So quiet is the Mojave at dawn, that it could be a deprivation chamber instead of a desert. The cool air is hauntingly still, and smells and tastes blissfully pure. Benevolent streaks of sunlight dart over the barren horizon, kissing your cheeks softly with the promise of a long, pleasant day.
The earth beneath is solid and secure, a bedrock of stability and assurance. And there is zero sound, truly none. At least, for the moment. Because, on just such a morning some 50 years ago, this welcoming, tranquil, Zen-like atmosphere was merely the calm before a loud and chaotic storm.
September 10, 1972. Just a year after seeing the wild desert-race start in On Any Sunday, entering the California Racing Club (CRC) European Scrambles in Adelanto, Califorinia, seemed like a logical next step for this young dirt rider. But as only a teenager, just one small ant on the 1/4-mile-wide lineup of racers, I couldn’t really be sure. I would soon find out.
On the line, all bikes were silent, as such hare-and-hound events required a “dead-engine” start. Fidgeting with fuel petcocks and gloves, helmets and goggles while waiting, riders focused on the smoldering black signal fire — essentially a giant “smoke bomb” created with a stack of burning tires, gasoline and a match — twirling into the powder-blue sky in the distance. The purpose of this acrid, dancing Satan wasn’t nefarious; it was to show where to go. In a field of some 200 rushing bikes, the dark plume was essential.
Excited but unprepared
I was uncoordinated using my 1971 Ossa Pioneer’s left-side kickstarter when astride the bike, and anyway, the engine was sensitive to flooding due to its oddball twin-needle side-float IRZ carburetor — a Spanish version of the 1954 Amal Monobloc. So, while awaiting the start, I had little confidence that it would even fire. This added to my pre-race angst, as did the eerie silence enveloping the starting area. My mind was fully alert, my muscles tensed, my heart pounding. In contrast, to my left sat a veteran racer; perhaps 10 or 15 years older, he rested calmly on his machine like a battle-hardened Comanche warrior. When I’d admitted my novice status to him while lining up, he said, “Just follow me.”
The 250cc and Open race for beginners, the second of four events that day, was 45 minutes long and covered several loops of a natural-terrain course crammed with sand and rocks, hills and ravines, chaos and creosote. Unconvinced of my ability to follow a seasoned rider on a real racing machine, and with no inkling of what was to come, I waited obediently, and yet fully unprepared.
Oddly, the moment reminded me of high school, from which I’d recently graduated, sitting for a trigonometry or French test I hadn’t prepared for and didn’t understand. The thought was: Surely everyone else knows what they’re doing, and surely, I don’t. This was technically true since I’d never been in a motorcycle race before. Precisely no launch strategy, riding techniques or race tactics came to mind. I’d conducted no practice starts, no kickstart training using my left foot, no gearing or fork oil changes — nothing.
Earlier in the year, I’d bought the Ossa used out of the want ads with $750 in gas-jockey earnings simply because I liked the look of a Pioneer that a classmate had. It seemed wildly exotic to me. The sexy orange and black fiberglass bodywork included a boattail rear fender that doubled as tool storage, the big black expansion chamber had an industrial-looking heat shield and a removable “chrome pickle” silencer, and the knobbies were huge compared to my previous Honda Scrambler 90’s little tires. Further credentials included a 244cc 2-stroke engine, double-cradle frame, aluminum skid plate, and real suspension instead of pogo-sticks filled with fish oil. (Well, at least the Betor fork was good; the shocks were awful.) Unlike its Stiletto racing cousin, the Ossa Pioneer was a street-legal enduro bike. As such, in lieu of a real racing number plate, a paper pie-plate, with the number 677 inked onto it with a felt-tip marker by a lady at the sign up table, got duct-taped over the headlight.
Frantic first moments
The desert remained at peace until a huge banner, lofted on poles by volunteers standing in the near distance, whipped downward. Almost instantly, the moviegoer’s view of racing turned alarmingly real. “The next bout had all the other self-identified Beginners (250 and Open), the biggest class of the day by visual guess, booting violently at kickstarters when the orange banner dropped,” wrote Cycle News editor John Huetter in his race report later.
By some miracle, the Pioneer started first kick. Surprised and excited, I grabbed the steel clutch lever, stamped down the shift lever, twisted the throttle and reengaged the clutch, which spun up the Ossa’s huge brass flywheel and pushed the bike quickly ahead. Upshifting into second and then third, I was enveloped in a cauldron of commotion unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Screaming bikes and the flailing human forms atop them surrounded me like the calvary — to the left, right, ahead and behind, all funneling from the broad starting line into the narrow apex of the first turn located beyond the smoke bomb. Oh, and that guy to my left, the experienced pro? Never saw him; I think he got left behind because he was motionless when I took off. Maybe he was a pro-level bench racer instead.
In these frantic first moments of my first race, dust occluded everything. Now in fourth gear and while speeding ahead, two crashed bikes suddenly appeared out of the swirling silt, tangled on the ground — their riders nowhere to be seen. Rocks, pucker-bushes and everything else filmmaker Bruce Brown narrated appeared and then flew past as in a pinball game gone wild. He was right; it was like a war, and I found no time to plan, just react. Instinct drove actions and reactions, crucial because every second at speed was filled with potential calamity such as colliding with another bike, hitting an unseen rock or bush, or spearing into a ditch. Blue jeans and work boots, a T-shirt and parka, gardening gloves and a new Bell Star (outrageous at $59.50!), offered only marginal protection in the event of a get-off.
Like running on marbles
As the laps progressed, the course proved reasonably simple to follow and this insecure youth began to discover an innate advantage: Downhills. Near the end of each lap was a steep downhill section populated by thick saltbush, rocks and scrabble, and shallow arroyos formed by the summer rains. Racing down this was like running on marbles. The Ossa’s direction was only generally controllable, and in a weird way, speed helped because with higher velocity, the motorcycle’s steering geometry and its wheels’ gyroscopic effect added stability. Oddly, this was minimally troubling to me, and I was surprised to easily pass some other riders here, while wondering what was so tough about it. Finishing felt like a victory, as did staying on course and completing all laps without suffering a breakdown, crash or injury.
Several weeks later a CRC postcard arrived, announcing that trophies were ready. My racing buddy and I drove his 1964 Oldsmobile across giant Los Angeles — another adventure for teens — to a club member’s home. The event awarded trophies to the top 40% of finishers, so there was a shiny marble, metal and plastic trophy for finishing a lowly 14th in the 250 Beginner class. I never learned how far back I was in the overall ranking, or how many riders I’d somehow managed to beat. But truthfully, that didn’t matter, because I’d learned I could survive a war. MC
Originally published as “The Bomb Run” in the May/June 2023 issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine.
