Continental Report
CONTINENTAL REPORT
ABERG DEFENDS CHAMPIONSHIP
B.R. NICHOLLS
Reigning world champion in the 500-cc class of motocross is Sweden’s Bengt Aberg, who started the defense of his title in fine style with wins in the first two rounds of this year’s championship. But then came an injury, and in the four rounds held since his last win his best position was a 3rd in Finland.
Such bad luck has not meant any skin off Husqvarna’s nose, for the title is led by four of their riders. The small, lean and wiry whiz kid Arne Kring, well known to Statesiders, is out front following three wins in a row in Holland, France and Finland.
The Finnish meeting was held on a hard, fast circuit where the Swede cashed in on the misfortune of others. In the first leg, ex-champion Paul Friedrichs demonstrated the speed of his CZ by taking the lead and holding it for almost half an hour, until his rear wheel collapsed. This gave Kring the lead, followed by Ake Jonsson (Maico). In the second leg, Aberg split these two. Even if he had caught Kring it would not have affected the result: a win for Kring, 2nd to Jonsson and 3rd to the champion Aberg. Belgium’s title hope, Jef Teuwissen (Husqvarna) broke a chain early in the first race and did not appear in the overall results, though he raced in the second leg and finished 5th.
In Sweden, everyone expected a spectacular battle between table leaders Kring and Aberg, for the challenger had a 14-point lead over the champion who hoped to regain lost ground in front of the home crowd.
A surprise was in store. Another Swedish rider, Chris Hammargren (Husqvarna), hurtled to the front in convincing style. Until that meeting his best efforts this year were a couple of 4th places.
Then it seemed that luck would desert Hammargren as his rear suspension gave trouble and first Kring, then Aberg, went by. These two then fought a tremendous battle until they touched after a big jump and both crashed, resulting in Aberg’s immediate retirement with a broken brake lever. Kring dropped out a few laps later when his handlebars snapped. So the race went to Hammargren. Teuwissen was 2nd and Friedrichs, 3rd.
The second race was dominated by another Swede, Jan Johansson (Husqvarna), who led from start to finish. Hammargren arrived 4th after a crash. Aberg had turned out in the second race as did Kring. Aberg was in 2nd place, which meant that 3rd-place man Friedrichs would finish 2nd overall behind Hammargren.
But then Aberg crashed for the second time. This left the result in doubt, as the East German and Hammargren would be equal and time would have to decide the result.
Husqvarna officials then urged Kring to greater effort and he caught and passed Friedrichs, ensuring victory for Hammargren and Husqvarna. Teuwissen finished 4th and so stole 2nd place in the title table by one point from Aberg.
Table (in points) for the 500-cc title at the half-way stage, with 6 rounds held and 6 to go:
BANKS IN HOSPITAL
Sad news for four-stroke lovers is that John Banks, the works BSA rider, is out of this year’s championship hunt. His knee injury is more serious than was thought at first and he is hospitalized. Doctors have advised a four-month layoff to completely heal the torn ligaments in his knee. This will not only keep him out of this year’s championship, but will also give him little chance of riding into 3rd place or higher in the British title, which is the passport to entry into next year’s world title meetings. His injured teammate, Dave Nicoll, has started to ride again after his broken ankle, as has Ajay rider Andy Roberton, who cracked a bone in his wrist. Neither has shown good form yet.
The 250 class continues to be dominated by Suzuki in their first full year of contesting the title. Joel Robert and Sylvain Geboers are having a real catand-mouse battle at the top of the table. After the first four meetings only one point separated these two. Then they went to Italy for the fifth round, where Robert won the first race and Geboers the second, with overall victory going to Robert. Two riders challenged the Suzuki might but ended the day with no championship points.
The first was Roger DeCoster who powered his CZ to a brilliant 2nd place in the first race to split the Suzuki duo, then retired in the second leg. For Torleif Hansen (Husqvarna) things happened the other way around. Having wrecked his suspension in the first race, he finished 3rd in the second, behind Geboers and Robert.
Miroslav Halm was third man home in Italy. In this 22-year-old Czech, CZ has found a rider with a great future. With his Italian win, Robert took over the title lead by two points. The contestants went the following week to Russia and a meeting which resulted in the sort of chaos that motocross organizers dread: between the two races there was a thunderstorm which made lap scoring a nightmare. Scoring was further complicated by the new system which has to find the first 10 places overall. After the meeting only the first six places were given, and even these were hotly disputed, though nobody seemed to deny Sylvain Geboers his overall victory. Robert had crashed early in the race and failed to score, so once again Geboers took over the title lead with 70 points to 57.
ROAD RACING
The big short circuit road race of the month was the international meeting at Brands Hatch, sponsored by the London Evening News paper. The “international” rating was a hollow one, as it failed to gain such an entry. Nevertheless, the racing was very close, though the first race for 125s saw Barry Sheene (Bultaco) unchallenged for his victory. Phil Read (Yamaha) took the 250 race despite a challenge from similarly mounted Paul Smart, who leans so far off the bike when cornering it seems he must fall off. But he doesn’t, and he is fast becoming a top favorite with the crowd. What is more important, he’s becoming a very difficult man to beat. In the 350 race he was involved in a great three-cornered scrap with Read and John Cooper, all on Yamahas. Smart was leading the race when Read tried to pass him at the notorious Paddock Bend, but the front slid away causing him to crash. He was sidelined for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, what at first were thought to be not too serious injuries to his arms later proved quite a problem when they turned septic. He was forced to withdraw fromthe Isle of Man TT races, where he was top favorite for the 250 and 350 classes.
Just when it seemed that Smart had the 350 race in his pocket, his gear box packed up. Cooper was left the winner, despite a late challenge from Rex Butcher, riding a Yamaha which the factory presented to Bill Ivy’s mother as a tribute to her late son.
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Smart did have a change of luck when he raced a Seeley to victory in the 500 class. However, in the big race of the day for machines up to lOOOcc, Smart was again out of luck, and it was Cooper on the 350 Yamaha who kept ahead of Martyn Ashwood (700 Metisse).
In a poor sidecar entry, Pip Harris (BMW) took the 500 class. Chris Vincent (654 BSA) blew them all off in the lOOOcc race.
NORTH WEST 200
Two days previously in Northern Ireland the North West 200 was held. Being the first race at the meeting for production machines, it was almost like old times, because the event was used as a testing ground for the TT.
Main contestants for the production events were 500-mile Production race winner Peter Williams on the 745 Commando, last year’s production TT winner, Malcolm Uphill, riding the same 650 Triumph, and factory tester Percy Tait with a Trident. The race was a hard fought one and went to Uphill, with Tait 2nd, just ahead of Williams. Uphill put in the fastest lap at 107.87 mph. This magnificent effort compared favorably with the lap record established in the 500-cc race by local hero Brian Steenson (Seeley) at 108.73. But a broken chain put an end to his chance of winning the race, and 1st place went to Peter Williams (Arter Matchless). John Cooper (Seeley) came in 2nd and Billie Nelson (Hannah Paton), 3rd.
But i't can hardly be said that the big bikes stole the show. Another local hero, Ralph Bryans, recently with the Honda works team, turned out on the eight-year-old Honda Four in the 250 race. He’d borrowed the machine from ex-teammate Luigi Taveri and stormed to a start-to-finish victory that had the crowd drooling over the fabulous noise. Then, having won at an average speed over the ton, he promptly announced his retirement from racing.
In the 350 race it was yet another local that set the crowd buzzing. He was Tom Herron, mounted on a Yamaha, and after an early dice with similarly mounted Tommy Robb, he went on to win after Robb retired with engine trouble. Then, the weekend before TT practice started, there was a British championship meeting at Oulton Park to replace the one cancelled at the beginning of the season when the course had disappeared under four inches of snow.
Barry Sheene (125 Bultaco) and Chris Vincent (645 BSA sidecar) had easy victories, while Stan Woods (Yamaha) had little trouble in plowing through the field after a bad start to win the 250 race.
In a 350 race completely dominated by Yamahas Cooper beat Tony Rutter, and Rex Butcher moved into third spot when Cliff Carr ran out of petrol.
Cooper went on to take 2nd place in the 500 race on a Seeley behind Peter Williams (Arter Matchless). Title leader Alan Barnett (Seeley) took 3rd after suffering gearbox trouble.
All roads then led to the Isle of Man for the TT races. The big surprise there was a winged unit specially built by one-time contributor to CW, ex-racer Colin Lyster. As can be seen from the accompanying photo, it has a mini-wing on each side of the fairing and a large aerofoil above and to the rear of the seat, similar to those employed by the four wheel brigade. The angle of this is controlled by the rider moving backward and forward in the seat. On fast sections it is feathered to reduce wind resistance. It follows that the feathered position is with the rider right back in the seat; when he sits up to brake, he moves forward. With the face of the aerofoil head-on to the wind, pressure is exerted to keep the rear wheel hard against the road. This . must assist braking. Much thought has obviously gone into the concept, and it cannot just be dismissed as a crazy idea. Exhaustive tests will need to be carried out, running the machine both with and without the device to evaluate its worth. It will also have to be tried under race conditions to find its practical value. “Anything that will keep the rear wheel on the ground at the TT can’t be wrong,” said one rider, concerned over the bumps that seem to get worse each year. (ÖJ
