Loudon 1967
LOUDON 1967
Nixon, Cunha And Twigg Win A Strange Weekend Of Racing
JOHN WAASER
THIS YEAR'S 100-MILE AMA national championship road race must surely be the dampest hundred-miler in recent record. The weather for the weekend was a series of contradictions. Saturday dawned sunny, hot and humid; too hot, in fact, for comfortable road racing. Later in the day the clouds came, bringing a downpour so intense that the combined amateur-expert 250cc 75-mile event had to be blackflagged because the checkers could not identify the riders as they drove by. Sunday was dreary and dismal all day long, to the point where riders and tuners were asking that the 100-mile event be postponed until Monday.
In the third year of running this event at the Bryar Motorsport Park location in Loudon, there was every indication that records would fall left and right. Indeed, this was the case until the rains came, and even the expert 100-mile event speed, run all the way on a wet track, with occasional drizzle falling, was only three mph down from last year's record.
The Bryar location itself has expanded considerably since last we saw it, with ad ditional bleachers erected for spectator convenience, a stock car oval and eightmile drag strip built within and utilizing parts of, the road course. A lot of work in filling in the marshy area within the track has been done, and the start of new construction can be seen, which will allow modification of the course. The main road course will continue to be the 1.6-mile course now used, with about 90 percent of the course visible from the bleachers.
On the first lap of the 60-mile 250cc Novice event, Ronald Muir of Carbondale, Illinois, came through in the lead with an unlisted rider sporting number 98 runfling neck and neck. A short way back in third was little Leon Cromer, of Spring field, Mass., on a Ducati. (Leon had fin ished an unheralded third in the Daytona novice race, pushing his Diana Mk III right up there with the hottest two stroke twins.) Within a lap or two Leon was pressing Muir's Suzuki. By the fifth lap, Leon had taken over the lead and was never headed throughout the race. An amazing showing on this privately main tained, awfully close to production-stock Italian single. Leon has cleaned up the ex haust port, and utilized a production Day tona cam and matched megaphone exhaust. A fairing and racing seat complete the modifications, and suitable racing tires ensure traction. Other than that, the ma chine is tuned and maintained by Leon himself. Second place in this event went to Elvis Nicholson, of Dexter, Mich., on a Yamaha, who finished third in this event after running a strong battle with the Boston Yamaha crew last year. Third this year was Larry Koup, Oberlin Steelton, Pa., on a Bultaco 250cc TSS production racer - a good showing for the Spanish two-stroke.
Following a brief intermission, the 75mile combined amateur-expert 250cc race was held, with Suzuki proving invincibly that they were the fastest machines on the track. First to take the lead was Dick Hammer, with Ron Grant close behind, and immediately they started pulling a "Jimmy Clark." They must have had a half a lap on the rest of the field, totally demoralizing the opposition, when Dick dropped out on lap five. Ron Grant then assumed the lead and lasted until the seventh lan.
Meanwhile, Canadian points champion Yvon Duhamel, having given up the scram bles game this year, was giving the road racing boys fits. The only rider able to hold Yvon's Yamaha in his sights was sim ilarly mounted Don Twigg, of Hagerstown, Md., who shadowed Yvon for most of the race. Back just a short way was Cal Ray born, struggling valiantly to keep the Harley-Davidson name in the spotlight. Greatly determined to sweep Cal back yet another place was Ralph White, who de served to win the whole thing on aesthetic value alone, riding very smoothly on one of those beautiful new Kawasaki road rac ers. These four riders seemed to maintain their relative places throughout the race, with none able to gain on the others; still all the excitement and drama of a pass and-repass situation was going on out there.
Finally, Twigg got by Duhamel, and Yvon's pit crew prayed for rain, as the Canadian rider is used to riding in the rain and was prepared to take advantage of it. The skies opened up and let down a deluge no mortal man could survive. Yet, still they circulated, a bit slower now, unable to see. Ralph White poked out the shield on his Bell Star helmet, and discovered that made things worse: the rain hurt now. Yvon Duhamel repassed Don Twigg. The checkers complained that they could not see well enough to identify the riders, and the race was black-flagged, with Duhamel in the No. 1 slot. Ralph White did not even see the black flag, but stopped on the next lap on the back straight because of poor visibility. Because of an AMA technicality stating that results will go back one lap when the race is black-flagged, Yvon lost the victory for which he'd fought so hard.
An attempt was made to revive the old trade show which had been held at the Belknap Park location, but this year only a few small brand names were represented, in an open but covered area. The show was hurt by the lack of publicity, and by the fact that the parking lot was cleared out immediately by Bryar personnel, so that the only time available to see the machines was during the races.
The crowd was certainly no problem for the aforementioned reasons, and one could leisurely walk among the different machines and accessories, inspecting, testing, and looking. Several accessory distributors had displays, including Auranda For Sports (AFS Distributors) of Pennsylvania and Northeast Motorcycle Parts of Watertown, Mass., the New England distributors for Beck. An unnamed display, with nobody in attendance, housed BSA 500 and Kawasaki 250cc roadracers.
In an effort to curb the "Hell's Angels" type activity which was the downfall (so they say) of the old Belknap area location, Keith Bryar held drag races Saturday night on the wet strip. It apparently was also an effort to make yet more money, as the admission was a steep $2 a head. After more rain fell, riders who wished to change their minds were offered their money back. Most stayed, while the spectators were not offered their choice.
Most interesting machine entered was Reed Hubbard's "Abnormi-T," which consisted of a Ford Model "T" body with a motorcycle front end and conventional automobile rear end. It normally goes down the track for 1/4-mile on its rear wheels and a set of casters mounted behind the body. However, it could not come to grips with this wet track, and so most of us were disappointed. Most impressive machine there, in fact, was a Bultaco 200cc all-out drag bike, consisting of a Sherpa frame and TSS engine, built by Jeff King, who hails from Schenectady, New York, and works for Tri-City Cycle, though he is not sponsored. On one occasion Jeff beat a TD-IB and a couple of 650cc street bikes all the way to the end of the eigth mile. That's right, folks, they were running them off four and five abreast. Later, the event was reorganized, and events were properly run off, but shortly after this the festivities ended. Everybody walked solemnly out to their cars and took off. Not worth the two bucks, that's for sure.
Meanwhile, Route 106 was a hotbed of activity, at one point closed to traffic by the hoodlum types staging drags. Police patrolled the area constantly, and the National Guard were camped just a short way down the road, but they did not put in appearance. The usual clowns were out riding with their feet on the saddle, and one hand on the bars (the throttle hand naturally) and we saw close shaves, though apparently nothing more than just close shaves took place. Fireworks were quite popular, particularly among the Canadian riders, who had easy access to them back home. The police impounded a few machines, and removed Nazi insignias, chrome Nazi style helmets, etc., which they just threw away. They also reached into cars, breaking bottles of beer, etc.
One may question their legal right to perform such activities, but equally deplore the conditions which made them feel it was necessary. At any rate, from many reports, police in Laconia and Weirs Beach in particular were doing as much bad-acting as the bike riders. The local press, and, of course, radio station WBZ in Boston, Mass., played up the riot scene. While listening to this station, one heard gory stories of a death from overdose of drugs which befell a Connecticut man following a party given for some of the Connecticut motorcycle riders. They did mention (bless their little souls) that no drugs were found in the room.
On the whole, the crowd was probably as quiet as ever, but spread out over a much wider area than at the old Belknap area due to the lack of trackside camping facilities and off-the-road riding areas. The area never did fully drift off to sleep, though most riders managed to sneak in a few winks.
Sunday morning a walk through the pits revealed interesting sights and sounds, plus some interesting machines. Ralph White was riding Leonard Andres' "Super Hog." Somehow the frame came out a bit on the high side. Cal Rayborn was expected to ride it, but did not like the handling at all. Ralph admitted on questioning that "it could stand some brakes," and also it was bobbing up and down something fierce around the curves. Leonard expected that softening the shocks would help, but apparently they never got it right.
One rider had the available-only-inItaly Ducati roadracing 350 there, with special frame and all, and he rode it in the race, too. How it got by the tech committee at all is anybody's guess. Not making it past the tech committee was a set of home-fabricated disc brakes, a very professional looking job of it, too, by Richard LaPorte, of Newbury, N. H.
Amateur heats on Sunday got underway at noon. They were followed by the expert heats. In the first expert heat Dick Hammer and Fred Nix had it out for a couple of laps till Fred slowed, and it was Hammer all the way. In the second heat, Ralph White was coping with a machine that was bouncing all over the track as he held second place down. Way out in front was Gary Nixon, while battling for third were Bart Markel, who is really becoming a good racer these days, and Mert Lawwill. Markel finally won a solid third, and chased hard after White, but was unable to catch him.
In the Amateur final, the New England contingent was delighted to see George Cunha of Johnston, R. I., in first spot, (Continued on page 91) ahead of such greats as Walt Fulton, Ed Varnes, and many others. Missing from the lineup was last year's second place finisher, Torella Tacchi of Chicago, this year mounted on a business-like looking Norton Twin, who dropped out on the first lap of his heat.
After a couple of laps it resolved into a battle between Cunha and Walt Fulton, with Fulton taking the lead, shadowed all the way by young Cunha. Don Cutler, amateur tuner with a couple of old bikes to spare, and Cunha have made quite a partnership on the New England circuit all out to prepare a winner as good as any for several years, and this year Don went factory machine. Not a person in the crowd was sitting down, so intense was the battle between these two riders. Such stylish riders as Jim Anzalone, Frank Camillieri, John Potter and others went completely unnoticed as these two battled their way in the front of the pack. Walt's Harley was bouncing around almost as much as White's machine, and no doubt was quite a handful on the wet track. John Potter, his G-50 Matchless running in the top five, dropped out on lap 27, ending a beautiful ride till then. Meanwhile, Fulton and Cunha continued pulling away from the pack, with Fulton not able to lose Cunha.
Finally, very near the end of the race, Walt lost it. He says he got on the slippery paint strip by the side of the track. As soon as it stopped, Walt had it back up and re-entered the fray, easily finishing second. When George Cunha saw Walt go down he knew then that if he could only stay on he would win the race. Third went to Ron Widman, of St. Louis, on a Harley, while Jim Anzalone, a truly beautiful rider, copped fourth, aboard a Triumph.
In the Expert final another contest developed immediately, this one involving Dick Hammer and Gary Nixon, the two heat winners. Ralph White and the newly framed H-D were just never in contention and dropped out on the 27th lap. Bart Markel did even less well, dropping out on the 13th lap. Riders such as Don Twigg, Jim Varnes, Yvon Duhamel, Cal Rayborn and Dick Mann all were way back in the pack. Rayborn smashed a standard-framed Harely in practice, so switched to a shorter and lower framed job (along standard lines) for the race, but he had thrown his shoulder out while putting on his leathers, and the longer reach of the experimental job did not suit him. Varnes was mounted on a Matchless G-50. Mann was riding a Gold Star.
Meanwhile, up front, Nixon forged ahead of Hammer, but could not gain on the flying Californian. Their bikes must have been evenly matched on power, and certainly had more than some of the others. At one point Nixon flew by his Triumph teammate Buddy Elmore as though Elmore was going backwards. Mann and Rayborn appeared to be as much down on power as Elmore. Midway through the race Hammer got caught up in traffic and lost his touch with Nixon, who built up a sizable lead. Then later on, Hammer got his drive back. According to one source who held a watch on them, Hammer was gaining a second per
lap on the leader, but from trackside it looked as though Hammer had made up about half a lap in just two laps running, it was that impressive. Hammer looked like a winner for sure if he could keep it up, but just six laps from the end, as Nixon was within grasp, Dick set up to pass Fred Nix who drifted wide for a curve. Hammer dived hard for the inside, and lost it. Nixon ran away with the win, while Chris Draayer finished second, his H-D splitting the two Triumphs. Hammer remounted and finished third, content to run the remainder of the race in company with Dick Mann, at a much slower pace.
Mann came by on the cool-down lap pushing Larry Palmgren with his toe. Nixon stopped to talk to Markel out on the track and then took off with a huge grin and an even bigger wheelie down the track. (This after 100 miles of flat out racing under the most trying conditions, says a lot for both Nixon and his Triumph.) Then Reiman pushed Markel home, and Nixon, coming by on the parade lap, with the victory flag, was flying low, almost wiped the three of them out in one blow. At this point few spectators were in the mood for clowning around, yet these guys were out there as if the whole day hadn't even started yet.
In the victory circle, Hammer asserted that at no time had he been near the ragged edge while moving up on Nixon, thus saying even more for the tire engineers. Some improvement ought to drift down into our road tires within a few years, and indeed, much has over the past few years. Another area where we saw interesting innovations at Loudon was in brakes. The Harley's had a neat new unit by Ceriani, BSA had their now-famous single disc in the rear with a massive unit up front. Several riders sported disc setups up front, which were highly praised.
Racing improves the breed; there's no doubt about that. And we saw a whole weekend full of some of the finest racing ever witnessed in the United States, here at Loudon. We're all for it. ■
