OCR Text |
Show Recollections of the First San Rafael Mail Run by Fred Radcliffe A lot of effort had to be extended by the Motorcycle Group at Green River to put on the first San Rafael Mail Race (desert bike race) and they should be congratulated as they certainly chose areas that could not be harmed from an ccologist's viewpoint. BLM was there in force observing the race, but I'm writing this to give you a close-up idea of what you must endure to ride a 100-mile event such as this. My experience in crosscountry cross-country motorcycle racing goes back to the late '30s when I rode a little 500 cc Indiana. Today, a 500 cc bike is considered a heavyweight! We had no spring suspension on the rear and girder forks on the front with a maximum 2-inch travel. Today's Moto-cross Moto-cross bikes have upwards of 6 to 7 inches of travel front and ; rear, so really smooth out the whoop-de-doos. However, I was riding an enduro Suzuki bike in the event Sunday, Oct. 10, less than half the travel of current MX bikes (this is my major excuse for not making a better showing!) Before getting into the "meaty" portion of the rundown run-down on happenings Sunday, let me announce that officially, official-ly, I think I have retired from cross-country racing! I'm nearing my 56th birthday and don't think I'll get any better, so ! Ironically I retired in 1949 after a disastrous showing show-ing in a 500 mile race, but began to run a few races again 4 years later. 1 quit again in 1968. I w as aware of this big race coming up, but had dismissed the idea of running as we had our friends Bud and Betty Frye from Indianapolis coming into Grand Junction by plane on October 9. As we were driving along 1-70 returning to Moab with them. Bud said. "You are going to race tomorrow, aren't you?" -I told him I hadn't planned to as I didn't think he'd enjoy it, well he assured me he was wanting to go. So my son Bernie and his wife Paula Radcliffe were along too and Paula sez, "I wanna see Dad race, let's go too!" So the stage was set, as soon as I got home 1 got on the phone and called Mel Swanson, my riding buddy, and he decided that he would go too. Mel called Bill Osborne from City Market and he said he and Trent Garcia were ready, so this was to round out the Moab "onslaught!" "on-slaught!" The next morning was a carbon copy of many previous mornings, with not a cloud in the sky. We arrived in Green River about 7:45 a.m., drove about 15 miles south on the road to the Maze, unloaded our bikes and signed up at the entry desk. Mel and 1 had "road-legal" bikes and qualified quali-fied for the Enduro Class. But there were not enough entries in that class to constitute a class, so we were thrown into the Novice Open which is quite a handicap against true moio-cross bikes, but what the heck, we were only out for fun. Promptly at 9:30. a riders meeting was held and promptly prompt-ly at 10:00 the riders were assembled on the two lines. In tribute to the Green River sponsors, this was the best start I've ever seen. Off in Pursuit The ExpertAmateurs were sent off at 10:05 with a dead engine mass start. Then at 10:20 our wave was off in pursuit. I believe I was the first off the line, but my lead was short lived as the smooth riding super bikes literally "ate me up." This didn't bother me too much as I knew it was a long race and already many of the stalwart youth lay sprawled over the desert. Bill Osborne suffered this experience experi-ence as he "lost" his bike and went down hard in this first mad dash across the desert. He was run over by two other bikers in the dust and sustained a shoulder injury. However, true to aficcionados of this sport, he quickly remounted his bike and took off after the rest of these mad-men. About 7 miles out, we crossed a river and I presume it was the San Rafael. It was exacting its toll on riders. I dove off into about 18 inches of water, then got into a riffle and rode right on across with about 10 seconds requiring to reach the opposite bank and then once more on my way. About 200 feet up the trail, I nearly went down as I encountered a log lying at about a 30 degree angle to the trail. You can always loft your front wheel if you see it in time, but it is that back wheel that gets you. Luckily, I had backed off on the power and momentum of the rear wheel got me across with no resulting "crash," to use current day jargon. For the next 3 miles, I began to move and pass numerous riders. The "old" competive spirit was coming to life, then I heard the ominous note of a "whiskered" "whisker-ed" spark plug. This erratic stuttering of the engine is very disturbing. I kept thinking that it would blow the whisker off. I nursed the thing for another two miles or so, but finally realized 1 had to stop and 1 remove the offender. I should have performed this little operation much sooner, 1 but at any rate I figure I lost in i excess of 20 minutes delay ! because of this. Once I fixed the plug, it ran like a screamin'demon and I was able to turn up the wick and plane on the sand. Then came the endless miles of "whoop-de-doos." It was in her I found ; Bill Osborne. Bill and I had been riding together while my plug was plaguing me. We were both exhausted from the pounding and Bill's shoulder was hurting him awfully. Easier Later There must have been nearly 10 miles of this pounding and signs of "char-1 "char-1 ley-horses" in arms, legs, hands, etc. were beginning to appear. Finally - and I say finally, we came to Check Point One and they assured us it was easier on in to Number Two Check. That information was correct. We got onto some real good jeep trails, but now I was experiencing another problem. My rear wheel felt like it was mounted in jelly. I was running up around 50 1 miles per hour and kept . getting this disturbing feeling that the rear end wanted to come up to where the front was. So I stopped and checked everything out. I did discover a loose axle nut, so got out the tools and fixed that. Then off again. It still felt squirrly, so again I stopped. I finally got so gun shy, that I backed off to 30 m.p.h. just knowing that something was wrong and that perhaps we could find out the trouble at my pit stop at Number Two Check. I limped on into 2 and sure enough Bernie, Paula, and Bud were there. The men went to work on the bike while Paula refreshed me with Gatorade. After 10 minutes I decided I'd take off. During this interim, no other riders had checked in, so I had the trail to myself. The first difficulty I experienced after Check 2 was the whitest dirtsand I'd ever seen and I could not detect where ruts were in all this whiteness under the brilliant sun. Numerous times I was catapulted off the road but mv record was still intact and I didn't go down anvtime. I Then we got in a wash. The I course was well flagged and seemed to be running in the I areas between the washes. I ' thought, "heck, it would be a i lot faster to run the washes and as long as the trail crossed the wash once in awhile I'd know I was on course." Well apparently this is the logic of a lot of riders! (Apparently the lay-out crew were old foxes too and knew what the guys would do.) Suddenly tracks began to run out and "dougnuts" appeared indicating that riders had turned back. Well I must have lost another 20 minutes wandering aimlessly up and down washes until I found where I made my mistake. Deep Sand 1 By now the temperature was around 85 degrees and my antiquated black leathers were absorbing all that heat - I was tired - "you dummy" I kept telling myself. Then my clutch wouldn't release, so I could not shift easily in this deep sand, so I just "screamed" along in low at a ridiculous 5 or 6 miles per hour. Well any old desert runner knows that you have to get speed up and run on top of the sand, but here I am so exhausted I couldn't walk a straight line, let alone ride another man's track. And that is the answer in this stuff, ride another track and you can go fast. So another rider came up from behind and thought he'd be kind to me and inform me as to "how to ride sand"! I was at least 30 minutes going the next 3 miles which wound around through washes with only 36 inches between Mancos Shale walls. By now I had discovered my clutch problem. I had lost all but one bolt out of the case, and with this loss went my adjustment. The bolts holding the oil tank were gone and one on the muffler side, so I was really limping when I popped over a hill and found old Mel-well, he really looked as old as he lay sprawled on the ground! He'd been there for over Wi hours. "Wha hoppen," I asked. "Throttle stuck open and I crashed, and can't get the bike started"-he sez. He needed water, so I had just a little left and figured it would do him more good than me, so after sorta reviving him with some raisins I had aboard, we began to assess our predicament. predica-ment. We scanned the horizon to the east and faintly detected I a camper on the move. OK, we decided that if we can get the bike going, we'll take off cross-country (sorry blem). We turned the bike upside down and drained all the excess gas outta the crank-case. crank-case. By the way, at this stage of the game, we were not too long on muscles; but soon we heard a tiny fire building in the engine and soon had her going. We were some 7 miles from the highway, but made it. The rest of the story was rather complicated - pit crew supposed to be at Check 3, and we thought that would be on the highway, but it was over on the Goblin Valley road. We ended up going all the way into Green River on the bikes. Mel then hitchhiked a ride the 15 miles to where the Scout I was, while I was busy calling Jean, but I forgot to tell her to ' call Nori to tell her Mel was OK-still with me? Then Mel returned at 5:30 and we headed back towards Hanks-Ville Hanks-Ville looking for his rig and our pit crew. Well the old faithful pit crew was right where they were supposed to be and it was getting dark! They had run up and down the road into Hanksville for extra gas, etc., but it finally ended up one of those days you'll talk about for years when you get too old to ride! Trent Garcia did a fantastic job of completing the course 23rd overall and 4th in his class. Mel and I got about 60 miles along the course and even after all our adversities decided it was worth it. My only fall occurred when I just fell in a heap from exhaustion, but lit atop the bike with the throttle turned up to about 7000 rpm. Luckily the bike was in low gear, so the rear wheel wasn't turning too fast - it only acted as a slow moving rubber chain saw as it ground into the area between the ankle and knee! However I'll not miss my 40 years of motorcycling, as I've found an equally exciting and much cooler sport of Downhill Skiing -- move over Sam Tavlor I'm Schussin' thru! |