03-11-2020, 12:45 AM
Guth I'm not real sure of the year 75, 76 maybe? It was not a good experience. Cinti Gardens where the event was held, although the 7th largest indoor venue in the nation at the time, was ill prepared for running 2 stroke motorcycles indoors for a full day. Ventilation could not handle the exhaust fumes or smoke. My announcing table was half way up the stands on one side of the stadium. 3 or 4 motos into a day of racing and the 2 stroke haze had settled well below me, and the noise was deafening. Even though I had experience announcing and scoring outdoor motocross, indoors with 20 r more riders per moto, the riders were so bunched up with riders being lapped after a couple of laps you could barely keep track of the leader much less the top 5 or 6, so if the leader went down I wasn't sure who was next in line. It was just a constant parade of riders one following the other for 20 mins plus 2 laps per moto. It was such a disaster they only had the one. They also tried 2 short tracks, but that was the end of motorcycle racing indoors at the gardens.
Call me old school but motocross belongs outdoors. Long wide open tracks, proper turns and jumps, uphills and down hills. I agree about being able to walk around the track and seeing how different riders handle different parts of the course. I have seen Decoster, Weinert, Lackey, Pomeroy, Karmakers, Hartwig, Barnett, DiStefano, Howerton and many more and helped host Karsmakers, Hart, and Hartwig the factory Yamaha riders at the time at our shop before the May 1974 National MX at Gran Am Raceway in Hamersville, Ohio. I was a course marshal on the day of the race. The day before I went to the Yamaha MX school and got racing tips from the Yamaha squad. I remember this one steep down hill left turn, bottom out, go up steep hill turn left at the top where I came up over the first rise rise, kinda coasted down the hill preparing for bottoming out at the bottom, then accelerated up the hill. Karsmakers pulled me aside and said " Downhill is just level on an angle, you've got to give it more gas" lol
Ferret circa 1974
![[Image: b5a31bb1a00125b7575ac8a3608e2ce5.jpg]](https://cb1100forum.net/forum/uploads/imp/202003/b5a31bb1a00125b7575ac8a3608e2ce5.jpg)
Call me old school but motocross belongs outdoors. Long wide open tracks, proper turns and jumps, uphills and down hills. I agree about being able to walk around the track and seeing how different riders handle different parts of the course. I have seen Decoster, Weinert, Lackey, Pomeroy, Karmakers, Hartwig, Barnett, DiStefano, Howerton and many more and helped host Karsmakers, Hart, and Hartwig the factory Yamaha riders at the time at our shop before the May 1974 National MX at Gran Am Raceway in Hamersville, Ohio. I was a course marshal on the day of the race. The day before I went to the Yamaha MX school and got racing tips from the Yamaha squad. I remember this one steep down hill left turn, bottom out, go up steep hill turn left at the top where I came up over the first rise rise, kinda coasted down the hill preparing for bottoming out at the bottom, then accelerated up the hill. Karsmakers pulled me aside and said " Downhill is just level on an angle, you've got to give it more gas" lol
Ferret circa 1974