Round Up
ROUND UP
JOE PARKHURST
I’M NOT QUITE unwound from a great week in the wilds of Baja California, following bikes, dune buggies, jeeps, and assorted other mechanical paraphernalia around in an airplane. We fully describe the event, starting on page 70 of this issue.
The National Off Road Racing Association, or NORRA as she is known, is to be congratulated on this marvelous undertaking. From inception to the day of the first departures from that awful Tijuana/ California border was just over 90 days. The event came off with hardly a flaw, and most criticism heard from competitors and bystanders was just and constructive. Classes may be split differently next year, and there will by all means be a next year for the Mexican 1000 Rally. Quite a few of the car people were heard to voice all manner of suggestions as to how to get those motorcycles out of there, but that was because bikes go faster than anything alive off the road. OK, my good friend Vic Wilson, driving one of my old buddy Bruce Meyer’s Manxes with navigator Ted Mangels, arrived first at La Paz. Their victory was the result of bikes crashing, getting lost, and a monumental boo-boo on the part of NORRA. Like they say, that’s racing! As far as I’m concerned, the bikes won it, and even the dune buggy drivers have to admit it.
Talk was rampant in La Paz on reducing the entry field because of the huge logistics problems encountered this year, and the lack of accommodations at the end of the almost 1000-mile run in lovely La Paz. I hope NORRA doesn’t reduce the field, as I’ve already talked at least a dozen firms into sponsoring machinery and riders next year, and I’m looking for maybe 20 or 30 bikes next time. NORRA also has under consideration short distance qualification races, winners being invited to race to La Paz. The error here is that winners of short races rarely are finishers in long distance goes, usually overdoing it long before the end. It would field a distorted class of machines and riders/drivers. NORRA will probably split some of the four-wheel classes more equitably for 1968, but I hope not at the risk of reducing the number of bike entries. Some would call it running scared if NORRA did this.
This fabulous event will become the greatest cross-country event in the western world. I’m sure. It is the only event where bikes and cars are matched against each other, (outside of drag racing), and is one of the most difficult on the face of the earth. The boys rode almost an entire International Six Days Trial in one day, or the equivalent of about three or four hare and hounds, followed by the Greenhorn Enduro, with hardly any rest or servicing on the bikes in between. It was a great show, and it’ll be even better next year, mainly because the bikes, who led this year for almost all of the run, and often by as much as five hours over the nearest dune buggies, will no doubt win it!
BSA OWNERS CLUB
One make owners clubs can now add the proud BSA initials to their group. BSA Owners Club, Chairman J. Battams, 46 Zermatt Road, Thornton, Heath, Surrey, England, just sent me a copy of the group’s official journal, The Star, and invites BSA owners the world over to contact him.
RICKMANS IN U.S.
Derek and Don Rickman recently returned my visit to England with a prolonged stay in the U.S. They visited John Steen’s organization, distributor of Metisse in the U.S., and generally made friends everywhere they went. They raced a little in several desert and eastern scrambles events, but I won’t go into the problems they encountered learning to race across ever-changing, unfamiliar territory. Regardless, they were finishing and running in the first three to ten places every time they went out, and I don’t know a rider who ever has done anything like that on his very first hare and hound.
Steen held several social meetings for the brothers, including one in his beautiful Los Angeles home, where the guys met the other members of the motorcycle press. I’ve known Derek and Don since 1964, when I met them at Earls Court motorcycle show and bought the first Metisse ever seen over here. I still have it, though it is a bit shopworn now. Steen also held a Metisse owners meeting inviting all of the local Metisse owners to meet the Rickmans and show off their bikes and to discuss the launching of the Rickman Metisse Owners Club. I showed up with two, and Ken Clark brought his recently purchased Rickman road racer.
Derek and Don were really taken with the U.S., and the feeling was mutual. They plan to return often to build the market for their products in this country. I have a new Rickman BSA Victor on the way; we’ll test it soon for readers. The Rickmans hope to increase the number of Metisse fans by leaps and bounds with similar new creations.
(Continued on page 8)
NEW YORK MOTORCYCLE SHOW SET
New York’s glamorous Coliseum will be the setting for the first International Motorcycle Show ever to be held in Manhattan. Organizer of the show and Director of the operation is Tom Trutt; dates are April 11 through 14.
CYCLE WORLD SHOW FOR 1968
Speaking of shows, CYCLE WORLD’S International Motorcycle Show is slotted for April 25th through 28th this year, a return to the four-day schedule. Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena again will be the scene, and the International Custom Car Show will take place on the Arena lower floors at the same time. Like us guys who are always blowing our own horns are wont to say: “It'll be even bigger and better.” CYCLE WORLD’S motorcycle show is now almost the largest in the world, second only to the huge Tokyo Motor Show which really is almost entirely a car affair. We packed more people into the Sports Arena in 1967 than were drawn to England’s venerable Earls Court, which nowadays is not much more than an accessory show. Early November was the time for Motorcycle Dealer News’ trade show in Anaheim, Calif. A beautiful show it was, too; kind of a shame the public wasn't invited, but we must have closed doors for the doing of business, and MDN's affair was great. Motorcycle shows are getting to be big show biz these days.
NEW BSA HEAD
Nice news is easy to spread, especially when it concerns old friends. Ex-motorcycle magazine editor, long time Johnson Motors sales manager, and recently Director of Operations with U.S. Suzuki, succinctly describes the career of Don Brown, who now is Vice President and General Manager of BSA Inc., Nutley. New Jersey. Don also has been elected to the Board of Directors of the firm, joining an illustrious group of men who have guided a goodly portion of the motorcycle industry for many years. California's loss. New Jersey’s gain, is even harder to take because Don takes his lovely wife Terry with him.
NOW CALENDARS
I'm beginning to feel like Hugh Heffner (I should be so lucky), with all the new CYCLE WORLD products popping up. We now follow up the latest Protar plastic MV Four kit with the CYCLE WORLD calendar. Printed in England, it is a handsome 11 x 18-in. beauty, on glossy paper. with a different International road racing star’s action picture on each page. January 1968 is Bill Ivy, March is Gary Nixon, Mike Hailwood on June, Giacomo Agostini on September, sidecare star Schauzu graces October, and so forth.
I think they will look pretty neat on the wall of the shop or in the garage, assuming you have the kind of wife who doesn't mind pictures of motorcycles on the walls of the den. The photographs are some of the best I’ve seen, done by a couple of the leading photographers in Europe. Gary Nixon’s portrait is from Daytona 1967, and was taken by Alice Bixler, CW’s lovely distaff contributor. After the month is used up, you can cut the old month off and stick the photo up on the wall, or, as they say, they are “suitable for framing.” Our price is $3.25, including postage and handling. Write the good looking girls at CYCLE WORLD CALENDARS, BOX 20220, Long Beach, California 90812. ■
