Mickey Thompson's R.V. Spectacular

MICKEY THOMPSON'S R.V. SPECTACULAR

MISADVENTURES IN THE RIVERSIDE INFIELD

STEVEN PARKER

FEW EVENTS in the history of off-road racing have gotten the publicity and accolades that Mickey Thompson’s R.V. Spectacular at Riverside International Raceway, Riverside, Calif., received.

Thompson wanted to stage an event that would finally allow the general public to see what off-road racing is all about. He feels off-road events are the most exciting race meets in the world, and the public should be allowed to witness these masters of desert racing at work. The idea of staging the race on a closed course was a novel one, and it took a man like Thompson to conceive plan it, promote it and make it pay -

Tbe idea came to Thompson as he his private plane over the Mint 400 m Las Vegas. Sidelined with a injury, he decided for once lie was going to play spectator and take an overall look at the competition. The action thrilled him. The story says that he almost crashed the plane more than once, so entranced was he with what was taking place below. Hy had run in enough of the races himself to know it WÇÎJ fan tó wátch one oLthei finish, but he wanted to make it possible.

His first effort was to get the top racers to come to the event. Thompson immediately put up a guaranteed purse of $50,000. Then he went to his numerous friends in the racing and travel industry, selling the idea of closed course off-road racing. They might have said “You’re crazy” to someone else, but not to Thompson. When it was all over, he had promoted over $160,000 in contingency monies from various companies. He got the Delco Corporation to co-sponsor the entire weekend, and every major manufacturer of off-road and pleasure equipment was eager to jump on the band wagon.

The money was there to be had. Thompson now had to find a place to stage the race. He chose Riverside International Raceway, an old plant off Route 91 near the Southern California desert. The place was like the Sahara with a fence around it, sort of a do-it-yourself desert race track—obviously the perfect, if not the most fortable, place to stage the event, iverside Raceway it was, and entries the lop drivers around the country to come in. Then, another idea k Thompson. Why not include rcycles in the general racing picture? In fact, why not let the bikes and the cars race together on the same course, thus finding out once and for all who was faster in the desert?

“Who Rules?” That became the title of the event, unofficially. Every newspaper you opened, every time the radio was turned on, those were the words that jumped off the page or out of the speaker right at you. The Mickey Thompson race was going to decide it, and the tensions between the car drivers and the bike riders would build to a fever pitch before the event. Every entrant would be trying his darndest to win and prove the point that whatever he was riding or driving was faster than the other form of transportation, and -that he and his cronies were better than the folks who went about on the other type of wheels. It was certainly shaping up to be a real race to end all races. Or at *least that was the way it seemed the month before the actual event.

Mickey had another brainstorm. Make the thing the final word in Recreational Vehicle owner entertainment. In fact, make it an R.V. Spectacular! Have all the major companies out there in the infield showing off all of their new products, and let the folks camp for the entire weekend in the heat and dust of Riverside Raceway. It was quite an idea, one that would eventually prove to the saving grace of the whole affair. ™

The R.V, owners of Southern California had the ultimate to look forward to. Not only could they camp with a bunch of their peers in a raceway infield for an entire weekend, they also were going to be entertained, for free! And if that wasn’t enough, they were going to get to watch a first of its kind race, with the toughest riders in the country in head-to-head competition on an offroad course.

The entry list was promising. Team Husqvarna was going to be there, so was Team Kawasaki. There were going to be plenty of Sandmasters, Baja Bugs and Ford Broncos prepared for racing by desert master Bill Stroppe.

The names were legendary. Rolf Tibblin, winner of world motocross titles in the 250cc and the 50ûcc class. Tibblin had laid out the track in the Lc£ Angeles Coliseum for the Superbowl Motocross a few months back, and had been contracted by Thompson to do the same out at Riverside. Tibblin is one of the world’s most respected riders, and everyone was eager to see how Ke would do against the younger competition. He and his partner, Mickey Quade, had performed admirably in the desert for the past year, but for the first time an auden~wc~14 be wat&i~

Pa~iellj Jones, winner of more raoes~ than most people have ever heard of~ )fleS~~~~rn to be of th~ ughest in~, the world,. and his tafr~ r~i~g whole l~gion~ frndtói~ cycles off c~fTh in are

7 w~1 was one of the prime behind the~ event; Thonp~o~~t s~h~.a charge watchthg.hirn frpn~ th~ r urf~~ the Mint 40(1 t1i~t !ie *a4d public t~: see ie~u~y in action, ic•~

Tfië~ there was th~ •tth~ç, i*~eif. It sounded greai w~e~ you read about it.

It was 7.5 ru~iong. and 75 percent of. it was said to hc sihJe,troin the main g~n~stands. You could sit in the siands, -or on top of yow Winnebago. sip ret reshmen s arid va I h these maniacs go dl..i~

First R 1)OrIs trcnfl the front h `~ evet, proved' dishearlening. About f~r~ days before the race. a sinat! story. in i~ie Los i~ngeles unes seated that'the bikcs~" wouldn't nm a~ the s;inie 1,irne with th& cars. Why9 `I hompson felt it was going to he too Oi~ wondcred whether all ihc'se~ ba;a ni., ror stories were true, and if Mickey d~'i: want the public to find ou about 1 heni at his race, on his track. After the event, was ovei , though, one saw not hC~ reasofl ir not letting t hem run together, a reason that in:~y have figurcd Ltr~e1v in the dci. i~ion. l'he c~r:~ IJ~L1 n'i `sta'ñd' a ehauce. time wise. •3g:~inst the bikes. The fin~I~' figures showed that the hikes ave~~igc&l cIo~e~' to I 2 in tIes per . f~isi~:t than the 4-wI~.eeled vehicles. Maybe Mickey inst didn't want to be embarrassed at au event that had his name on the frcnit nai!e ot the nrn~ram

Saturddy o~e d~y before tZ~ final ` races, c~rot~gbt~two i des ot woe from I~rer~izIe VkS1~ Roif T~b~1ft~ bad got~t~ motor~le in a i~i$~ and tI~d : bmken hIs foot d~$~kfe~ Th~. s~c~4. •pi~çif though, wa~:~a ra1tI~ ishec1E~?ig di~

fliueui jbhes bad been álted by, Mickè~~Thompson t9 !eave~ the &e. ft setnt that Parneib, ccordm4ço sømç~ sources~ had taken group: of fèieridSL out fbr S tour t4 the course in k~ van..4S4~ 1 nce. ether stOries S~da. that Jonqs w~ racing9n~~s$s ker wasn't enterej in, Either' `wSy; Thoin~4son didn,'t.;, like it and Wrote Par~neW a check, covering his entrance fee ax4~told him not to bother coming back the next day for the finals.

Here they were, the two biggest~ names at the race, being sidelined for two very different reasons. Either way, they were not going to race in the final events, and the public knew about it through Saturday's papers. Whether or not this hurt Sunday's crowd is not known, but the close to 15,000 who came through the gate for the final day seemed to please Thompson. There is no way of telling, though, how many more would have come if Jones and Tibblin had raced.

Another bit of news escaped to the public on Saturday. The course was shortened to 6.6 from 7.5 miles. Thompson felt that the fans were seeing too small a portion of the track and the action, and he wanted to let them see as much as was possible. This made one feel that if Mickey was making such a drastic move in the middle of a racing weekend, something must be rotten at Riverside.

Tibblin and Jones were gone. The track was altered. The final day of racing would be a tough one, as the drivers and riders tried to acclimate themselves to a new track. One bike racer, Bruce Baron, had placed 2nd in Saturday’s racing and was destined to do miserably on Sunday when the big money was up for grabs.

Sunday dawned in that kind of gray half-smog half-heat that has made Riverside the place not to go when in Southern California. The weekend had been a grand one so far, that is, if you were into the square dances and cook outs and mobile home displays. The infield was full of motorhomes, everything from VW buses to palatial GMC monsters with bay windows. Spectators had sat through the Saturday heats and practices and sportsman events, and now were all set to witness the big events.

The crowd had no real electricity, though, unlike a Carlsbad or a Hopetown or even a Saddleback. These folks were here hanging out their laundry and throwing away their beer cans just like they usually do on weekends. The only difference this time out was that they were also going to get to watch a race.

The first professional event of the day was the motorcycles. This turned out to be the sideshow for the entire circus-like weekend. The race was run on the same track as the cars, over the asphalt in places and the dirt in others. Some of the riders seemed to have trouble getting over the asphalt without getting jittery on their mounts. One veteran observer, also sidelined with a broken foot as Tibblin was, commented that the riders weren’t really trying at all; that if they wanted they could have gone at least 20 miles per hour faster because he had done it himself on the same course. Another strange thing happened in the bike competition. A rider fell right in front of the starter’s area, on the asphalt, and could not get up. Where he was situated made it hard for riders coming onto the asphalt from a previous jump to see him and his machine lying on the ground. No one came to this racer’s aid, and no one brought out a yellow flag to warn the other riders that might have hit him. He lay on the track, then got up and attempted to remove the machine, in traffic, by himself. It took about 45 seconds before his pit crew was able to rush out and help him. All this, 10 yards from the starter.

Bill Silverthorn, on a 350 Honda four-stroke, led the race from the third until the ninth lap. Then, AÍ Baker, factory Kawasaki rider on a 250, took the lead and held it until the checkered flag came down on lap number 11. This was unfortunate, because the race was scheduled to run only eight laps, in which case Silverthorn would have been the runaway winner. The Silverthorn crew protested, and it wasn’t decided ^ the track who had taken the win.

When questioned, the scoring officials gave a rather strange reason for allowing the race to run over its scheduled lap limit. It seems that when Thompson shortened the track, he also shortened the lap time. They never took this into consideration, and the folks had been promised a 1-hour race, and well, they said, one thing just led to another, and you know how these things are. It doesn’t seem fair that these guys had to risk their necks for three extra laps just to satisfy some time requirement.

The cars were next up on the line. Over 100 of them, and the only possible way to keep track of who was who was over the p.a. system. Announcer Larry Huffman made even the dullest part of the day seem exciting, and Thompson would do well in keeping him on the ai^ more next year.

Dune buggies, Sandmasters, Broncos, pickups and even a 1958 Edsel that won its class. The action was good, but that 75 percent of the course that was visible as advertised turned out to be not more than a dust cloud. The leader passed about once every ten minutes, and the 20 laps dragged into almost two and a half hours of racing.

A 21 -year-old from Bakersfield named Ken Mears won the competition and walked away with close to $11,000. The crowd then faded back onto the freeway, and winners were told they would be notified by mail as soon as Thompson’s crew figured out who won.

Mickey Thompson couldn’t be reached the day after the race for comment. His first of a kind was just that, and with a lot of improvement ik could become one of the most spectacu" lar events in a year’s racing. lo

RESULTS

SPORTSMAN CLASS 125cc

1. Ron Hendricksen................ Pen

2. Jack Boles .....................Mnk

3. Bill Fuentes ................... Yam

SPORTSMAN CLASS 250cc

1. J. & C. Browning ................Mon

2. Rick Owen ................... Yam

3. Gary Hymes .......................

SPORTSMAN CLASS 250-UNL TD.

1. Tim Davison ................... c-Z

2. Bill Eisele .................... Yam

3. Lee LaGorio .................. Yam

PROFESSIONAL 250cc & UNDER

1. A. Baker, B. Farnsworth ..........Kaw

2. Jim Fishback ................... c-Z

3. Cordis Brooks .................. Bui

4. B. Baron, M. Malone ............ Yam

5. T. Taki, M. Gibson ..............Mon

PROFESSIONAL 250cc & OVER

1. B. Silverthorn, G. Fetty...........Horn

2. R. Tibblin, N. Nillsson............ Hus'

3. Tom Smith ................... Yam

4. Mickey Quade .................. Hus

5. Jack Knebel.................... Bul