Ama Racing: the Full Scam

AMA RACING: THE FULL SCAM

DAN HUNT

For Odds-Makers, Bench Racers, And Cocktail Party Pundits Who Need Assorted Bits And Pieces To Trot Out In Conversation Referring To Daytona And The AMA National Season, BEFORE IT HAPPENS, We Offer...

1971 WILL BE KNOWN in the forthcoming annals of AMA racing history as The Year Of The Big Buck.

This is not to say that, in previous years, factories and distributors have not spent money, good money, to capflue America's Omnibus road racing cum dirt track No. 1 plate. It's just that more of them are doing it at the same time, in greater amounts than ever before. H-D and BSA/Triumph are the most conspicuous spenders.

This will be the first year that posted prize money.on a single American Mo torcycle Association race has reached $50,000. No, that race is riot Daytona, where the new all-time high is onl~v $33,000. The 50 Gee marvel will be a road race at the new West Coast super plant-Ontario Motor Speedway.

Road races offer the fattest purses. And the most points. After Ontario and

Daytona. Loudon is third biggest at S20,000, followed by Talladega at 18 Gees, and then Atlanta, Seattle and Poconoat $15,000.

Richest of the dirt track races, by comparison, is Sacramento's mile oval classic, at $16,000. The Nazareth mile and the Columbus Charity Newsies half-mile are equal at S 1 2,000.

Contingency prize money, that sup port given from related industries to winning riders using their particular product, is also at an all-time potential high. And now for the meat. Upon which amateur Nick The Greeks the world over may base their pocket money wagers. And upon which cock tail party pundits may base their inevita ble strategies in the age-old game of One-Upsmanship.

The first line is always the same: "What do you hear about..." BSA & TRIUMPH?

Much has been bandied around about BSA & Triumph's massive racing effort this year, with budget estimates for the program ranging from half a million to a million dollars.

Sweetening everyone’s anticipation of Daytona is news that the all-time road racing great, Mike Hailwood, will ride one of the factory BSA Threes at Daytona. Mike “The Bike“ confirmed this fact in a telephone call to Gavin Trippe (Motor Cycle Weekly), and further expressed his interest in competing in all AMA road race nationals. BSA Inc. President Peter Thornton said he was delighted and hoped that BSA and Mike could come to terms about the rest of the season. Paul Smart, the Triumph factory rider from Great Britain, will also ride a Three at Daytona.

As far as BS A/Triumph's total

American program goes, Thornton has given the order, “Do or die.” to the combine’s new racing chief Danny Macias, a well-known West Coast tuner who has boosted many a “shoe” into the Ascot winner’s circle. Notice that the word was “Chief.” not “Chiefs.” Before, both BSA and Triumph racing programs were split into East Coast and West Coast factions, which sometimes seemed to be, as is the case with small tribes, at cross purposes with one another.

With the restructuring of the BSA/ Triumph combine in America comes a unification in the racing program. Macias, working in California under Pete Colman, presides over both BSA and Triumph racing. Each brand will have a chief mechanic and assistant mechanic working full time in Macias’ department.

Part of that budget is buying Macias and his fellow wrenches a complete racing lab with engine dynamometer and flow testing benches. And the Rocket and Trident racing Threes have already been whooshed at in the Cal Tech wind tunnel to improve their speed and handling for the predicted 160-mph qualifying speed around the big, banked oval at Daytona. You’ll recall that Triumph’s Gene Romero qualified at 157.342 last year, with a front straight trap speed of just over 165 mph. No doubt this year will be more and better, as 1970 was a debut year for the powerful 750-cc ohv pushrod three-cylinder design.

The BSA/Triumph support goes far beyond Daytona. Macias and the four mechanics will attend every race on the national circuit. They'll dispense aid to their contract riders from a gargantuan Ford Diesel truck, equipped with a machine shop and spare parts.

Macias’ role is development and engine building. The factory Threes will be under his charge. His influence later in the year will extend to dirt track racing, where he hopes to supply engines to any racer on demand.

As for the all-important road racers, Macias’ main concern is with refinement of what has proven a successful basic design. In addition to the Cal Tech program, he’ll be playing with camshaft design and head flow. The Threes will be sporting new forks, with minor changes in rake and trail. Braking, which caused some problems in 1970, will be bolstered with the addition of 9-in. Lockheed double disc front brakes.

Rider contracts are at the same time both generous and exclusive, with salary estimates (exclusive of prize money) running from $10,000 to $20,000 and up.

On the BSA side, the four contract riders will be Jim Rice (2nd in points in 1970), Dave Aldana, young Don Emde and, pending a few contract formalities, Dick Mann (Daytona winner last year on the Honda Four).

On the Triumph side, the team includes Grand National Champion Gene Romero, Gary Nixon, Don Castro and Tom Rockwood.

All eight are contracted for the full national program and will not be allowed to ride any other brand of machine in any type of racing. This hurts Yamaha the most, as they used to be able to count on Nixon and Emde to ride the lightweight road racers.

The riders are salaried for a guaranteed yearly sum, payable in full even if they crash in the first few races and injure themselves so that they can’t complete the. remainder of the season.

All in all, it’s a shockingly thorough type of racing program, designed to equal or improve the BSA & Triumph rout of 1970, in which 7 of the 10 top national points scorers rode one of these two brands.

THOSE OVERHEATED HARLEYS

Woe is Harley-Davidson! The best they could do in 1970 after enduring a season of teething problems on their new ohv XR 750 V-Twin design was turn to Bonneville at the last moment for a crash-bang rout of the absolute two-way land speed record.

Their trouble started when they decided to abandon the time-honored 750-cc KR sidevalve V-Twin in favor of a potentially more powerful ohv design. The KR, rather meager as a racing engine in the first place, had seen a few decades of refinement, which had brought its output from 30 bhp to more than 50 bhp. When the AMA decided to make the displacement limit on a 750ccfor-cc basis, rather than letting the KR race against the smaller but more modern 500 ohv and ohc designs, HarleyDavidson was forced to go to an ohv.

Enter the XR750s, of similar configuration and material as the KR, but capable of developing an added 1 5 bhp or so. Add 15 bhp, and you add more heat, which iron heads and cylinder barrels are incapable of dissipating. In a long race involving sustained full throttle operation-like Daytona or Sacramento—about 80 percent of the heat produced in combustion goes to the cylinder heads and sits there. We would guess that this causes a 20 to 30 percent loss in horsepower, along with detonation, which destroys parts.

H-D’s solution became evident towards the latter part of last year’s racing season, when the factory racing machines started sprouting oil coolers. The most complex set-up, which may be standard fare this year, involves running the oil from the side of the oil pump through one cooler, then cooling the oil before it goes up to the heads to circulate in the valve pockets.

Coming out of the heads, the oil goes through yet another cooler, then into the sump and out to a fourth cooler before being returned to the oil tank. An incidental by-product of having all that tuyoterie is a beneficial increase in oil capacity of about one quart. In a way, the new oil cooling scheme functions like automotive watercooling.

The grapevine tells us that H-D has helped reduce heat buildup and detonation by reducing the XR750’s target horsepower from about 67 down to 60 bhp, primarily through a reduction in compression ratio, to 8:1 or less. The object is to finish races, something of which H-D did sorely little in 1970.

While the reduced horsepower will not hurt H-D as much on the dirt tracks, which tend to be power equalizers, the road races-which have the greatest point emphasis—offer a more dismal prospect. So H-D must be considered a dark horse at Daytona, Talladega and Ontario. At Louden, Kent, and other “handling” tracks, they have a fair chance.

The oil cooling, low compression ratio scheme must be considered a stopgap measure. But H-D must not be counted out. The old KRs rose to great heights with stopgap development. It seems likely that the XR750 would eventually have to be fitted with aluminum heads and barrels, probably in 1972, as it is too late for H-D to homologate enough such machines for 1971 under present AMA racing rules.

Harley-Davidson’s regular racing team is somewhat down in number from the eight-man crews of 1968 and 1969. The great mile artist Fred Nix, who was just approaching his prime in 1 969, died in a dune buggy accident late that year.

But H-D still has some of its best regulars. Road racing ace Calvin Rayborn will be remarkable at Daytona, etc., regardless of the bhp beneath him. Then, two strong all-arounders: exGrand National Champion Mert Lawwill and the efficient Mark Brelsford. Add two of the newest members of the team—Dave Sehl from Canada, and first-year Expert Rex Beauchamp, Michigan. Evergreen Roger Reiman will continue in his independent status.

Another senior member, Bart Markel, will continue to bolster the team, but is missing Daytona due to his lucrative involvement with the Bombardier snowmobile racing team in Canada.

That snowmobile thing is an interesting sidelight. Bombardier pays Bart extremely well and the prize money is equal to or better than in championship motorcycle racing. But Bombardier runs its team in the style of an Olympic training camp. Bart has had to leave home for several months and live in a French Canadian town where he is practically the only person who speaks English. He is quartered in a barracks with the other racers, and must take part daily in tough cross country running and calisthenics. This, of course, contrasts greatly with the laissez-faire atmosphere of AMA racing.

SUZUKI ROAD RACING

Suzuki will be involved mainly with the AMA national road racing program. Only the 750 class will be contested as the 250s proved not to be fast enough last year.

Four contract team riders for 1971: Ron Grant, Art Baumann, Jody Nicholas and Ron Pierce, an extremely strong quartet of pavement specialists. These four riders will enter all seven of the AMA national road races, with the exception of Ron Grant, who probably won’t be fit to ride Daytona following his leg injury at Talladega last year.

With the exception of a few minor problems (i.e., a condenser failure, a split expansion chamber and a split fuel line), the TR500 machines proved to be quite reliable all last season. Improved cylinders and exhaust pipes will be featured on the new models with slightly increased horsepower figures resulting. In addition, an attempt will be made to “tailor” the machines to the rider a little more closely than last year.

The main difficulty they had last year was heavy fuel consumption, which necessitated two pit stops for the 200-mile races. It looks as though this will be the case again in 1971 due to the AMA’s ruling concerning the maximum size of the fuel tanks.

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Subtle changes will be made to the existing frames to improve high speed handling characteristics, but the bikes will remain basically unchanged.

The Suzuki van will be at all the national road races with a full complement of spares for U.S. Suzuki’s bikes much the same as last year.

U.S. Suzuki plans to enter motocross racing on a fairly large scale later on in the season, but nothing definite as of the present. Here, of course, their strongest cards will continue to be the overseas stars Joel Robert, Sylvain Gebbers and Olle Pettersson. Robert won the 250-cc world motocross championship, as well as six out of eight Trans-AM A meetings, while Geboers was 4th overall in the Inter-Am. This year all three are likely to be united in one American international motocross series.

YAMAHA GOES LIGHT

In effect, Yamaha is out of the big budget racing business, and will not field what is normally called a “factory” team. Any entries will be dealer sponsored privateers.

Even in this situation, they are somewhat weakened in road racing with their 250 and 350 two-stroke Twins by the loss of Emde to BSA, Nixon to Triumph and Yvon DuHamel to Kawasaki.

Yamaha’s two main riders on the national circuit will be Californian Keith Mashburn, who will be riding a Shell Motors machine at Daytona, and Easterner Chuck Palmgren, whose Daytona ride comes from Mel Denison. For road racing only, Yamaha’s strong card will be the runner-up in the 250 world championship, Kel C'arruthers, who is working for Don Vesco in California and will ride a pair of Vesco’s machines.

TT ace Dusty Coppage will campaign in the TT nationals on the sohe 650 Twin in Trackmaster frame, as well as some western dirt track oval races.

Neil Keen continues his patrol of the Midwest on the half miles and short tracks. Dan Haaby will carry the local scene in the West.

Mechanically. Yamaha's new 650 had an exceptional first year in 1970, enough to make racing chief Dennis Mahan reasonably happy. Palmgren won the Nazareth mile national last year which means that the bike is quite competitive where sheer power and speed are concerned.

The main technical explorations have involved porting refinements and alternative piston shapes, rather than the old tack of merely raising compression. The 650s are red-lined at about 9000 rpm, Mahan says. And the most recent tests on the dyno have yielded about 60 bhp at 8000 rpm.

KAWASAKI & CONTINGENCY

Biggest shocker for some is that Canadian Yvon DuHamel, always a threat at Daytona or any other road race, has broken his long-standing identification with Yamaha to ride Kawasaki.

He is signed with East Canadian Kawasaki distributor Fred Manley & Sons to ride the HIR 500-cc three-cylinder road racers, as well as other Kawasakis in selected AMA dirt track races.

Kawasaki in the States is upping the ante on their contingency prize money program from $500,000 to $750,000.

On the other hand, their actual direct involvement in the national circuit, including Daytona, is similar to Yamaha's that is, close to nil. Aside from DuHamel in C'anada, the best U.S. riders are signed with dealers, rather than directly with the distributor. This, of course, is a good route to take if you’re not going to go the high-budget route like BSA/Triumph or Harley-Davidson.

If Kawasaki wins one, they pay the contingency money and advertise like mad. If. they don't win, it doesn’t matter, because they weren’t officially racing anyway.

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Kawasaki realizes, however, that they don’t get enough technical feedback in the dealer/rider situation, so they will have one or two “research” riders at the road race nationals to bring back information to Randy Hall, an extremely competent tuner who helped Rod Gould win the 250-cc world title for Yamaha in I 970. Hall, working directly for the U.S. distributor, will in turn make improvements to the HIR and turn over the information to the privateers. Dave Smith was essentially such a research rider last year. Another candidate for these chores is AFM ace Mike Lane.

Rusty Bradley, the amiable Texan who cleaned house on the Kawasaki contingency money as a road racing Amateur last year, will continue on Kawasaki as an Expert, sponsored by John Jacobsen, a Kawasaki dealer in Boston. Hurley Wilvert, another AFM shoe, is also expected to field a Kawasaki under dealer guise.

WILL HONDA RUN AGAIN?

It seems unlikely that Honda will take a stab at Daytona this year. They quite positively made their point when they fielded a team in 1970 and won, thanks to Dick Mann, the 200-mile classic the first time out.

There are no rumors floating about, as there were last year. And it makes sense. Why should Honda ruin a 100 percent hatting average, particularly when they have a no-racing policy in the first place?

ROAD RACING EMPHASIS

T hrough all this discussion, it is clear that AMA racing has greatly changed its complexion. The scramble for No. 1 used to he primarily a dirt track affair, and road racing was something “those Europeans” did. The 1971 prize money and point scoring system reveals a nottoo-subtle metamorphosis. The AMA national calendar consists of seven very important road races, filled in with a flurry of supporting dirt track events. One by one, international road racing stars are arriving on these shores and deciding that they want a piece of the action. Road racing is becoming stagnant in Europe, and the FIM is examining the AMA “Class C” system to see if it might inject life into the fading European classics by increasing factory participation.

Meanwhile, good old U.S. of A. is where it’s happening - on the pavement and on the dirt.