Cycle World Race Watch
CYCLE WORLD RACE WATCH
KEN VREEKE
Roberts wins his last at Laguna Seca
It was a glorious end to the most celebrated career in the history of motorcycle roadracing. A record crowd of 82,000 showed up to witness the brilliance of King Kenny Roberts one last time. And, as always, The King was cool, confident, friendly, determined and captivating. He also kicked ass.
Riding a borrowed Yamaha 500cc V-4 GP bike, Roberts became the fastest man ever to lap Laguna’s hilly, 1.9-mile course on a motorcycle, breaking his own lap record with a 1 minute, 6.95-second lap for an average speed of 102.163 mph. The expected battle between Roberts and Freddie Spencer vaporized when Spencer crashed during qualifying and fractured his collarbone.
With Spencer out, it was left to Randy Mamola on a factory Honda NS500 triple and Mike Baldwin on a modified production version of Honda’s RS500 triple to give Roberts a fight. But despite their best efforts, Roberts ran away with both legs of the Champion Spark Plug 200.
Mamola briefly led the second leg after Baldwin collided with Roberts in the corkscrew. The impact bent one of Roberts’ silencers outward far enough to drag the ground and lever the rear wheel off the blacktop in left-handers. After figuring out what was happening, Roberts gave the silencer a flurry of kicks on the fast back-straight, then caught and ripped past Mamola and Baldwin for the lead he would never relinquish. It was the kind of classic Roberts drive that reduced his Yamaha to a slipping, sliding, violently shaking projectile—the kind of drive that makes us mere mortals wish Roberts were 20 years old again so he could thrill us for another 10 years.
It’s hard to imagine roadracing without Roberts.
He has been brave, warm, witty, clever, mischievous, honest and noble. He has been the consummate professional, providing us with enough onand off-track brilliance to last a lifetime. He left America a cowboy, a twotime Grand National Champion with 26 victories to his credit to do battle in Europe for the 500cc crown. He came home five years later with 22 Grand Prix victories, three World Championship titles and the respect and admiration of all who watched him—and all who had the opportunity to be whipped by him. He became the standard by which all others are measured.
But the racing world has not seen the last of Kenny Roberts. In a post-race press conference, he announced that he was moving on to automobile racing. Said Roberts, “In motorcycle racing, if you make a mistake you’ll be pickin’ hay out of your ass. In a car, you don’t have the feeling you’re going to die if you make a mistake.”
Knowing Roberts, he won’t make many mistakes. He’ll adapt and go like hell, and perhaps in a couple of years a bunch of guys who race around on four wheels will also come to know him as The King.
USA 2, Visitors 0
As if America’s trouncing of the Europeans for the past three years in the Trophee and Motocross des Nations competition weren’t enough, U.S. riders now have the 250cc and 500cc United States Grand Prix trophies.
Broc Glover was the first American to draw blood. The Team Yamaha rider won the 500cc USGP at Carlsbad, California, with fourthand first-place finishes in the two 45-minute motos.
European riders were never in contention for the victory, unlike last year wheri Swede Hakan Carlqvist won by seconds over Glover. However, several U.S. riders besides Glover could have won. David Bailey was the fastest rider on the track during most of the first moto—too fast for his rear wheel, which broke and caused a dnf.
Bailey’s Honda teammate, Johnny O’Mara, went on to win the first moto, but his second moto started with a first-turn crash. He got going again in next-to-last place and slashed through the pack to finish fifth, third place overall. Rick Johnson, like Glover, riding a productionbased YZ490, also had a chance at the winner’s trophy, but crashes and a fading shock resulted in a 3-2 finishing order and second place overall.
The first European across the finish line was former world champ Andre Malherbe in fourth overall.
The results list was even more red, white and blue at the 250cc USGP held in Unadilla, New York. There, the first six places were occupied by American riders. Honda’s Ron Lechien spearheaded the attack, becoming, at age 17, the youngest rider ever to win a 250cc MX Grand Prix.
Lechien had to fend off teammate Bob Hannah and Suzuki rider Mark Barnett in both motos around the hilly, rock-strewn course, but Han nah's weakness from a recent broken wrist and Barnett's brake problems translated to a 2-1 finishing tally for Lechien. Hannah was second, his best showing in a while, with Barnett third.
A win for Honda's 250 V-Twin
After four months of trying, Honda’s new RS250 twostroke roadracer is a winner.
Team Honda rider Sam McDonald took the V-Twinpowered bike to the victory podium at the Pocono, Pennsylvania, round of the U.S. Formula Two championship series, even though he was handicapped by a last-row starting position.
The bike, the first factory 250 roadracer from Honda since the Grand Prix glory days of the 1960s, had shown That it has the capability to run with the 250-class yardstick—the Yamaha TZ250— by virtue of second-place finishes in two previous races. But dnfs caused by suspension and ignition problems in other races frustrated McDonald and his brother Phil, a former roadracer who now tunes for Sam.
Indeed, if the Japanese debut of the RS, three weeks before the U.S. unveiling, was any indication, the bike seemed to be plagued with handling difficulties right from the start. Five of the new Hondas were entered in the opening round of the Japanese 250cc roadracing championship at the Tsukuba circuit, but only one finished, in sixth place. The other four were littered around the track, the victims of crashes. Weight-transfer and suspension problems were credited for the bad showing.
The bike, which Honda plans to sell in limited quantities this year, is a 249cc, water-cooled, 90-degree V-Twin. Two 34mm Keihin carburetors, mounted between the cylinders, supply fuel to the engine through reed valves. The RS uses an aluminum frame, with cast swingarm-pivot housings. Claimed horsepower is between 66 and 69, depending on the engine’s state of tune.
Even with the RS’s problems sorted out, it’s unlikely that McDonald will pull the bike into championship-winning contention this year. But with the Honda’s newfound reliability and the emergence of the Rotax-powered Armstrong, 1985 just might be the year that the all-conquering Yamahas get a run for their money in U.S. racing.
Race Watch Calendar 1984
World Championship MX Series
World Championship Endurance Road Race Series
World Championship Trials
Camel Pro Series
AMA! WERA Endurance Road Rac
InSport/ Wrangler Supercross
AMA/DRAGBIKE Drags
IDBA Drags
NMRA Drags
AMA Superbikes
AMA Hare Scrambles
Other Major Events
