Continental Report
CONTINENTAL REPORT
B.R. NICHOLLS
ULSTER GRAND PRIX
The ninth round of the FIM world road racing championships took place on the familiar 7.4-mile Dundrod circuit, known simply as “the Ulster.” It was important, for three world titles could have been decided, the sidecar, and the 250 and 50cc classes. But at the end of the day only the sidecar had been resolved, with Klaus Enders and Ralf Engelhardt retaining their title on the immaculate red and white outfit prepared by the arch wizard of BMW tuning, Dieter Busch. Their task had been made that much easier when the challenger, Georg Auerbacher (BMW), tangled with another outfit after a slow start on a fast section of the course. From the ensuing crash both pilots and crewmen were taken to the hospital, fortunately without serious injury. But that all happened in the last race.
It had rained most of the previous night and race day dawned dark, damp and dismal with a forecast of worse to come during the day. But there is an incurable optimism about the Irish that has to be rewarded sometimes, so those who were looking up at scudding black clouds at 8:30 a.m. saying, “sure twill be foin,” were delighted but no less amazed than the rest of us when the sun broke through an hour later.
So the first race of the day, six laps for the little Fifties, got away on dry roads with the sun shining and Dutchman Aalt Toersen (Jamathi) racing into the lead. The Spanish Derbi concern, however, had been doing its homework after three defeats on the trot and had found a lot more horses, judging from the way that reigning champion Angelo Nieto powered through to take the lead just as they finished the first lap.
He quickly forged ahead, setting new lap records on the third and fourth laps to win by some 25 sec., ably backed up by his teammate Salvador Canellas, who swooped past Toersen right on the apex of Irelands corner on the last lap to beat him by three-fifths of a second.
Then came what promised to be the scrap of the day between Rod Gould and Kel Carruthers on Yamahas. At stake: the world 250 title, with challenger Gould needing one victory to gain the title and defending champion Carruthers needing to win to keep his chances alive. There were others involved, but somehow they did not seem to come into the picture. They would be the also-rans; maybe next year the title would mean something more personal to them, but right then all attention was focused on Gould and Carruthers.
Away went Gould with teammate Kent Andersson behind him, neatly placed to hold the Aussie at bay. But the Aussie was not to be denied, and he slipped into 2nd spot at the end of the first lap, 7 sec. behind Gould.
Carruthers piled on the pressure, putting in the fastest lap of the race at 101.89 mph before catching Gould four laps later. Having caught him though, he made no attempt to pass, but just sat in his slipstream and played the waiting game. It was obvious that the last lap would produce all the fireworks, with the pressure really on at the hairpin and the last few hundred yards through the difficult quarry bends.
Then, with the tension mounting and the riders on Lap 13, Gould encountered gearbox trouble when his six-speeder would not properly disengage fifth. So that was it for Gould, who limped home into 2nd place almost 40 sec. behind Carruthers, who still has to win the remaining two rounds to take the title.
Behind these two, Andersson had retired and Paul Smart (Yamaha) had to give best to the East German rider Gunter Bartusch who, on the works MZ, gave a brilliant account of himself riding into 3rd spot until his machine spluttered to a halt, and Smart took 3rd.
The 350 race that followed saw Gould holding world champion Giacomo Agostini (MV) at bay for three laps until the Yamaha’s carburetion began playing tricks. Andersson had already retired, but Bartusch was once again really wringing the neck of his MZ to claim a good 2nd place. Following him waged a truly international battle for 3rd being fought out between Irishman Tommy Robb, Dutchman Theo Louwes, Martti Pesonen the Finn and Englishmen Tony Rutter and Cliff Carr, all on Yamahas, plus Alan Barnett really screwing an Aermacchi/EID to stay with them. At the finish it was Robb by a fifth of a second from Rutter, but the others could not stand the pace, and Pesonen took 5th despite a stop for fuel.
By then the -clouds were starting to dominate the weather and the 500cc riders cast anxious looks, wondering whether they were in for a soaking or worse. They suddenly discovered that rain had already fallen at another part of the course, when they rounded a bend at full knock. But all went well. From the flag Ago hurtled the big MZ into the lead and then, as he has so often done in the past, eased up to see who was nearest to him. The New Zealander Ginger Molloy, riding a Kawasaki Three, took advantage of the opportunity to lead the race for a couple of laps, until the Italian cleared off in an attempt to break the lap record and earn himself a bonus from Count Agusta. Thejittempt failed by less than a second. Needless to say Ago won and Molloy took 2nd, even with a gas stop. Cruel luck struck Malcolm Uphill who held 3rd place on a Seeley-framed Suzuki until halfway round the penultimate lap, when it seized and cast him through a hedge; a broken thigh will keep him out for the rest of the season. After a bad start, Jack Findlay rode another Suzuki up into 3rd place just ahead of the versatile veteran Percy Tait. Tait, making a rare appearance on a single-cylinder Seeley, timed his effort perfectly on the last bend of the last lap to snatch back 3rd place by one-fifth of a second. But the writing is on the wall, for there were three two-strokes in the first six and Pesonen took 7th with his over-bored, 354-cc Yamaha.
For the last race of the day the weather broke, but it did not stop Enders. His start-to-finish lead in the race was a perfect demonstration of sidecar racing; a couple of laps in the dry enabled him to set a new lap record at 92.17 mph. Thereafter, he powered through the rain like the champion that he is, completely unchallenged. Almost a minute behind came Siegfried Schauzu well ahead of Jean-Claud Castella making a BMW 1-2-3.
OTHER CONTINENTAL NEWS
The enthusiasm for building specials is a feature of motorcycling that always creates interest and promotes discussions on the merits of this and that machine. Rarely does one see two bikes of the same marque that look exactly the same, for each individual customizes his machine to personal taste.
Sometimes the changes can lead to big business, as in the Rickman frame or the Dunstall goodies. Occasionally a skilled engineer gets ideas about building a bike, and when that happens the answer is usually something to really set the bike scene talking.
Dave Macey is just such a man. Round about now he should be arriving in Los Angeles to set up home after emigrating from England with one of the most complex machines ever built by a private individual. Don’t get me wrong; he will not be riding the 250-cc, eight-cylinder two-stroke that is his brainchild. It will be carefully stowed in a large packing case ready to have more development work done on it in the future. Before leaving for the States Dave shattered the peace and quiet of his neighborhood by firing up the Macey Eight which, to quote his wife Shirley, “sounded like a cross between the MV Three and the Honda Six.”
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With no proprietary frame available designed to house eight-cylinder, twostroke engines, Dave built his own. It is rather like a cross between the Featherbed and a dirttrack Douglas with swinging arm rear suspension, Velocette front forks and Yamaha wheels. Transmission is through a Honda four-speed box of the 160-cc Twin variety.
As a spare time exercise in engineering it is no wonder that the machine has taken three years to build, for virtually the whole engine has been Macey made. Layout of the eight cylinders is two front-to-rear lines of four, each cylinder having its own crankshaft. The rods started life as a 50-cc Suzuki design and the pistons came from an outboard engine; all other parts were homemade. There are two front-to-rear cylinder heads of light alloy that are air cooled, while the barrels are water cooled from a radiator at the rear of the engine.
Twelve-volt coil ignition is fitted with eight sets of contact breakers, and there are eight 16-mm Dellorto carburetors fed by two float chambers from a homemade fiberglass tank. Disc valves are fitted, and each 35mm bore/33mm stroke cylinder has the conventional three ports.
Power is transmitted from each cylinder by a pinion-ended crankshaft, each pair meshing with intermediate idler gears. The double-width rear pair is connected to the clutch by a countershaft and two pinions. The shaft also drives the water pump and distributor.
Macey has done some brilliant work on the project and much remains to be done before it could become a competitive racer, not the least of which is finding somewhere to hide the expansion chambers. But it could become the darling of the drags purely on the noise it makes.
Another man who has engineering ideas is Colin Seeley. His racing frames are very much in demand nowadays, and the spine idea has been developed on his 350and 500-cc, four-stroke machinery. John Cooper, one of our short circuit aces, was somewhat upset by the handling of a Yamaha with a standard frame layout. He consulted Seeley, and the resulting frame Seeley built for the Yamaha power unit led to Cooper’s entering his bike as a Yamsel.
Phil Read was obviously impressed by the handling of this hybrid when he clashed with Cooper at the Hutchinson 100 meeting, because he, too, decided to change to the Seeley frame. Read has since raced it at the Snetterton international and is very happy with the handling.
The Hutchinson 100 was first held in 192 5 to compete for the Mellano Trophy, a magnificent three-foot-high cup of solid silver worth about $2500. It is awarded to the rider whose race average comes closest to or exceeds by the greatest margin the existing class lap record. It is solely a “glory” victory with no monetary reward offered. The winner gets a memento and holds the cup for one year.
World sidecar champion Klaus Enders was the 1970 winner of the trophy for his performance with passenger Ralf Engelhardt in the 1300cc sidecar class. They were mounted on their usual 492-cc BMW. From the drop of the flag they disappeared into the blue knocking a couple of seconds off their own lap record, to win from Georg Auerbacher and Hermann Hahn, also Bee-M mounted.
In a second sidecar event, restricted to an upper limit of 750cc, Auerbacher got a brilliant start and held his lead to win from Enders. Enders had to battle through the field, dicing for a while with Norman Hanks (670 BSA).
The big battle for the solos was in two races held over 15 laps for machines from 175 to lOOOcc. Cash awards for each race and aggregate awards based on the riders’ total time were given for both races. It brought together such names as Read, Cooper, Gould, Carruthers and Pickrell, and an interesting battle of machinery too.
In the first race Read took an early lead on his 350 Yamaha, but was soon being challenged by Charlie Sanby (750 Kuhn Seeley with Norton Twin Seeley frame) and Martyn Ashwood on one of the new 700-cc Rickman eight-valve jobs. There was nothing between them in the closing stages until a gas leakage sidelined Ashwood when he slid to earth in great style with a soaked rear tire.
Read just got the better of Sanby and Cooper. After being last away, he fought through to 3rd, but made no mistake in the second leg, taking an immediate lead and holding it to the end. Second was Paul Smart (Trident) and 3rd, Read, just holding Sanby at bay to gain overall victory. Cooper was 3rd and Smart 4th.
Smart had earlier won the production race on a Trident after a hectic struggle with Ken Redfern (745 Dunstall), who gained the lead but then retired with clutch trouble.
Another to profit from the misfortune of others was Dave Simmonds (Kawasaki), who won the 125 race after Barry Sheene (Suzuki) broke his throttle cable after building up a commanding lead. Sheene wrapped the broken cable around the fingers of his right hand and carefully nursed the machine home into 2nd place.
There were two races for 250s, the first of which Read won easily from Rod Gould (Yamaha), with Kent Andersson (Yamaha) just beating Carruthers for 3rd. The second race, however, was a different story, with Read and Carruthers really having a ding-dong that went to Read by six-tenths of a second, his engine seizing as he crossed the finish line. Neither of them got a good start in the 350 race and Cooper streaked away from the line in.a startto-finish victory. Carruthers went out with a sick motor, and by the finish Read had just got the better of Smart (Yamaha).
The big three, Read, Carruthers and Gould, clashed again later in the Race of the Aces meeting at Snetterton over the late summer holiday weekend. By this time Read had fixed himself up with Yamsels and, as if to prove something, went out and broke the 350 lap record in winning from Carruthers. Gould retired with a broken rear mudguard that locked his wheel.
In their 250 clash Read was slow off the line and could manage no better than 3rd, with Carruthers taking the winner’s laurels.
Barry Sheene (Suzuki) completely outclassed the opposition in winning the 125 class and then in a 500 heat showed his talented versatility by forcing a 500 Suzuki Twin into the lead ahead of Alan Barnett (Seeley). But he was denied victory, when his machine cut out on one cylinder. The final went to Barnett, after a close scrap with Peter Williams (Arter Matchless).
The big race of the day brought together a mixture of capacities, but it was Gould and Read all the way until the last lap, when Read pulled out from the tow he was getting to win, with Redfern (745 Dunstall), 3rd.
Pip Harris (BMW) put in a faultless performance to win the 500cc sidecar race. For good measure he clocked a record lap at 86.03 mph, and on the same machine ran 2nd in the 1300cc class to Brian Rust (670 BSA), who also set a lap record at 87.89 mph.
The previous record holder was Chris Vincent, so there is proof that Rust is no slouch. He is an ex-grasstrack racing champion. The reason you have not heard of him before during this season is because he is having difficulty getting his entries accepted. That gives some idea of just how hard the struggle can be over here, and that is why Marty Lunde has given up the unequal struggle to succeed in world championship racing.
Another Yank, Alan Leonard, has been racing over here for a few years, just at the smaller meetings. He was selling out at the Snetterton meeting, however, to return to the States for good, possibly to sponsor a rider. He thinks it must be easier for a motocross man to make the grade, as he counted the number of internationals that make a European season and found nearly four motocross meets to each road race held. But it comes down to the good old economic law of supply and demand. There are certainly more motocross men than road racers. What is more to the point, though, is that motocross tracks are more easily provided. Saddleback Park proves a good motocross course can be provided quickly and relatively cheaply compared to building a road circuit.
Now we come to the nitty gritty of Americans’ racing in Europe. Next month you will be able to read how Gary Nixon and Yvon du Hamel get on in their first incursion into British short circuit scratching. Both are very experienced and talented racers and are really putting their heads into the lion’s mouth by starting at Mallory Park for the $2500 Race of the Year. Agostini will not be there, but virtually every other racer who is anyone will be, and the tricky little 1.3 5-mile circuit is not one to cut your teeth on. They really are being thrown in at the deep end, and to finish in the first six will be terrific. If either of them wins then no superlatives will be too good to describe the achievement.
A rider must have talent and determination, allied to a lot of luck if he is to find a sponsor. American Brian Kenny has made the grade in international motocross riding throughout Europe in the smaller meetings. This past season two Yanks from Colorado came over to see what it was all about.
Dick Loughran, of Littleton, is 25 and has raced for two years in the States as a junior class racer. He is semi-competent on hard ground, but says, “No one bothered to inform me Europeans are semi-competent at age 10, which puts me at quite a disadvantage.” Progress for Dick has been slow, but he feels his experience is paying off and he hopes for further progress in the InterAm series.
The other is Gary Myers, of whom I wrote last month. He comes from Denver, is 26 years old, and has something of a motorcycling background having worked as a salesman in the Fay Myers Triumph shop run by his father. He will already be known to readers as a winner back home and the holder of two 2nds in the National class at a couple of Californian Inter-Ams. He feels that his six months in Europe have given him invaluable experience. Myers rode 16 races and won five as a junior before moving into the senior class where his best race so far, with four more to go, is 7th. He would have liked to continue with the Belgian seniors until he gained an international license, but that is out because he needs an international license to compete in the Inter-Ams.
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Next year, Gary’s ability to get start money will govern his future in European motocross. But his progress has not gone unnoticed, and next year he will receive some measure of support from the Willem II cigar company which intends to sponsor riders from different countries to promote their product.
Myers will need other sponsors, though, if he is to get the chance to really fight for the top, so now is the time for them to come forward and give their support.
Well the cliff-hanger, 500-cc world motocross title is at an end. Swedish rider Bengt Aberg retained the title he won last year with a victory in this season’s last round in Luxembourg. Championship leader before the meeting was Arne Kring who is still unable to compete, though he has almost recovered from the injuries he received earlier in Belgium. The only other contender was Maico-mounted Ake Jonsson, who had to win to take the title.
Tragedy struck in the first bend when Jonsson was rammed from behind. Nevertheless, he forced on and up into 4th place, only to run out of gas. That early collision had split his tank, so his chance at the championship evaporated. The race went to his teammate Adolf Weil which only added to the irony or agony of the situation. But Weil retired in the second race, which was won by Paul Friedrichs (CZ). Overall victory, with two 2nd places, went to Aberg, and with it the 1970 world title.
“Anything you can do I can do better” would seem to be the motocross motto, for now, after 11 rounds, the 250 title will not be decided until the final round next month in Austria.
After the five-week gap competitors went to Finland. Everyone wondered whether it would be Joel Robert or Sylvain Geboers as the winner, but home rider Heikki Mikkola put the cat among the pigeons with a brilliant grand prix win, with Robert 2nd. Geboers, having retired in the first race, did not score but held a slender championship lead of 85 points to the 84 of Robert.
Then came one of those strange quirks of the “best seven rides to count” system of world championship scoring. Geboers won the next round in East Germany, but Robert finished 2nd overall, added 12 points to his score, and took the title lead.
A week later Geboers was out of luck when, at a very wet Swiss round, his motor drowned in the first leg, which Robert won from Mikkola. Then in the second race, the Suzuki men tangled, and Robert lost his front mudguard. This became significant a few laps later when a storm swamped the course, for the spray thrown up by the front wheel blinded Robert, causing him to drop back. So the Finn Mikkola won the race and the round, to score his second grand prix win in three meetings. Now, to win the title, Geboers must win the final round in Austria next month.
Despite the fact that it did not count toward the world title, a British 500cc motocross grand prix was held and attracted a first class entry, including leading Swedish and Belgian riders. All had their hearts set on the fact that the winner of three legs, which comprised the meeting, could take home $ 1200.
There was little in world champion Aberg’s form that indicated he had traveled overnight from the continent: he swept to three victories, making mincemeat of all the opposition. Equally, there was nothing to indicate that a virtually unknown rider would blow off the rest of the opposition to take 2nd place behind the champion. It was Rob Taylor (Husqvarna) who shattered the reputations of Robert, Geboers, Jonsson and many others with two 2nd places and an 8th in the final leg, as he visibly tired. The previous day Taylor raced without much success in a British championship round, when Bryan Goss made sure of the 1970 title. The day before that, though, Taylor won another motocross event, so perhaps he had a good excuse for feeling tired. This brilliant ride at the grand prix, in very good company, may well give him the confidence necessary to take him to the top.
