37 Th International Six Days Trial
37 th INTERNATIONAL SIX DAYS TRIAL
SLONIGER
As an English rider said on Saturday, “It’s the weather that makes it tough, isn’t it?” The 37th International 6-Days Trial was over, two-thirds of the muddied participants would take home a medal and the Czechs had the Trophy for a year. The Garmisch run, which started out to be the most miserable in some time, tapered off under dry skies to be tough but possible. The weather improved, in other words.
Rain and snow are obvious hazards, doubling the fun when you have only minutes to repair a battered, muddy, soaking motorcycle before sticking it into an outdoor parc ferme for the night. Riders have to make all repairs for six days with parts they have with them or “find on the ground,” a'euphemism for “what the team boss can drop beside you when nobody is looking.” They still have to do the work alone, regardless of freezing temperatures, and within the time they can steal before checking into the next control or final check of the day. Fuel and tires are the only outside items allowed and you have to mount the tires yourself. The rain that let up and left them with a dry second half gave the race a general “easier than ’61” rating with most riders.
This 6-Day game is pretty much of a win-or-retire scramble. With 200 finishers from 286 starters the organizers were touched for 112 gold medals, 59 silvers and only 29 bronze. Anybody who finishes within the scoring — no mean feat in itself — gets a bronze. For a silver you have to collect less than 50 penalties in six days, plus 270 bonus marks, while the coveted gold requires a clean sheet straight through and 450 bonus points (Normally the bonus requirements are 300 and 500 respectively, for eleven special tests, but one test was scrubbed this year and the required totals reduced accordingly.)
In other words there were more gold medals than retirements, and a goodly portion of those silvers had the bonus marks for a gold but slipped up somewhere for only a couple of minutes and lost it. This is the world series of crosscountry motorcycling and you only get the stars, as a rule. They come through big or not at all.
Czechoslovakia chose the first method and won the main prize, or Team Trophy, by the simple trick of collecting no points for any of their six. riders. Seven Trophy Teams started but only the Czechs finished clean — so that bonus points didn’t matter this year for the Trophy. Germany and Sweden were clean at the time controls but both teams lost riders, at a penalty of 100 points a man a day and that left them in sixth and seventh. The Russians didn’t lose any men to the shale, mud or river crossings but the ones they had were picking up penalties right and left. Even the English, who collected only 8 points in five days and then lost a man the sixth for 108 overall, beat the USSR out of second. Russians: 140. Poland and Italy took fourth and fifth with men lost and points for those who remained.
Starting can be a problem.
You have one minute on a below-freezing morning to get moving and cross a line some 20 yards away under your own power. Bikes start in threes, or fours, depending on number left. Here Magnusson/Husqvarna (97) of Sweden, Bouska/Jawa (Czech) (99) and Dotterweich/Maion (Germany) (100) get the word. All three were on their respective land's Trophy Team as shown by the small “T” on the plate. The Czechs won this year, the Germans were defenders (same team as in England last year).
All eyes focus on the Trophy of course, since this is national. Any country can enter in theory, but the catch is that their bikes have to be manufactured in the team’s homeland. In practice this cuts them down to motorcycle producing countries. One size machine isn’t enough either. A six-man trophy team has to have at least three different capacities on the board.
The winning Czechs, for instance, produced four classes of cross-country bikes from two different firms. They ran a pair of 350 Jawas, one 250 Jawa, a 125 CZ and a pair of 175 CZ machines to make up their Trophy team. More important, from the team manager’s viewpoint, they all arrived without points. The Czechs were the only set of six riders to be pointfree from the third day on. For the final tests they very nearly loafed. The bikes came through even more neatly than their riders. The trophy men, two vase teams and three private entries not only finished but all took gold medals home.
The spectating trick at a 6-Day race is to keep track of the various permutations and winning combinations. The possibilities of a gold medal are simple enough — no bad points and (this year) 450 good points, with the silver and bronze to follow. Those are private emblems. A separate cup made its debut this time, do-
nated by a German film producer and bike addict. This perpetual trophy goes to the man with the best brownie-point score. Germany’s Rotermundt on a 50cc Kreidler gets his name inscribed first with 599.701 out of a possible 600. The sixth day was his birthday as well — and the day he helped Germany’s Silver Vase B team to that title.
Some time after the Trophy runs were founded the powers decided to allow for lands with eager riders but no bike production. This gave rise to the Silver Vase, an antique cup very nearly as large as the Trophy. Any land may send one or two teams of four riders each to compete for the vase, on bikes made anywhere. This season the loving cup went to Germany’s second team with no penalties and the best bonus-point score.
A dozen and a half vase aggregates met the test in Garmisch and six finished clean. In some ways it is a better trick to field the winning vase delegation (it was only Germany’s third, and first in a quartercentury) from a motorcycle-producing land than from a country like Switzerland or Finland. Either of these two can use their best men in the vase foursome while the Germans, British or Czechs have their six best on the Trophy team. Notwithstanding, both English and Czech vase teams were clean, as well as the winning German B set. The Germans, by the way, rode a pair of Zundapps (one lOOcc and one 50cc), a 75cc Victoria and a 50cc Kreidler.
Outside of the individual scoring and the two international trophies there is a cup for best club team — won by Dukla of Czechoslovakia from Germany’s ADAC Gau-Wuerttemberg I on bonus points since both were clean — and a factory title taken by Zundapp I of Germany on bonus points as well, since eleven works teams finished clean, including all four of the Czech Jawa and CZ sets.
It begins to appear that the Czechs had the game their own way in Ga-Pa as the afficianados persisted in calling it,, “from the old days.” They did sweep the board with the factory bikes but a quick look at the personal histories of their riders tells a good part of the tale. These men do little else but ride trials all year.
The well-organized sextet consisted of their “old hand” Roucka, a development department mechanic with CZ, who has eight Trophy Team appearances to his credit (including three wins), and eight gold medals. Polanka, a CZ mechanic, has five golds and seven Trophy Team appearances in his book at 30, plus a vase win in 1955. Miarka is the sole man in six not directly employed by a bike firm. The bus driver is riding on his first Trophy Team. The three Jawa men are all Jawa employees, including team captain Bouska, a test stand engineer making his first Trophy appearance, Stephan, a technical inspector and test rider Hoeffer, the youngest at 27. Both are also debuting as Trophy Team members. At the same time one of their most experienced riders was moved down to the vase team, after 10 Trophy rides.
This is a major sport in Czechoslovakia, with Jawa engineer Krivka as team manager and all-out preparation. The bikes get the same sort of care. Jawa has a new, light-weight frame available but decided, on rider urgings, to stick with the proven and slightly heavier model that is virtually identical to the road bikes. Of the various team mounts only one was a 250; the rest were bored out to 350 since both started together and had to make the same averages.
The 350 — actually 340cc from a bore of 76mm and stroke of 75mm — has a new cylinder with cast liner, and extra large ribbing for barrel and head. They use a laminated clutch now which will appear in the series bikes almost immediately, and a beefed up transmission to take the power; some 26 hp at 5500 rpm. Improvements in the 80 mph bike over last year include an 18" rear tire, simpler chain cover and some parts lightened.
The CZs, álso two-stroke singles, are virtually unchanged, but merely prepared with loving care. Like the Jawas they featured a new micro-paper air cleaner that didn’t need changing throughout the race — though the percentage of mud over dust may have given them a boost there. Gearing was altered slightly to meet increased motor output and the bikes run in national events to get at the last bugs.
In Garmisch the CZ bikes seemed to be trickier starters than the Jawas but far better than either of the Russian makes, the K or ISCH. The very Russian looking riders were having somewhat less than a ball on cold mornings when the rules allow you one minute to fire up and cross a line just over 20 yards away under your own steam. Failure to make it cost 20 bonus points. A greater Russian woe was a collection of penalty points but they obviously lacked the steam to make the tighter averages. Their riders were lessmanaged than the Czechs, or the Italians for that matter, but extremely careful of the product.
Speaking of starting, the Triumphs were probably the easiest of all to fire. Even American Bud Ekins, a Triumph dealer in Sherman Oaks, California, by the way, was slightly startled when his 650 fired with the first kick on the coldest morning of them all. Ekins, a Big Bear multi-winner, was shooting for his second 6-Day, after losing a gold in the final hour last year in England when a repair put him on the penalty sheet. In Germany for a movie cycle stunt bit he got time off to run the Ga-Pa race and promptly disproved the odds against private riders.
Ekins not only cleaned the Six Days run but piled up 587.751 bonus points in ten tests as well as to take the 750 class trophy and finish eighth among the private riders. The bonus system seemed weighted for the small bikes this year and Bud was the only big bore machine to finish that high, including the entire English Trophy team on heavy machinery. The seven point-getters above him rode 175 or smaller machines, including three on 50s, two on 75s and one on a lOOcc bike.
Riding privately cuts you off from full factory “encouragement” which can be the deciding factor. There was even a rumor, never repeated or proved, that one of the Czech team bikes was basically rebuilt after the first day. Only a factory could manage that, even if true. As Bud said, “anything is legal they don’t catch you at.” His aid all came from friendly competitors.
Apart from the English who were rather “sour-grapes” at the prize-giving, with two of their men not even bothering to show for a second on the Trophy scale, everybody seemed devoted to six days of helping anybody who needed it. The theory seems to be you are so busy with the countryside it’s silly to fight each other. Russians gave German riders a boost over slippery bits, Czechs turned out in a group to give advice to an English Jawa rider with a broken shock, the English helped Ekins and the Germans supported John Penton, the other American who finished. Penton, of American enduro fame and a BMW shop in Lorain, Ohio, left no doubt about his nationality with a r$(j, white and blue striped helmet, despite riding under a Canadian license. He tore a knee up badly in several early falls but continued for a silver in his first 6-Day and swore there would be a next year.
The 6-Day, both Americans agreed, is nothing like any U.S. race going. John commented, “you could call it a pure cross-country race. The idea is to get to the next control early enough to work on the bike.” Assuming you can make the averages which ranged from 22.4 mph for the 50cc machines to 28.6 for all bikes in the 250 to 750 classes, problem “A” is piling up some bonus points in the special tests. Best time there gets maximum of 60 with the rest gaining a percentage of that.
After scratching one cross-country test the organizers were left with three short cross-country tests, two long ones, two hillclimbs which were the same thing but uphill, two acceleration tests with a brake test at the end of one, and the final “race” to round out the sixth day. Riders had to do a minimum number of laps there, within a half hour, on the same knobby tires they had used for the off-road excursions. Ekins did particularly well in the speed tests — a heritage of his two European moto-cross seasons perhaps — winning the big class four times and taking three seconds as well. Penton had more than enough bonus points for a gold too, but slipped at a control on the third day for five points. He was clean the rest of the way.
If they gave a prize for greatest effort with least chance, it would go to Cary Cooper of Newcastle, England, who rode a standard sport Vespa motor scooter all the way to Garmisch, with time out for a collision near home and a burned piston in Belgium, entered it in the first trial he had ever seen on two good tires and a slick spare, and was eliminated, still grinfling but overtime, on the first day. A more unlikely machine for deep mud would be hard to imagine but Cary merely laughed and said, "I hae not won n'thing, but I learned summit."
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He wants to come back too, like Fenton and Bud Ekins and just about everybody who has tried this once. Even Sebastian Nachtmann of the defending German Tro phy Team isn't discouraged. Natchmann, the son of a 6-Day rider and German big-bike ace, tangled with a tree early on the first day, ending up with bruised ribs and arm or so he thoutht.
The German rode out that day clean. including fastest time of the day on a spe~ cial cross-country test - and then discov~ ered his arm was broken. He tried tc start the next morning in plaster bul couldn't control the massive BMW 70C special and the German hopes for a repeal victory were over for this year. The local fans say, "When Nachtmann hits a tree. the tree loses," but this time he pickec on a tough one. Next time?
There will be a 6-Day next year, of course - the question is where? Theo rectically the Czechs have the option of staging the next race but when I spoke to their manager, Krivka, about it he hedged. There is general doubt that they will try to hold the race and the Polish delegation has indicated it is willing to do the honors if Czechoslovakia retires. This must be based on fact and the likeliest spot is Zakopane, site of the last inter national ski championships and a town with reportedly good, if expensive, hotels and such needs. Like the riders, we'll be there. This game grows on you. •
INTERNATIONAL SIX-DAYS RESULTS: Started: 286 Finished: 200 Gold: 112 Silver: 59 Bronze: 29 INTERNATIONAL TROPHY Czechoslovakia 0 England . 108 Russia 140 Poland 432 Italy 447 Germany 600 Sweden 900 SILVER VASE Germany B 0/2385.049 bonus England B 0/2271.802 Czechoslovakia A 0/2250.437 Czechoslovakia B 0/2221.217 Italy A 0/2136.675 England A 0/2116.308 Russia 39 Austria 87 Holland B 208 Italy B 300 Holland A 400 Sweden 400 Finland 500 Poland 729 Switzerland B 930 Switzerland A 1002 Germany A 1100 Belgium 1115 CLUB DIPLOMA - FIM Dukla Czechoslovakia 0/1686.958 ADAC-Gau Wuerttemberg I Germany 0/1672.639 FACTORY TEAM MEDAL - FIM (only those clean) Zundapp Il/Germany, Kreidler I/Germany, CZ Il/Czech, Jawa I/Czech, Jawa Il/Czech, Moto Guzzi Il/Italy, CZ I/Czech, BSA/England, Zweirad.Union/Germany, Gilera Il/Italy, Junak/Poland.
