AMA guys noticed and had Jimmy black-flagged.
Gary Jones took a stream of banners for a carnival ride on his back wheel as he tried desperately to save face on what he had predicted would be his night. It wasn’t and he didn’t. Gary’s exploits with the banners set a precedent followed by the junior high set, many wearing their “I Love Big Grungy” iron-ons, who raped the course of its markings long before the competitors had a chance to stop their machines.
It was a good race. Falta was a favorite and he won. Staten’s sky shots demonstrated that the U.S. is still far ahead of the Communists in the race to get a motocrosser on the moon. Tripes was competitive and, at least for the first few laps of the last moto, showed the crowd that he still has that Superbowl Magic tucked away somewhere. DiStefano took 4th, which isn’t bad, and Raymond Boven crashed his Montesa into 5th.
Everybody who deserved it got a smooch from the trophy girl (except DeCoster, who took the whole girl), who had been provided by Oui magazine. They all posed with a quart of Oly (it was officially the Olympia Superbowl of Motocross III), and went home to count their money. 151
RESULTS
