The Baja 500

THE BAJA 500

The Cars Are Hitting 140 mph And NORRA Has The Gall To Call It An Off-Road Race!

IT’S A GOOD THING that the National Off Road Racing Association pays class money for bikes, or there wouldn’t have been much point in entering the Baja 500 with one this year.

Saying that the course was faster and smoother is an understatement. The automobile contingent was favored by long stretches of pavement and straight stretches of dirt and sand. Some of the fastest four-wheelers were said to be topping out at 140 mph on the hard stuff. And a pilot in a spotter plane reported that he had followed overall winner Parnelli Jones’ Ford Bronco up a sandwash at 130 mph!

Parnelli finished the 500-mile run from Ensenada out into the desolate Mexican peninsula to San Felipe and back again in 11 hours, 55 minutes-a five-hour improvement over the old four-wheel record. Accordingly, the 12-hour, 36-minute time of the Husqvarna piloted by Billy Silverthorn and Gene Fetty just wasn’t good enough for an overall win, although it won the bike class.

Of the pair of winners, Silverthorn encountered the only difficulty when he had to stop to fix a wiring problem and lost about half an hour.

Elsewhere in the 500-cc bike class, the BSA Metisse team of Bob Ewing and Preston Petty had worse luck. They were leading the race until Ewing hit a coyote in the night and took to the air. Nonetheless they finished 2nd in class with a time of 13 hours flat, closely followed (13 hours, 5 minutes) by the 3rd place team of Malcolm Smith and Whitey Martino (Husqvarna), who fought an obstinate gearbox. Fourth in class went to the Husky-mounted team of J.N. Roberts and Dick Miller (14 hours, 16 minutes); ignition problems had slowed Roberts’ progress. Last year’s winner Doug Douglas (Ducati 350) finished 5th with partner Bill Gregory.

A Yamaha piloted by Armond Caprio and John Kenyon won the 250-cc class in 13 hours, 1 minute. The bike is said to have been entered “right out of the crate.” Bob Welty and Gary Leopold were 2nd in this class on a Bultaco, with a time of 14 hours, 51 minutes.

There was quite a time elapse before the 3rd-place 250 Bultaco came in at 16 hours, 51 minutes. Shared by AÍ Baker and Gene Cannady, the bike had lost its lights at night; Baker pressed on, using a miner’s lamp on his helmet and finally that fell off, too.

Fourth 250 spot went to AMA professional Experts Dusty Coppage and Keith Mashburn, riding the distance on a Yamaha in 17 hours, 39 minutes. Eddie Day and Jeff Heineger, sharing a Triumph 250 Trophy, finished in 23 hours, 17 minutes.

Some of the top “shoes” didn’t showup at the finish. Among these: Larry Berquist, who made a half mile before his Kawasaki seized; Mike Patrick, whose Yamaha gave up the ghost with a broken gearbox; and Bob Ferro, who blew the clutch on his Triumph 650 only 30 miles out, and returned to commence the voyage all over again—in the padded four-wheeled comfort of a VW-engined Wampus-Kitty ... [Oj