Continental Report
CONTINENTAL REPORT
B. R. NICHOLLS
BACK IN BUSINESS AGAIN are the road race aces and the stars of international moto-cross as once more the crackle of open exhausts blows away the cobwebs of winter and the new season starts. The 250cc moto-cross world championship is already two meetings old and bang into the lead on points goes last year’s champion Torsten Hallman, riding his Husqvarna.
Perhaps at this stage is would be well to point out that a championship meeting is usually decided over two races. The rider gets points in ascending numbers, i.e., one for first man home, two for second, etc. Thus the rider with the least points is the winner, ties being decided by the time factor. The winner of the meeting gets eight points in the championship table, second man six, third man four, down to one for the sixth man. To decide the championship in 1963 a rider’s best eight performances out of the fourteen meetings will count.
The first meeting was the Spanish round and although both Dave Bickers and Torsten Hallman won a race, it was Dave who came out tops on the time factor. Surprise of the meeting was Maico-mounted Christoph Specht of West Germany, who finished third overall. A week later the Italian round took place and in the opening stages of the first race disaster overtook Bickers when his chain came off, locking the back wheel. Thrown from the machine, Dave sustained a badly sprained wrist which put him out of the running.
Hallman went on to win both races despite every attempt to dislodge the leader by Alan Clough, the other Greeves works man at the meeting. Alan finished second overall whilst third was the 1957 champion Fritz Betzelbacher (Maico). Showing consistency was Sweden’s Jan Johansson who brought his Lindstrom machine into fourth place, the same spot that he had in the Spanish meeting. Bickers has two weeks to recover from his injury before the next round, whilst Hallman has taken a clear lead in the table but early leaders in this competition have often found themselves pipped on the post by a rider having a good run at the end of the season.
250cc Moto Cross World Championship
after two meetings:
T. Hallman, Husqvarna ........ 14 points
D. Bickers, Greeves ................ 8 points
A. Clough, Greeves ................ 6 points
J. Johansson. Lindstrom ........ 6 points
C. Specht, Maico .................... 4 points
F. Betzelbacher, Maico .......... 4 points
The 500cc class does not get underway until April 21st, the same day as the fourth round of the 250 class. The bigger class is decided on the same points basis as the smaller capacity but the champion is the best performer in seven out of thirteen meetings.
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Road racing pushed off to a good start at Modena where Ramon Torras on a Bultaco shattered everyone and took the race record to win the 125cc race from Franco Villa, who set the record lap on a Mondial. In the 250 event Tarouinio Provini took the single-cylinder Morini to victory with lap and race records, followed by Grassetti on a four-cylinder Benelli, with Redman gaining third place as he did in the 125 race, Honda-mounted for both events.
Mike Hailwood won the 500 event from his teammate Silvio Grassetti. Third was last year’s M.V. runner Remo Venturi, mounted for 1963 on the 350 Bianchi twin. Mike set lap and race records in this, his first 1963 outing, and to ensure race fitness will ride machines other than M.V. during the season. In fact he will at times ride the John Surtees Ducatis in 250 and 350 classes, the first outing on the 250 having resulted in victory at Mallory Park which held the first big meeting of the English season.
A week earlier at Oulton Park there was a “racing for the sport” meeting where no cash prizes are given; star of the day was Tom Phillips of whom we may well hear more this season. He had one of the first Greeves production racers and won two races with it. The same machine and rider had a sterner test a week later at the Mallory meeting where they finished second in a heat but failed to get motoring in the final. Also riding a 250cc production racer was Derek Minter
on the works Cotton, who really got motoring to take second spot behind Hailwood in the final. It was Minter’s day, though, for he put up fastest 250cc lap and won the 350 and 500 finals whilst a young Irish rider, nineteen-year-old Ralph Bryans, won the 125 race on a production Honda racer which was miles an hour faster than anything else in its class. Bryans was an impressive downfield runner last year in the Ulster Grand Prix.
Prominent among the Mallory placemen were Mike Duff, second in the 350 final on his A.J.S., followed in third place by Chris Conn, who flew the following day to Singapore to ride in the Malaysia Grand Prix meeting where he put up the record lap last year. I shall he surprised if no Japanese factory gives him a mount for the 250 race.
However the big news on the road racing front is that of a 250cc liquid cooled four-cylinder two-stroke Suzuki which should make its first appearance at the French Grand Prix and then at the Isle of Man for the T.T. Details are sparse at the moment hut basically it could be two 125 twins side by-side. It looks like a vintage year for noise what with this new device. Honda, Güera and M.V. fours and the chance of a three-cylinder D.K.W. appearing in the hands of Austrian ace Rudi Thalhammer. Not heard since 1956, the D.K.W. was put into a motor cycle frame and raced by the works to develop the engine for a car!
Great Britain has won the European Trials Team Championship — a win that was as inevitable as night following day. It was ensured during the British round of the championship held during the Traders trial which like the Kickham a week previously was a Miller victory. Langston won the sidecar class of the first event whilst Ken Kendall on a Metisse won the second. Then in the final trial of the winter season we had two surprise victors which help to make the game the fun it is.
In the Dutch round of the European Team Championship Claude Vanstenagen on a Greeves was the winner, leading the Belgian team to victory over Holland with no British riders competing. Looks like Royal Enfield are going to hit the competition road again. Tes Davenport, a regular T.T. competitor in the early 1930's and winner of the 1932 250 race on a New Imperial, has recently been appointed managing director. He is keenlv sport minded and a re-kindled interest in scrambling is likely with an outside chance of something in the road race line. In this field it will he interesting to see if any Enfields challenge the production racers this year. •
