Racing Review
Racing Review
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
JOHN WAASER
Motorcycle racing had hit the big time again, but it just didn’t FEEL like it. The aura of something special was missing. Tickets were still available, according to the marquee, yet there were no lines of people waiting to buy them.
The running of the race wasn’t up to big time standards, either. I got there later than usual, just as time trials were closing. Soon it was announced that the timing lights were too high, and they had missed a large number of riders—on the order of 25 percent. So they had to requalify those involved. Those missed were missed apparently because they were heeled way over—and may have been really going fast, on an all-out run. Any attempt to requalify must surely have been slower for many of these riders. When it was all over, a number of riders must have been unhappy —none less so than Yamaha team member Gary Fisher, who is pretty good at this indoor scene, and who looked particularly fleet to many of us. I didn’t watch him qualify, but one rider who knows he made a mistake on his own timed lap, and still qualified, is convinced that Gary’s ride was faster than his own. Gary brushed the whole thing off with a rather bold, “I didn’t want to ride, anyway,” but unless he himself knows he made a mistake on his timed lap, he must surely question the proceeding.
The heats were divided up, probably according to a formula which had always worked before, but the first heat held five of the top indoor racers in the country—only four of whom could ad-1 vanee to the semi.
Clearly, however, the potential for an exciting evening was there. Two-stroke Singles of up to 360cc displacement were allowed in the Garden for the first time. Yamaha’s team manager Art Barda told me that the Yamaha team had intended to use its 250s, thinking that the 360s would be too much. But the trucks contained both bikes, and somebody decided to try a 360. The difference in lap times was miniscule, but the 360 had that little extra edge coming out of the turns, which could result in gaining a position, so they used the 360s.
Art attributed much of the credit for actually being able to use the larger bikes to vastly improved tires in the last year. Most of the top riders were usings the new Goodyear short track tires on" the back—a tire which wasn’t available a year ago. Speeds were up at the end of the straights, and riders braked heavily (Continued on page 34) for the turns—enough so that the front ends visibly shuddered going in. Almost to a man, the fast riders had Dunlops up front. In fact, in the final, only one rider had a Goodyear up front. There were six of each on the rear wheels.
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This was also the first time many of us could see Gary Nixon back on form. He had the pin taken out of his leg last November, and he sure was doggin’ it. He led his heat from pole to pole, and finished 2nd in the trophy dash, for the four fastest qualifiers.
The final was to consist of the top four finishers from the fastest heat, plus the top three from the other heats. A twist of fate must have made the second heat the fastest—it is far from impossible that the reason it was the fastest was that there was less traffic in front goin
into the first turn, with four rider starting from the penalty line.
John Gennai took the early lead— twice, in fact, as the final was restarted. But when it counted, he lost ground fast, so that by the end of the first lap, less than ten seconds into the race, the leaders were Rick Hocking, Kenny Roberts and Mike Kidd. And there they stayed, for 19 laps as Steve Dalgarno provided a little action back in the pack, finally working his way to 4th.
Kenny Roberts is cool; he’s no longer that first-year expert with an early season lead, and a lot of pressure to keep it. He kept watching and waiting. Finally it became obvious that Hocking, a junior, wasn’t about to make a mistake. So Kenny stuffed his Yamaha inside Hocking’s Yamaha in the second turn, and rattled Rick just enough to geltfk properly inside the leader on turns three^^ and four, and won the drag to the flag.
It was a classic race. In one short tenth of a minute, Kenny Roberts had turned an otherwise hum-drum evening into an exciting event well worth the price of admission.
Kenny, who has spent most of the last two years hating indoor races, pulled in, took the trophy, kissed the trophy girl, and said, “I still hate these indoors.” (Continued on page 38)
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Hocking, whose 2nd place sewed up the series championship for him, was the big money winner of the evening, with the trophy dash, a semi, second in the final, and all that lap money. Let’s see-19 laps at $100 a lap is...$950?
CARLSBAD GP PREVIEW
On June 24, 1973, the World Motocross Championship becomes “World” in the full sense of the word when the giants of this sport, who are predominantly European, travel to the United States for the first United States Grand Prix to be held at Carlsbad in California.
The World Championship is determined over 12 GP races in Europe, spread from Moscow in Russia, to Spain. After a two-year apprenticeship of running a GP with no World points, the U.S. comes of age with its first points paying Grand Prix, which will run between the Czechoslovakian and East German rounds and halfway through the World Championship series with the points race wide open.
Sponsored by Hang Ten, the makers of sports clothing, the U.S. Grand Prix means more to America than just being a World Championship event. It is the first GP where American riders will be able to do battle against the Europeans on their own ground and raises the question, “Could the first American win in a GP at Carlsbad this year?”
The Carlsbad race track is “up to European standards,” according to Ake Jonsson. The international stars will practice on Saturday with the World Championship Grand Prix being determined on aggregate performance over two gruelling 45-minute races on Sunday. There will be supporting national races and an air show by U.S. Aerobatic champ, Art Scholl.
1973 INTER-AMA SCHEDULE
July 1, 1973, Salt Lake City, Utah, $10,000; July 6, 1973, Los Angeles, Calif., $12,000; July 15, 1973, Lawrence, Kan., $10,000; July 22, 1973, Toledo, Ohio, $10,000; July 29, 1973, Unadilla, N.Y., $10,000. |o]
