Barstow to Vegas 1971
Well it doesn’t seem that long ago, but 50 years ago this past weekend I rode my first Barstow to Vegas off road motorcycle race.
I was 19 years old and had all the aspirations of any semi-normal 19 year old kid, fully equipped with the standard “I’ll never die” attitude. For anyone who doesn’t know the B to V race was one of the many must ride races of its time, the Granddaddy, if you can imagine. It was about 140 to 160 miles without a lick of pavement, a real butt kicker. This race (not this particular year) was one of the features in Bruce Brown’s movie “On Any Sunday”.
Anyhoo on to the details……..The starting area was just outside of Barstow proper at Yermo road. The camp area looked like a small city had sprung up in the middle of the desert with campers and trailers everywhere, motorhomes and toy haulers were a thing for the future. We were much tougher back then, we rode bikes with a whopping 3 ½ to 4 inches of suspension, not like the wussies of today with their 12” travel rocking horses and electric starts! So at the start line, which was amazing in and of it’self, we lined up in 3 different starting rows. 1st row consisted of the Amateur/Expert class and all displacement motors. 2nd row was the Novice class, of 125cc and up. They started 10 to 15 minutes after the Am/Ex guys, this was so the hot shoe guys only had to dodge bushes and rocks and not a bunch of rookies. Last was the 3rd row which was all the trail bike novices, again about 10 to 15 minutes later. If you have never seen the start of this race, words can’t do it justice!
On the starting line, picture 500 to 800 dirt bikes lined up handle bar to bar with everyone’s focus on two things. The smoke bomb (a giant pile of burning tires) about 1 or 2 miles from the start line. And the other focus point is the banner truck. District 37 Desert races have a dead engine banner drop start. When the banner is raised you must shut off your engine and wait for the banner to drop before you can start it up and go. So up goes the banner and the silence across the Desert is deafening, it stays up for what seems like an eternity but in reality it is only about 1 or 2 minutes. Now in this purgatory of time of 2 minutes what is going on is……..all the things you did or didn’t do to your bike before the race, I hope it is a one kick start, your goggles start to fog, and your leg gets just heavy enough to rotate your motor off of the compression stroke. Pretty much panic, oh yeah then you think did I pee before I got to the line? Finally the banner goes down and like synchronized swimmers 800 right legs are pumped down, the lucky ones only once! The music that comes to life with that many motorcycles starting is something to be heard, like Gabriel’s trumpet. There are Yamahas, Suzukis, Hondas, Huskys, Greeves, Bultacos, Montesas, and even some old school Triumphs and Beezers headed for the same piece of real estate. See the smoke bomb is where you actually pick up the start of the course. As you pass the Bomb you feel the heat of the burning tires and if you are smart enough you pass on the up wind side so you don’t inhale the black soot/smoke. Now you look for little yellow ribbons tied to the bushes or lime marking, like the stuff they use for sport field lines……all the way to Vegas. There are 3 pit stops on the way to gas up, get a drink, or quit along the way, The last one is at State line on the Dry lake you see off to the left of the highway. I never made it that far.
My steed for this contest was a 1969 Montesa 250 Cappra with a 4 speed trans. The year I rode was the first year they requires some kind of muffled exhaust. Somewhere between the 1st and 2nd gas I lost the guts out of my silencer which screwed with my jetting. That coupled with one of those High Tec Amal side float carburetors it was more than my 3 ½ gallon capacity gas tank could handle and I ran out of gas. Plus they said that the second leg was supposed to only be about 45 miles (I think they lied) and it was a lot of uphill sand washes. Oh well, not my first DNF!
If you have read this far, thanks for hanging in there, just the ramblings of another old guy……….but boy oh boy was that a great time to be alive and riding! San Gabriel Valley Motorcycle Club always did a great job putting on this classic race, not like the Baker to Vegas imitator of today! Any members from SGVMC past or current who see this, Thanks for the memories.
Jigger/ Competition MC from the past
