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RACE OF THE AMERICAS MOTOCROSS IN GUATEMALA breaks through in patches. Those worry about. Is Saturday anything Turn Left At The clouds are not all that high above your special?" Third Volcano. helmeted head. This isn't sea level, “No, more or less. What's the deal buster. Not by a long shot. You're here, O'Neal?" You Can’t Miss It. sitting on a bright yellow RM250 ' 'Here's the picture. It's obvious that Suzuki at 6,800 feet in the middle of your schedule is more or less clear for By Rick Sieman Guatemala. The mind reels a bit and the next six days. I mean, there's With Special Thanks to Kurt Muller another look at that smoking volcano nothing worldshaking going on. So and Luis Canella off to the left doesn't help. what I've done is arranged for us to go You sit on the starting line waiting for This is definitely not Indian Dunes. race in Florencia Park. Whaddaya say?" the start of your race and you have a V V V “Sounds good to me. Let's go for it. few minutes to look around. To your The phone rings in the well lit and That's the new race track up near left is a massive volcano, with smoke tastefully decorated Dirt Bike offices. Fresno, right?" lazily curling from its snout. Straight It's Jim O'Neal. “You doin' anything “Ahhh, not exactly. It's more to the ahead is a range of angular, crusty Thursday or Friday?" South. About three thousand miles mountains. To the right, more volca­ “No. Nothing that can't wait. You further, to be exact. Oh yeh, I already nos. But these are sleepy, peaceful want to go riding up at Frazier Park or told them you were coming, so that ones. Dormant. something?" might help you make up your mind. Your eyes wander down the starting “Not exactly. Hey, you know there's Also, I got us a plane ticket. Is your line, all green and grassy ... a lot like no District race this weekend, right? So passport up to date and ..." the grounds at any well-kept park in that leaves Sunday clear." ^ V V the world. At the edge of the grass you “Well, I should clean out the garage. Customs at the Guatemala City see dense woods. No, not woods . I think something died in there about a airport was like customs places all over actually jungle. Just like the stuff you month ago. What do you have in mind the world. Some guy eyes you suspi­ see in the old Tarzan movies. Huge . exactly?" ciously and fondles your bags and cypress trees mingle with a bizarre type “First let me ask you this . can clothes. We bribe him with a few of evergreen that nearly defies descrip­ you get free for a long lunch on Monday T-shirts, discreetly, and he dispenses tion. or Tuesday?" with the formalities. O'Neal offers him Overhead, huge black clouds mix “Sure. No sweat." a copy of Motocross Action and the with fluffy white puff balls. Sunshine “OK. That leaves only Saturday to customs man considers this an insult. I 38 DIRT BIKE/NOVEMBER 1980 offer him an autographed "From the I sold about 21 new YZs this year. The a fondness for the yellow fliers. Saddle" glossy photo and he considers 125s. On the 250 YZs, only about a A medium sized, slim person, Kurt is this a threat. We narrowly escape with dozen. Most of the bikes we sell are the a ball of energy. He tries to walk in our stickers and riding gear. 125 and 175 DT dual purpose models. three different directions at the same V V V Probably the single most popular bike time, while yelling "No problem" and Luis Canella blasts his huge Chevy in all of Guatemala is the DTI75. They waving his hands at full speed. Kurt's van through the streets of Guatemala don't break and they run forever." A wife says, ' 'I wish I could find a way to City. Heavy metal rock music rips out rider on a TT500 roars by the van, plug our television set into that guy. of a massive pair of Pioneer speakers. pulling a beautiful wheelie in the We could sure save on the electricity." Luis dials in a bit more bass and deftly process. He waves at Luis and Luis The track is long and a bit narrow for slips between a 60 Dodge and a waves back. racing, but absolutely perfect for prac­ Mercedes Benz taxi. He frowns, "My V V V ticing and riding. The ground is tacky horn is broken. Man, I just can't drive The practice track for Kurt Muller is and moist without a hint of dust. A without a horn in this place. You gotta only a few minutes from the city. dense forest surrounds the track. It's a let people know when you're coming When we arrive there, a handful of truly beautiful place and we tell Kurt through." riders are putting in some laps. One of this. "This place is nothing compared O'Neal and I lounge back in the the riders is on a full-blown Mugen to Florencia," he says with wide eyes. recliner seats and take in the scenery. water-pumper 125 . and he's "Ahhh, Florencia. You'll see. You'll ' The van would be at home in any smoking it. Jamming it into turns and see!" I custom car show in the States. "I did snapping cleanly out. He's Nelson V V V the interior myself," says Luis. "It Rivero from Venezuela and he could "iTres cervesas mas, por favor!" took a lot of time, but I wanted it done dice it out at any track in the world Three more beers, please. We improved right." with the local pros, it appears. our Spanish quickly. The local suds is Paneling, fuzzy carpeting, huge A bit later, we see Kurt ride up on an Gallo (pronounced Guy-O) and it's tinted side windows . the works. We obviously brand new RM250. This great. There's a drawing of a rooster's wonder what it cost him, but don't seems a bit strange to us, as Kurt is the head on the can and we spend a lot of ask. Luis is the Yamaha distributor for owner of Guatemotos, a Honda shop time "biting the head off the chicken." the entire country and he sells about in the "bike" part of the city. We find Regular geeks, us. three thousand bikes a year. "We don't out later that Kurt spent a great deal of V V V sell too many pure racing bikes. I think time working with Suzuki and still had NOVEMBER 1980/DIRT BIKE 39 needed in the freshly mounted two-ply Metzeler tires. "Just ride it over," replies Luis. "On the street?" "Sure, no problem. Just watch out for cars and don't make too much noise." O'Neal rides the bike cautiously up to the first major intersection and shuts off the engine when he sees a cop. Uh oh, I think. Don't worry Jimmy. I’ll mail you a file. The cop walks up and starts looking at the YZ with obvious curiosity and genuine interest. He asks something in Spanish and O'Neal looks at me ques- tioningly. He can only say, 'Tres cervesas mas, por favor' in Spanish. A few minutes later, we take a picture of the cop sitting on the back of the bike with Jim in the saddle. Both are smiling and there's no hassle. Try that in the States sometime and see what happens. O'Neal buys the Gallo that night. V V V Guatemala City is clean, very clean. Even in the poorer sections of town, you don't see trash and garbage strewn around, as you do in so many big South American cities. Actually, Guatemala is in Central America. Here, the cli­ mate is different from what you might have in mind. The temperature is much like that of Hawaii, with none of the humidity. Normally, you can expect to see 78 degrees be the peak for any given day, The starting line was packed from end to end in each moto. Here, the lOOcc International class gets ready to charge the flag. with a 10 to 15 degree drop in the evening and morning. We were there A lot of time is spent shaping the during the rainy season, which meant GUATEMALA bikes for Florencia. New tires, cleaning that it would probably rain at least "Over here is the service depart­ the filters, tightening nuts and bolts. once during every day. However, the ment," gestures Luis. We walk into a Luis asks me to check his bike out. It's rain never lasted all that long and the huge building loaded with bikes in running rich, so we whip out the sun would come out and dry things off various stages of repair and disrepair. Official DB Jetting Box and put in some quickly. Mechanics are all over the place, doing smaller brass. The bike starts to pull Politically, Guatemala is very close everything from tune-ups to major harder and better. to the United States, even though they rebuilds. Most of the bikes, as Luis We find out that Guatemala City is are continually puzzled why we give tells us, are dual purpose, but a over 4500 feet above sea level.

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