Nixon Is Number One!
NIXON IS NUMBER ONE!
Triumph's Top Man Keeps His AMA Crown In the Wildest Race of the Season
GARY NIXON’S task was impossible, and everyone knew it. He waited in the pits at Ascot Park, Los Angeles, for the final race in the annual eight-month struggle that decides who carries the AMA’s coveted No. 1 plate. And the odds soared sky high against him. Agent 007 Bond might have turned to sewing after facing this problem.
For 22 rounds of the campaign, reigning AMA champion Nixon and his rivals had trekked the vastness of the North American continent in attempts to gain points. The 26-year-old Triumph factory rider rarely won—the bulldozing pack of Harley-Davidson stars saw to that—but with dogged resistance, he picked up a 2nd here, a 10th there, a 5th place somewhere else along the championship route.
With only the final event on Ascot’s half-mile dirt bowl remaining, Nixon trailed the series leader, H-D’s Freddie Nix, by nine points. Everything seemed set for Nix, against Nixon. The H-D man rides brilliantly on any dirt track; Nixon prefers road racing or the fast mile tracks. Only weeks before, Nix had powered to a scintillating win at Ascot in a warm-up run for the big night; at the same meeting, Nixon couldn’t even make the main. In qualifying for the 8-mile National, Nix had circled Ascot a competitive 7th fastest, in 23.28 sec.; Nixon trailed in 13th best, in 23.58, a time bettered by several amateurs.
The Nixon camp slumped into deeper gloom after the heat races. Nix and Nixon rode in the same heat, and while Nix’ 3rd place transferred him straight to the main, Nixon’s 4th relegated him to the semi. In that 5-lap dash, he eventually qualified for the final. He placed 2nd, after being passed by an aggressive Shorty Seabourne, on a BSA. Nixon’s Triumph teammate, Chuck Palmgren, placed 3rd, protecting his buddy from the menacing thrusts of Phil Todd, also BSA-mounted.
Even before the bikes had lined up for the final, the crowd had mentally dismissed Nixon from his throne. They just knew that no one could stop 2 5-year-old Oklahoman Freddie Nix from becoming the new monarch of American racing, for the first time in his brief professional career. The railbirds’ words were full of pity. “Sure feel sorry for Gary,” they said. Everyone knew the 500-cc ohv Twins of Nixon and Palmgren were conceding a lot of horsepower to H-D’s 750-cc sidevalve VTwins.
For the final, Mel Lacher filled pole position. Riding his Leonard Andrestuned H-D, Lacher has dominated the 1968 Ascot season, and led the track’s point standing. He qualified fastest at 23.12 sec.—an average speed of 77.9 mph—and won the first and fastest expert heat by passing inside Nix. Others in the front row included Mert Lawwill (H-D) and Gene Romero (Triumph), winners of the other expert heats, and the victor of the 1967 Ascot national, Dan Haaby (H-D). Nixon and Nix both were stationed on the second row.
All Freddie Nix had to do to earn the No. 1 plate, was keep ahead of Nixon— an apparently simple task.
But, when the flag fell, it signaled the start of the maddest, wildest, most unpredictable race of the entire 1968 AMA National season. Little Freddie Nix didn’t win, and neither did Nixon. But what Gary did achieve, was to emerge from a barging, jostling pack to claim 4th place...and the AMA championship for the second successive year.
What happened to Nix? Maybe the massive burden gave him big night nerves, for he rode to a disappointing 7th place, unable to pass the two men who separated him from Nixon. Points share gave the Triumph man 26, and the H-D hope 8, sufficient to turn Nixon's nine-point deficiency into a nine-point lead. The final totals give Nixon 622, his rival 613.
The race itself was sensation enough. Gene Romero blasted into an early lead, chased by Lawwill and Chuck Jones, with Nixon 5th and Nix 7th. First Lawwill surged past Romero, and then Jones slid off on turn one, without injury. The mad chase continued, with Lawwill now holding off Lacher, Haaby, and the private battle between Nixon and Nix. Romero recovered from a swift slump downfield, and battled past Nix. Then the astonished crowd saw the favorite for the No. 1 plate deposed by Ascot regular Dewayne Keeter. Hope revived in the Triumph camp, while H-D supporters couldn't understand why Nix didn't charge closer to Nixon. -
While Lawwill's droning H-D contin ued to lead, Keeter brilliantly picked off one rider after another, until he made 3rd place, on Haaby's tail. And all the while, fortunes wavered in the NixNixon struggle. Keeter's progress took Nix one man closer to Nixon, but the Triumph man countered by passing Lacher. The quartet of Nixon-Romero Lacher-Nix swerved and dodged on a variety of lines, in attempts to gain places.
Into the last lap, Keeter swept past the grandstand even with Haaby, while Lacher lunged close to Nixon's rear wheel, and Nix battled elbow to elbow with Romero. In that closing half-mile, Keeter won his battle, scoring 2nd place behind Lawwill after a fabulous ride through the field. And Nixon main tained his 4th place behind Haaby, followed by Lacher, Romero and Nix. When the excitement had quelled, Haaby revealed that he had coura geously ridden most of the race with a throttle jammed wide open. The kill button was his only means of regulating speed. Lawwil's ride gave H-D its first win in the 10-year history of the Ascot National.
Nixon's performance demonstrates the gap that separates champions from runners-up. Not the least of his prob lems was the psychological handicap of knowing the barriers he faced, and of having to beat them on a track he openly dislikes. The AMA could not possibly have a more worthy champion.
pussluly itave a iiiuic WU1L11~ 1iaIL1pILflI. Among his supporters in the grand stand were his pretty wife, Mary, and 94-year-old grandfather! After the race, Gary said of his ride, "I knew I was going to win, blow, or put a hole in the fence."
While he won only two Nationalsthe indoor short track at Houston, Tex., and the half-mile at Columbus, OhioNixon picked up points in all but two of
the season's championship events. In some cases, as at Santa Rose and Santa Fe, he collected as little as one point. But in AMA competition every point counts, unlike the European style world championships in which in a 12-race series, only a rider's best seven perfor mances might count.
In contrast to Nixon, Nix won six Nationals. But he failed to score in four of the title events.
Among the experts eliminated by problems with machinery were Bart Markel, Yvon du Hamel, and Sammy Tanner. Markel's factory H-D failed during his heat, and Tanner, a four-time winner of the Ascot classic, felt his Royal Enfield sour while he was holding 2nd place in another heat. Du Hamel, racing Fred Deeley's 350 Yamaha, found that the bike did not take to the sticky Ascot carpet of clay. Unlike the heavier four-strokes, the bike appeared to have insufficient weight or torque to dig into the track, and Yvon was out paced.
Two of the nation's best Amateurs, Tom Rockwood and Mark Breisford, headed qualifying times in this section, Rockwood setting fastest lap in 23.30 sec. Rockwood (Triumph) won the first heat, from Jim Rice (BSA). Brelsford (H-D) snatched the second, from Don Harms (H-D) and Geezer Emick (BSA). Velocette-mounted Steve Pederson won the final heat from Ted Yoder's Royal Enfield.
In the final, Breisford led the charge into the first turn, but Rockwood was slowed by an inadvertent wheelie. While Brelsford built a safe lead, Rockwood pushed into 2nd place past Pederson and Alex Chinowski (BSA). The race seemed settled, until Brelsford suddenly slowed, and only restarted when he had fiddled with his carburetor. His misfor tune dropped him to 5th in the final results, and handed the win to Rock wood.
