Race Watch
RACE WATCH
Hannah Takes '77 Supercross Finale; Bast Wins Fifth Speedway Title; Race of Champions to Springsteen
JUST CALL IT THE HANNAH HANDICAP
OK you lovers of stadium racing, here's a Modest Proposal to spice up the 1978 Supercross series: Instead of one rank of riders waiting to charge the starting gate, let's have two—one for the mortals and a second one for Bob Hannah.
Judging by last year’s season windup at Anaheim, as well as the rest of the 1977 Coca Cola Supercross campaign, it’s going to take something along these lines to halt the Hurricane. With his victory at Anaheim Stadium, Hannah ran his ’77 stadium total to six, which isn’t bad in 10 starts. Besides Anaheim he was first in the season opener at Atlanta, again at Daytona, at Dallas, and in both ends of the doubleheader at Pontiac, Michigan. He also scored a 2nd in New Orleans and a 3rd in Houston.
If anyone in manufacturing circles is likely to endorse the Hannah Handicap approach to Supercross, it's Honda. Although Team Honda didn’t lack for top riders—Jim Pomeroy, Marty Smith and Tommy Croft, to name a few—only Smith was able to sneak into a Supercross victory circle, in New Orleans last June. This was not exactly what Honda had planned, and in an effort to get something back the deck was loaded for Anaheim: besides
Pomeroy, Smith and Croft, Honda had international stars Brad Lackey and Graham Noyce suited up. as well as 125cc rider Warren Reid. Lackey, winner of the 1977 British MX Grand Prix, was 4th in the world MX championships last year, and Noyce is the recently signed British champion who formerly campaigned for Maico.
There were, of course, other men and machines, to wit: Kawasaki’s Jimmy Weinert, the L.A. Coliseum Superbowl winner, still recovering from a broken arm; Can-Am’s Captain Cobalt. Jimmy Ellis; Suzuki's national 250cc champ Tony DiStefano; Suzuki’s national 125cc champ, 17-year-old Broc Glover; Chuck Sun, looking good on his new factory Husqvarna; Gaylon Mosier on the Maico; and some guys whose names have yet to become household words in motocross, like Monte McCoy, John Savitski and Carlos Serrano.
The course was demanding, but not so devilish as some other stadium layouts have been. It featured a visually appealing over-and-under setup, and was generally fairly open, favoring guys who can handle whoops and jumps at high speeds. Guess who wrote the 1977 stadium edition of the book on this kind of activity? Right, and he motored away from the pack with almost ridiculous ease, pulling out an 8-sec. lead by mid-distance. Pomeroy and Croft were Hannah's chief pursuers throughout the 20-lap main event, with Pomeroy holding off his teammate to score his fifth 2ndplace Supercross finish of the season. Mosier came home a solid 4th, trailed by Smith and Glover. From there it was several seconds back to Marty Tripes (HarleyDavidson), Sun and Weinert, who supplied about the onlv heroics of the race. A 9th-place finish may not sound that terrific, but it’s pretty good when you've picked yourself up after a first-lap scramble and attacked the field from almost dead last. Typical Weinert stuff, and it left little doubt that the Jammer was back in trim—until a post-race car accident put him on the sidelines again, this time with a chipped neck vertebra, proving once again that you can’t trust cars.
Ellis had a chance to stage the same kind of charge when he went down during a first-lap fracas exiting a hairpin turn, but as the Can-Am ace was picking himself for a restart he was solidly centerpunched by Mike Bell’s factory Yamaha. Bell, who was running by himself, had apparently neglected to look much further than his front wheel as he swooped around the berm that topped the high side of the hairpin.
Hannah’s runaway win didn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the sellout crowd (43,000-plus), once again vindicating those who maintain that stadium racing is going to become the most popular form of MX around. And whether they add a handicap for Hannah or not, the American Motorcyclist Association rulesmakers have added a couple of fresh touches for the coming season, which gets underway the 18th of this month with a first-ever show at the Seattle Kingdome. Perhaps the biggest improvement is the shortening of the consolation event from 15 laps to eight, with the consolation winner advancing to the final. Also, the top three finishers in each of the qualifying motos will earn series championship points, which ought to ensure even wilder scrambles out of the starting gates.
Tony Swan
SPEEDWAY NATIONALS; MIKE BAST BEST
Despite Bruce Penhall’s rather extraordinary preparatory efforts, which included hauling some 45 tons of Costa Mesa, California clay to his home practice track in an effort to duplicate conditions on the championship layout at the Orange County Fairgrounds, Mike Bast has won his third straight national Speedway title and fifth in the last seven years.
Bast missed winning only one of his heats in last fall’s nationals, coming home 2nd behind Mike Faria in the opening round. After that he won his next four, including the finale against Penhall. Penhall thus wound up tied for 2nd with Mike’s brother Steve Bast, himself a former champion (1974). The national runner-up honors were decided in a runoff between Penhall and Steve Bast, with Penhall taking it.
Rounding out the top 10 in the championship standings were Alan Christian, Faria, Kelly Moran, Larry Shaw, Ron Preston, Bob Schwartz and Dennis Sígalos.
Shaw, Preston and Schwartz all tied for 7th.
SPRINGER SCORES, KR WATCHES
For the second straight year. Jay Springsteen followed up his AMA Camel Pro Series championship with a win in the annual Race of Champions. Seemingly unhampered by a damp course at Florida’s Pompano Park Harness Raceway, Springer overhauled Harley-Davidson teammate Ted Boody after two laps of the 20-lap event and went on to win handily. Boody held onto 2nd until five laps from the end, when he was reeled in by 1977 Rookie of the Year, Garth Brow.
Notable among the 9000-plus spectators for this first-ever motorcycle race at Pompano Park was Yamaha ace Kenny Roberts, who ignored a summons from AMA pro racing director Doug Mockett and left his leathers at home. Mockett expressed a strong desire to see both Roberts and Steve Eklund in the Race of Champions field, suggesting the possibility of fines and/or suspension from AMA-sanctioned events if the summons went unheeded.
Eklund responded by flying his bike and self to Florida, where he finished 4th, beating the brothers Scott—Hank and Gary —in the process. But Roberts, who is bound for the European pavement wars after two years of fruitless efforts with the Yamaha dirt machines, chose to leave the matter in the hands of the Yamaha legal department.
The 10-lap Expert-Junior race went to Lance Jones, a young Triumph rider from Gadsden, Alabama who’s rated as a good bet to become this year’s top rookie. The Expert Final, a companion event for the 20-lap feature, was halted by darkness after three laps, with Brow leading Harley factory riders Corky Keener and Boody.
In both the Race of Champions and the abbreviated Expert Final, all the riders were Harley mounted.
YAH SHOOR, VILD VEST ISDT
At least two of these gents look as though they’ve just been yanked off the rodeo circuit, but in reality all three are movers and shakers for this year’s International Six Days Trials. The dude in the center is proprietor of the High Chaparral, which will be ISDT headquarters. This may sound like the Wild West until you learn that the dude’s name is Bengt Erlandsson and that this particular High Chaparral is in Sweden.
Flanking Erlandsson are 1978 ISDT Tech Chief Ove Lundell (left) and Clerk of Course Rolf Gulich.
The High Chaparral is an enormous holiday ranch in southern Sweden, about 12 miles from the Anderstorp race course, which will probably be used for the ISDT’s final speed test. Other ISDT events will be run on the High Chaparral itself and in adjacent forest lands normally reserved for Swedish military maneuvers.
Heading for its 53rd renewal (September 4-9), the ISDT has had only two previous Swedish meetings, one in 1923 and the second in 1966.
EUROPE, BY THE NUMBERS
According to Publimotoring, a Genevabased publicity and promotion agency involved in FIM racing, a record 2,762,200 fans turned out for 63 world championship events last year.
Road racing Grands Prix for 500, 350, 250, 125 and 50cc motorcycles and sidecar rigs drew 1,130,000, up 8.1 percent over 1976. The largest turnout was 200.000 at Brno, for the Grand Prix of Czechoslovakia, with the Dutch TT at Assen pulling 140,000. The average over 13 Grands Prix was 86,923.
Formula 750. in which Steve Baker became America’s first international road racing champion, drew 731,200 fans over 15 dates, down 19.6 percent from the 1976 total of 910.000.
Motocross was the most attractive form of off-road competition, pulling a total of 322,000 for 500cc events and 306,000 to 250cc races. The figures represent an average of 24,769 for 500cc dates, 23,538 for the 250 machines.
Endurance racing continued to grow in popularity, drawing 273,000 fans for nine dates, averaging 42,500 per race for the half-dozen championship events.
THE CONVALESCENT WARD
Suzuki’s battered world 125cc MX team looks as if it will be mended in time for the resumption of hostilities this spring. World champion Gaston Rahier, who suffered a ruptured kidney in a horrendous fall last fall, has been making steady progress and Akira Watanabe has been holding daily workouts since November at Suzuki’s Toyohashi MX track. Watanabe injured his right leg while leading the Belgian 125 MX Grand Prix, third date on the 1977 calendar.
BAKER OUT OF FORMULA 750
Proving once again it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game, Steve Baker, America’s first world road racing champion, won’t be back in Europe to defend the Formula 750 title he won last year. Baker’s factory deal has evaporated, apparently because of internal friction on the Yamaha F/750 and 500cc teams. Baker is looking at the possibility of a ride with Yamaha of Canada, concentrating primarily on North American races.
