Posts
941
Joined
8/19/2006
Location
CA
US
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 1:18am
Since there is always so much talk about how rough tracks are, were or should be, I though I would share this pic some one gave me in a special book from Sears Point Trans-Am. I think the year is '77.
(Look at the natural terrain and the 2-smoke exhaust from throttle "blips" as Lackey, Hannah, (I think Stackable or Magoo) navigate the "wine country".
Just cool to me.
(Look at the natural terrain and the 2-smoke exhaust from throttle "blips" as Lackey, Hannah, (I think Stackable or Magoo) navigate the "wine country".
Just cool to me.
The Shop
FTE has the cool pics, no doubt about that.
I walked the Unadilla track with DeCoster last August on the day before the race and he told me he really liked and understood the changes brought on by 40 years of racing. Everything changes.... Except gravity. If you don't build jumps, they would literally be going too fast. Funny thing: Screw-U and Gravity Cavity at Unadilla are the same steepness and pitch as they ever were, just with less rocks and new dirt (the old dirt erodes over time).
But if we had natural terrain like this, I would really push to include it at the nationals.
DC
MX Sports
If the opportunity for a natural track ever presents itself, like my dad did back at the old Brownsville golf course in 1980, I am there!
DC
MX Sports
Pit Row
DC
MX Sports
https://youtu.be/pDXxkBBTzK8
Got to ride that section the week after; Sears used to be open for recreational riding then, and once the race was over the fences came down and it was all open. Quite a blast in the fall/winter/spring. The thing about those Sears tracks is that there was very little rhythm to them. Timing one section perfectly would screw you up for the next one. One definitely went faster going slower through this section; it definitely did not reward going balls out. That said, on this same track in a different place with a similar flow, Barnett absolutely hucked past the second step down into the bottom ravine in the pic below (from where the person in the red jacket is at the top right to the gulley Smith is coming out of), and it was jaw dropping. It was during practice, and I never saw him or another rider try it again that day.
DC
MX Sports
We got to race a Golden State series in Avenal in the '80's due to the Huron track being flooded...on a hillside...jus' some sno-fence on a hillside......it took me right back the this very race, mentally, at Sears.
If I'm remembering correctly...Honda was messin' around with 2 or 3 VERY different chassis set-ups between the different classes and the "Big" front wheel was seen in the pits (Even tho I think it wasn't 'yil '79 that we saw that monster on a production bike).
Wasn't Wardy on a 125 that day?
For those interested...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWc097PykUc
Dick Mann laid the track out, I believe.
It makes me nostalgic; I snuck into the infield and acted like I belonged, leveraging my Hi Point pit pass cover from Hangtown and the USGP earlier in the year when I wrenched for a friend at those races.
What I am not nostalgic about is trying to get out of Sears. You'd think with it being a road course and immediately adjacent to two main highways it wouldn't be so, but the ingrained anarchists that are moto fans made it a nightmare. It took three hours to get out the gate one year (78 I think). Well worth it for the quality of moto, though. Their set up is much better these days.
Post a reply to: Bad ass Sears Point Pic 1977