Messages

Hi Rick,
Yes, John and his sons are still very involved. John was loop 1 captain last year, think he is a loop captain this year as well. He's been back out on the course, and if not winning the MAG class, is finishing near the top consistently.

Goat and his dad hang out with our "vintage" group here on Friday nights. The guy is just a ball of energy, but can't get him back on a bike He's told me that I HAVE to ride Elsinore this year.

The Penda footage was captured off one of those diagonal boxes from 8mm to tape. Let me go back and recapture the tape again, and see how it looks. I bought a new scanner, I might be able to scan some of the better frames. Attached is about as good as they are now.
http://home.mchsi.com/~seasonediron/CMC_73_Carlsbad_001.jpg

Hi Greg,
Bet we've ran into each other at sometime or another. I rode my first Mag event at Lost Coyotes last year.

A Penton is the true desert sled, but like you said, the courses are pretty torn up after years of having to ride the same confined areas over and over. It sure would make the ultimate 100's club bike for pit duties. A couple of the GP's would be fun as well on it. Badgers is just around the corner for me this weekend, going to try and make both days. My hauler is the Talon Zx in the 100's camp.

Forgot to mention in the first post, I have some 8mm film transfered over to tape from 1973. It's about 4 minutes of a CMC event at Carlsbad, with a couple of shots of the infamous FMF Pendas. I'm guessing the riders were the Lunde brothers, but not sure. The quality of the video is very bad, but for sure you can make out the CR 125 engine mounted in the Penton frame. If anyone is interested, and has the room to host the file, I'll compress it down a bit and upload it for all to view.

Mike

I'd like to thank Paul Danik for enabling my registration to the Penton Owners Group site, and at his request here is a start to present bio of sorts.

My name is Michael Grove, 50 years old and reside in Southern California. I'm more of a motocross type than anything else, but did dabble in AMA District 37 desert racing last year attending a total of 43 combined events. Sure was a new experience, and much different than GP or MX racing, even after living the desert for the last 24 years. Started racing motocross in 1969, first racer was a stripped down Ace 100. Dad surprised me one Christmas with a 1972 Penton 125, and rode the heck out of that until 1974. The Penton was replaced with a 1974 250 MAG. The evolution of the machines at that time made it financially difficult to keep up with the latest and greatest and slacked off and on until 1978 when I ran into a deal for two 78 KX 125's at the Oceanside Kawasaki dealer.  By 1980 and 6 years out of high school, racing was just too expensive on a regular basis, and began to replicate parts for racing friends in the machine shop I worked. Married in 1983, son in 1984, divorce in 1988, and became a single parent of my now 24-year-old son. There have always been several motocross bikes of one kind or another in various states lying around the house during my sons early years. In 1989 I saw two almost new 1974 Maicos being trailered into the Palmdale area, and about broke my neck looking back as to whom in their right mind would restore an old motorcycle. It didn't take long to find the vintage hot spot at that period in LACR where CRC and AHRMA put on joint events for a time. I've been an AHRMA member since somewhere around 1988 or 89, my membership number is 78, and racing number 83z. I'm told that membership numbers are up around 5000 now. I've raced with AHRMA off and on since then, the last event (in several years) being Honey Lake MX. My son at the age of 12 bought a 1977 YZ 80 in a box, and with a little help built his own racer after he outgrew his KX 60. We'd always take it too the AHRMA races, but he was never allowed to race up until he turned 16. At 15 he simi restored a 1976 KX 250 and has rode events at Glen Helen, Gorman, Sears Point, Carlsbad and quite a few other AHRMA events in the past. Shame he had to wait so long, but as I wasn't racing new bikes, there wasn't much of a choice back then. In 1998 we discovered "A Day In The Dirt" which was an annual event held at LACR for a few years. We had just purchased a pair of 1999 CR's and set out to do some racing. That was also the time I returned to vintage racing, riding a 1974 KX 450 my first event there. Jumping over the next several years of both vintage and modern motocross racing, we put a lot of miles on the highway together. In 2004 the Viewfinders MC were granted a multi year contract to run a District 37 Grand Prix event in our home town, and have pretty much since been riding with the District since in motocross, desert and grand prix. Knee surgery this past December, and shoulder surgery in January has limited my racing so far this year to only one district enduro on my 2003 KTM SX 200.My racing plans for the future are to attend non-political events where the bench racing is as fierce and fun as the racing itself. I'm currently thinking about returning to vintage next year, at least for as long as my knees hold out. Over the bars at 70mph in the desert is as bad as it looks in the movies, and at my age would rather add a few years to the end of my racing career with a little more cautious racing than building an ego that has long since been driven into a berm.


I am also a proud member of the AMA District 37 desert racing club, 100's MC.

Anyway, that's probably more than most want to know, but it about sums it all up. For the most part I have vintage Kawasaki's from 1974 to Evo 1985's, a coupe of Team Green KX 500's, 05 CRF 450, 03 KX 250, but what brought me to this site (had it booked marked for quite a while) is the 1972 Penton 100 Berkshire I have.

My goal is to do a simi-full restoration and turn the red tank Penton into a flag ship/club bike for the 100s MC. I can manage the mechanical, blasting, plating, wheel lacing and remanufacture of necessary odds and ends, but I don't paint or do seat covers (couldn't even install one) without blowing a gasket.

I'd appreciate the recommendation of a craftsman that can restore the red fiberglass tank (very good condition), including custom 100s MC logo, side panels, leather and rebuild the seat, with foam. I did a quick search through the archives and didn't come up with anything, sorry if I missed a thread somewhere. I will check back here, or can be contacted at seasonediron-AT-mchsi-DOTT-com.

See you at the track,
Mike