ISDE-GRANADA SPAIN: IMPOUND DAY

Dirt Bike Magazine’s editor, Ron Lawson made the trip to Spain to race in the ISDE in Granada. He will be updating you daily on how things are going. Check back here to get the latest from Spain

‘Saturday was impound day for the six day event in Granada, Spain. Randy Hawkins(on the U.S. trophy team) had a nightmare day. His bike was a YZ426 which falls into no-man?s land, according to the rules. There is a under 250cc class, a 251cc to 400cc class and an over 500cc class for 4-strokes. So, Randy?s bike was illegal–too big for one class and too small for the other. He actually went back to the American work area and installed a WR400 motor in his frame in about two hours of time. Then, as if things weren’t going bad enough, he had trouble with the sound test! Paul Krause also had a terrible time getting his Yamaha WR400 through sound. I passed through tech inspection with no trouble on my Italian-made TM 125. They wanted to see a street registration from the U.S. and just didn?t understand that the bike isn?t street legal in America. Eventually we showed them documents that satisfied them. The race will cover about 150 miles a day that consists of some pavement, some dirt road and a lot of trail. America has 39 riders in all. Our best 6 are on the Trophy Team and out of them the youngest 4 are on the Junior World team. The rest are on three man club teams. My team is the Merced Dirt Riders, so named because that club donated the proceeds from a race to help finacne the effort. I will send you more news after the leg today.’