Clipboard

Clipboard

Notes From Malcolm

There was only one American en-

tered in this year’s Paris-to-Dakar rally: Malcolm Smith. Only he wasn’t on his familiar Husky—in fact he wasn’t even on a motorcycle. Instead, he was part of the Range Rover factory effort, eventually finishing fourth overall.

Despite many problems he encountered, Malcolm called the ordeal the adventure of a lifetime.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a family enduro. It was supposed to be the toughest race on earth, and that’s what it was,” he said after returning to the U.S. “I feel the negative aspects of the rally have gotten too much attention; there are a lot of positive things about it, too. Organizing something like this is very hard, and the promoters really did a good job, despite the problems.”

As for the deaths, Malcolm said they were avoidable. “Some of the rules are just outdated. If they ran the cars under SCORE rules, it would have been safer, no one would have been killed.” But he did concede that the event would have been a lot more difficult on a bike.

“I wouldn’t do it on a motorcycle. Well, maybe when I was 30 . .

Camel Gets Dirty

Last year, the Camel Pro series consisted of an equal number of dirttrack and roadrace events. But in 1988, the dirt-trackers are going to have a slight advantage. The series will consist of six roadraces, six miles, three half-miles and a TTsteeplechase. Each of those races will feature the Camel Challenge, a race that pits the fastest qualifiers against one another in a five-lap sprint, with $ 17,500 of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. money up for grabs.

Supercross War

7"he first Supercross of the year, held at Anaheim, California, was the site of one of the most intense competitions in motocross history. No, it wasn’t Johnson vs. Glover or Ward vs. Hannah; it was a battle between Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group and Mike Goodwin’s Stadium Motorsports, with the AMA caught somewhere in the middle. That battle was to see who would promote the Supercross, which traditionally is one of the best-attended events in the sports world. Thompson won, getting an exclusive contract with Anaheim Stadium, but the event wasn’t AMA-sanctioned because the AMA contract belongs to Goodwin. The race? Oh, yes, Rick Johnson won rather easily, with Micky Dymond second. The battle between Thompson and Goodwin is still raging, but Thompson seems to be in the lead: He got possession of the Supercross event at San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium, another big crowd-drawer in which Johnson also won. E9