The Scene

THE SCENE

IVAN J. WAGAR

WITH ABOUT six weeks separating Daytona and the $60,000 Shell-sponsored Imola race for F 750 machines, it is not too surprising that the Florida classic should attract some Italian observers. It was, however, a bit eyebrow raising to bump into the really top brass of Italian motorcycling, casually making notes and taking pictures.

Filling pages of notes was MV Agusta’s Arturo Magni, the man who calls the shots at one of the greatest racing firms of all time. Moto Guzzi was represented by no less a person than Dr. Michele Bianchi, boss of the famous Mandello factory. With a renewed interest in racing, Ducati sent along the almost legendary Fabio Taglioni, who is probably Italy’s most gifted racing engineer. Massimo Laverda, who’s machines won the Coup de Endurance, the long 6 and 12-hour events for standard street machines in Europe last year, was the only one to meet officially with the press.

During a dinner with some of the scribes, Mr. Laverda made it quite clear that he felt AMA (same as F 750) rules permitted too many performance modifications, and that the production racing rules of the FIM, where the machines must run mufflers, lights and standard engines, make far more sense to the guy on the street. He may be right and eventually we may see F 750 downgraded to restrict modifications to standard equipment.

In the meantime, however, F 750 is putting some life into European racing. And, although it will be difficult for some of the more stodgy FIM-types to admit, it is possible that the crazy Americans have come up with a formula that is good for the sport. Although some people feel the big bores will become too fast for rider safety, it is natural that the main interest in this country is in 750s; that is what people are buying. As remarkable as the little 50s and 125s are, there simply is not much relationship between those engines and the big dudes the public is going for these days.

The Italian manufacturers have come to realize that the American buyer of motorcycles is the best informed, most sophisticated customer in the world. And, because ours is a sporting performance market, racing the big jobs is just good business.

For the American buyer, even though he may not be interested in racing, we now are seeing superb braking systems and much better handling chassis than ever before. Racing does improve the breed, and many of the modifications required to win races are being incorporated into the over-thecounter models offered for sale.

How quickly these better equipment items are incorporated into the standard model depends on the individual manufacturer. I do not intend to go into a score card-type report, even if I thought it might be possible, but Norton is one firm that has believed in the practice over the years. Possibly Mr. Laverda is right in his belief that only standard machines should race. Maybe that way we would see some of these changes more quickly. On the other hand there cannot be the latitude for experimentation that we now have under the F 750 rules.

The big interest in F 750 is not limited to the injection it has given European racing. Although Shell Oil put up a fantastic purse for Imola, it must be remembered that Champion Spark Plugs in this country footed the bill for the $50,000 in prize money at Ontario last year, to become the first industry firm to help our sport. Now Kawasaki, possibly a little nervous about the tremendous success of the Yamaha Gold Cup series, is making noises about a $48,000 sponsorship of the Laguna Seca road race national. Thanks to Daytona’s Bill France, who’s purses have increased as the popularity of his event grew, we are now seeing realistic prizes for the greatest sport on wheels.

While it is hoped that F 750 will become a world championship series for 1973, the chances at this point are very slim. Despite the tremendous growth of F 750, the FIM is holding true to form and dragging its feet about the ultimate status of the class.

Although Ducati’s Taglioni was fairly silent at Daytona, he must have picked up enough scam to put it to good use on the racing version of Ducati’s new 750 V-Twin roadster, previewed in CYCLE WORLD about two years ago. The 1-2 victory by Paul Smart and veteran Spaggiari must be a tremendous moral

booster for the Bologna firm and, hopefully will encourage them to compete in this country later in the year.

Disappointed over Ago’s defeat at Imola, although he led the first four laps, MV still wants badly to win at Ontario and launch its street Four on the American market.

On the more local scene, BSA/Triumph, the company that put maximum effort into the new formula in the beginning, has cut its program back to a dribble. Harley-D avid son is slow in getting the new machine going, but it will almost certainly be a match for anything around once things are sorted out to its liking.

Suzuki suffered a setback when it was necessary to forfeit Jody’s Atlanta win because of illegal cylinder heads. Under F 750, a two-stroke manufacturer may use cylinders different from the approved model, providing the material and the number of ports remain the same. Suzuki took advantage of the cylinder rule to employ castings with a slightly larger water jacket capacity and port size. Unfortunately, the new cylinders featured an altered bolt pattern, requiring different head castings. It is inconceivable that Suzuki cheated. There simply was no reason to use a different head casting for performance purposes. Somewhere the rule book was misunderstood.

Atlanta did prove that, properly ridden, the 100 brake horsepower beast can get the job done.

Yamaha is saying very little about a racing version of the 750 two-stroke Four displayed at the Tokyo Motor Show last fall. It is almost certain, however, that we will see it racing next year. The all-new, full-size 750 Twin (see Report from Japan) is a real honey, but not destined for road racing. For the remainder of this year, at least, Yamaha seems content to pit the 350 against the giants, and Don Emde’s Daytona win would indicate that might be pretty good thinking.

Kawasaki soon will be taking some scribes to Japan to see the “New York Steak,” code name for something new, quite possibly the long-rumored big bore four-stroke. In a very coy way, Kawasaki’s not going to tell us in advance what the machine is. Most certainly it would not be something for F 750 because of the success of the present 750 two-stroke racer.

How much the marketplace has changed in only five years! And whether the superbike 750s created F 750, or whether F 750 brought about the proliferation of superbikes is debatable. The thing that is important is that, whether you just want to ride around town on something super, or tour from New York to Los Angeles, there sure are a lot of really good, smooth, reliable and safer motorcycles these days. [Ö]