I spent this weekend north of Sacramento CA at the 3rd annual CZ World Championships vintage MX event.
My friend Jim insisted on driving 460 miles from Los Angeles to bring his 1973 380cc CZ to sponsor me (he can't ride at this time due to a blown-out knee) so how could I turn down a deal like that?
There were a number of notable individuals at the event. Factory riders Jiri Stodulka and Miroslav Hanacek came over from Europe, the "grand marshal" was Larry Huffman (the voice of AMA pro racing for decades) and he also did the announcing, and US racers and tuners with a CZ connection were Rex Staten and his tuner Harry Klemm, John DeSoto, Donnie Cantaloupi, and 2X World Champion Brad Lackey. There were no doubt others but those are the big names. There were also a group of enthusiast riders from Ireland, and others from England, France and Italy who had come over to race.
There was a presentation on Saturday morning of the celebrities and a line-up of all the CZs in attendance. I think there was probably an easy 100 of them, 10 or so twin pipers, a row of side pipers, and then a couple of rows of the later yellow tank/coffin tank bikes. There was one Jawa ISDT bike and a couple of early 60s Jawa twin-pipe Mxers.
And the big thing is that almost all of the MX bikes were being raced that weekend.
I saw the Czechs out on twin pipers but they probably also rode some later bikes in the "pro challenge" races.
The track was on some river bottom land under a freeway overpass and was a nice mixture of sand/clay and it stayed in very good shape all weekend. It got a little dusty Sunday afternoon and the bumps were showing up (including some square-edge potholes that I seemed to usually manage to hit) but all in all it was a fun 2nd and 3rd gear on an open bike (with Novice rider) track with big berms on the outside of all the corners. There was about a minute's worth of track off the start gate that then dumped into the main track, and that section wasn't used after the start.
The weather was very pleasant, mid 60Fs with minimal wind until during the awards ceremony when a big thunderstorm blew in and canopies were going everywhere in the midst of a dust storm. I left the track right after that hit and the next 15 minutes on the highway were a torrential downpour with high crosswinds and my Mazda kept flashing the "skid" warning light as it was aquaplaning even at 50mph.
There were 24 grids/races and the program ran twice. I think I heard over 250 entries for the day.
A nice thing before the awards was they asked for a show of hands of people who were sponsored that day, and had all of us come up front. Then they asked the sponsors to come forward and stand on the other side of the trophies. The riders were each given a cool "Czech Motor Pool" t-shirt and asked to go over and hand it to the sponsors as a thank-you from the organizers for them putting bikes and riders on the track. So Jim now has a limited-edition shirt to add to his collection.
cheers,
Michael
